(1) Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence wrote about her childhood in her book My Part in a Changing World.

My mother bore thirteen children, of whom five died in infancy. My youngest brother was born seventeen years after me. Those were the days of large families. I never heard my mother make any complaint about this excessive childbearing. She accepted it with complete surrender and even with satisfaction.

As children we were all taken to Church as soon as we could walk and we had to sit very still indeed, because if not, we would be slapped afterwards. When we were older we had to remember and repeat the text at dinner-time, and if we failed to do this we were set to learn pieces of Scripture by heart

 

(2) Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, My Part in a Changing World (1938)

My father is still part of me still. He imparted to me so much of his own nature that as long as his blood is still flowing in my veins, I feel he is still alive. He was a born rebel… The closest bond between my father and me was his passionate love of justice, which I inherited from him. So long as there existed within the realm of his personal knowledge any wronged individual my father could not rest inactive. My mother thought he went too far; and perhaps he did… He was often in the bad books of people in authority who believed in the status quo, and wanted peace at any price.

When the morning newspaper brought the unexpected news of my first arrest in the Suffrage Movement, my father reacted to it in precisely the same way as I should have reacted had our positions been reversed. He was proud that a child of his hand not hesitated to make a stand for the extension of democratic liberty. Later that morning he was met by one of his colleagues on the Bench with expressions of sympathy. "Sympathy, my dear fellow," he replied, "I don't need sympathy. Give me your congratulations! I'm the proudest man in England!'

 

(3) Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence wrote about her education in her book My Part in a Changing World.

The idea of the higher education had not, when I was young, reached as far as our small seaside town. I never knew of any girl in Weston-Super-Mare who aspired to go to College or University… It was my mother's wish that I should be sent, when fifteen years of age, for a year or two to what in those days was called a "Finishing School". She thought that my manners and my deportment needed polishing up, as no doubt they did.

 

(4) In 1891 Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence began work as a social worker in a working-class area of London.

Drunkenness was extremely common… It seemed for many the only refuge from depression and misery. The effect of drunkenness upon the ordinary relationship of husband and wife, parents and children, was disastrous. There was a woman whose husband used to knock her about badly when in drink. But he went to the Mission Hall in the district, was converted and signed the pledge. All went well for some time until she again turned up with several bruises. "Oh, Mrs. Smith, has your husband taken to drink again?" She replied: "Oh, no, that was another lady what done that! Since my husband went to the Misson Hall, he ain't like a husband at all - he is more like a friend!"

There was a particular point of view with regard to wife-beating. A friend of mine was once walking along the street and she passed a woman with a black eye. At the same time two other women passed, and one of them remarked: "Well, all I can say is, she is a lucky woman to have a husband to take that trouble with her." Another woman who had gone through a similar experience remarked: "Well, it ain't pleasant to be knocked about, but the making-up is lovely."

 

(5) In his book, Fate Has Been Kind, Frederick Pethick-Lawrence explained the role he played in the WSPU.

That autumn (1906) saw, the beginning of the Monday afternoon 'At Homes', which went on continuously year in year out during the militant campaign. They were intended principally for women, but men were not excluded. Strategy was explained, militant demonstrations were announced, a collection was taken and members were enrolled. I generally came and sold literature - books, pamphlets and, later, the Votes for Women newspaper. When the attendance grew too big to be accounted in the office in Clement's Inn the venue was changed to the Portman Rooms in Baker Street, and later to the Queen's Hall.

At the end of October 1906 events occured which brought me into far closer association with the movement. My wife was arrested. She had gone, with other members of the Women's Social and Political Union to the House of Commons on the day that Parliament opened; and in accordance with a preconcerted plan she had jumped up on to one of the seats in the Central Lobby and started to address the M.P.s and others who were present. Pulled down and bundled out into the street, along with a number of other women who had made a similar protest, she had tried to re-enter the House and had been taken into custody.

I went with her to the Court next morning, and she surrendered to her bail, together with nine other women, including Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, daughter of Richard Cobden. The magistrate bound them all over to enter into their own recognizances to keep the peace for six months. This they unanimously refused to do. In default, they were committed to prison for two months. They were accordingly packed off the Holloway.

I determined at once that during my wife's absence her side of the work should not suffer. I agreed to look after the finances, and at a public meeting that very afternoon I made an appeal for funds. By way of setting the ball rolling I promised to contribute £10 for every day of her imprisonment.

 

(6) In her book My Part in a Changing World, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence described how the police were sometimes violent towards the women suffragists.

Police had been drafted in from the East End of London. They knew nothing about the suffrage agitation and were accustomed to dealing with drunks and roughs. Also large and well-nourished bullies had been imported into the district. They may have been police in plain clothes. An order had evidently been given that the police were not to arrest; the alternative was a six-hours' battle between unarmed women who attempted to stand their ground, and police who fought with methods of torture. Women were lifted and thrown to the ground and kicked - they were deliberately beaten on the breasts and were subjected to such terrible violence that a short time afterwards two of them, Mrs. Mary Clarke and Miss Henria Williams, died suddenly from heart attacks. Fifty women were laid up with the injuries they had received… Dr. Jessie Murray collected evidence regarding the methods of violence used… This evidence was classified under: (1) Unnecessary violence. (2) Methods of torture, i.e. bending thumbs backwards, twisting arms, pinching, gripping the throat and forcing back the head with violence, forcing fingers up nostrils, and so on. (3) Acts of indecency.

 

(7) In her book My Part in a Changing World, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence argued that groups of young men often tried to disrupt suffrage meetings.

It was mainly from young men, and often entirely from students, that opposition came… We had one meeting in the Town Hall in Birmingham. University students came en masse in order to prevent the audience from hearing the speakers. They kept up a stampede for over an hour, stamping, yelling and singing. Christabel stood on the platform apparently amused at their antics, and every now and then addressed the youths as if they were children, while she turned her main attention to the reporters, who thronged the press table, and was able to get her whole speech over to them. A box of mice was emptied on the table beside her. She took them gently into her hand and let them run up and down her bare arms and spoke to the thoughtless boys of the cruelty of frightening small and helpless creatures for the sake of fun.

 

(8) On 14th October 1908, Constance Lytton met Mrs. Pethick Lawrence in London. That night Constance wrote a letter to her mother.

I went to the Suffragette Office to see Mrs. Lawrence and to congratulate her on the meeting of the day before, inquire the latest news, and finally say: "You know my reservations as to some of your methods, but my sympathies are much more with you than with any of your opponents… I want to be of use if I can. Is there anything I can possibly do to help you?" A good deal of talk ensued. She said, "Yes," I could help them. Could I see to it that Herbert Gladstone was asked to treat the Suffragettes as political offenders, which they are, and not as common criminals, which they are not?

 

(9) In her book Unshackled, Christabel Pankhurst described the situation in March 1912.

Eighty-one women were still in prison, some for terms of six months… Mother and Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence went on hunger-strike. The Government retaliated by forcible feeding. This was actually carried out in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence. The doctors and wardresses came to Mother's cell armed with forcible-feeding apparatus. Forewarned by the cries of Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence… Mother received them with all her majestic indignation. They fell back and left her. Neither then nor at any time in her log and dreadful conflict with the government was she forcibly fed.

 

(10) In her book, Unshackled, Christabel Pankhust explained the reasons why Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence left the WSPU.

On the return from Canada of Mr. and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence there was a consultation in France. The outcome of this and a further meeting was the serious announcement that they and we had parted company owing to a difference of opinion as to the policy of the WSPU. This separation on a matter of policy was a cause of deep regret to all concerned.

 

(11) In her book My Part in a Changing World, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence described how she was expelled from the WSPU.

Christabel Pankhurst was in Paris… as soon as Emmeline could travel she joined her in Paris. They asked us (Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence) to come to Boulogne to confer with them. Mrs. Pankhurst met us with the announcement that she and Christabel had determined upon a new kind of campaign. Henceforward she said there was to be a widespread attack upon public and private property… This project came as a shock to us both. We considered it sheer madness to throw away the immense publicity and propaganda value of our present policy… They were wrong in supposing that a more revolutionary form of militancy, which attacks directed more and more on the property of individuals, would strengthen the movement and bring it to more speedy victory.

Emmeline Pankhurst agreed with Christabel… Excitement, drama and danger were the conditions in which her temperament found full scope. She had the qualities of a leader on the battlefield… The idea of a 'civil war' which Mrs. Pankhurst outlined in Boulogne and declared a few months later was repellent to me.

When we arrived back in London we were met by a friend. Instead of the smiles that we expected, sadness was written upon her face… "Is anything the matter? What is it?" I demanded. "They are going to turn you out of the Women's Social and Political Union."

My husband and I were not prepared to accept this decision as final. We felt that Christabel, who had lived for so many years with us in closest intimacy, could not be party to it. But when we met again to go further into the question… Christabel made it quite clear that she had no further use for us.

 

(12) On 18th October 1912 the WSPU issued a statement.

Mrs. Pankhurst and Miss Christabel Pankhurst outlined a new militant policy which Mr. and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence found themselves altogether unable to approve. Mrs. Pankhurst and Miss Christabel… recommended that Mr. and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence should… leave the Women's Social and Political Union.

 

(13) In his book Fate Has Been Kind, Frederick Pethick-Lawrence explained his reaction to the expulsion

Mrs. Pankhurst invited us to her room. She then told us that she had decided to sever our connection with the WSPU. We saw, then, that the breach between ourselves and the Pankhursts was complete and irrevocable. There was, further, no appeal against our exclusion from the WSPU. Mrs. Pankhurst was the acknowledged autocrat of the Union. We had ourselves supported her in acquiring this position several years previously; we could not dispute it now.