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Section 21: Conflict in the WSPU

(21.1) In 1907 Teresa Billington-Greig, Charlotte Despard and Elizabeth How-Martin made attempts to make the Women’s Political and Social Union more democratic. When Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst responded by cancelling the proposed meeting to discuss the constitution, about seventy women left the WSPU and formed the Women’s Freedom League. Teresa Billington Greig described her feelings about this conflict in her book The Militant Suffrage Movement.

In September, about a month before the date arranged for the gathering, Mrs Pankhurst, ignoring the Honorary Secretary, called a Committee meeting, declared the Conference annulled, the Constitution cancelled, and the rights of the members abolished, and proclaimed herself as sole dictator of the movement. She appointed herself secretary, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence treasurer, and Miss Christabel Pankhurst organising secretary. She chose for herself a committee consisting of paid organisers and two or three women who were willing to lend their names to this purpose.

The clumsy declaration of autocracy broke the spell of many who would willingly have voted away their rights. Those who stuck to the Constitution formed the Women’s Freedom League… This reversion to autocracy, this denial of suffrage in their own society to women seeking suffrage in the State, brought to a sudden close to this stage in the progress of militancy.

I was deeply hurt by the fact that none of the Pankhursts had shown the slightest interest in my illness, not even a letter of sympathy. I felt it would be impossible to work with them again. I did not realise that in a great battle the individual does not count and stopping to pick up the wounded delays the fight… Like the wounded soldier, I lived to fight again. I was able later to spend many years in public work, which I gladly dedicate to the friends who helped through this trying time.

During my illness, there had been a split in the WSPU. The more democratic members, refusing to be ruled from the top, had formed a new organisation, which they called The Women’s Freedom League. I joined this league as soon as I was able to.

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.

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.

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.

Street lamps were broken, keyholes were stopped up with lead pellets. House numbers were painted out, cushions of railway carriages slashed, flower-beds damaged, golf-greens all over the country scraped and burnt with acid… Old ladies applied for gun licences to terrify the authorities. Telegraph and telephone wires were severed with long-handled clippers; fuse boxes were blown up, communications between London and Glasgow being cut off for some hours. There was a window-smashing raid in the West End, the Carlton, the Reform Club and others were attacked. Boat houses and sports pavilions and a grandstand at Ayr racecourse were burnt down. Works of art and objects of exceptional value were destroyed. Empty houses and other unattended buildings were set on fire. Bombs were placed near the Bank of England, at Oxted Station, and on the steps of a Dublin insurance office.

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