I I was shocked when I read at the Women of the World festival earlier this month that Queen Camilla held up the two stones that were thrown into the windows of Buckingham Palace in May 1914. I was happy again. The stone had been thrown by two women. Each carried a message justifying their actions. One of these messages was that “when constitutional methods are ignored, we are driven to window-breaking.” Another was: “If constitutional representation is denied, we must present a message in stone.”
The stone probably broke through the glass and fell onto the carpet inside the palace. Rather than throwing them away, as we expected, King George V and Queen Mary seem to have chosen to keep at least two of his stones, perhaps as souvenirs or keepsakes. He paid tribute to the women behind the protests. It was a brave move that risked criticism from conservatives. misogynist. Camilla spoke of her suffrage ambitions to “make this world a better place for women”. I don’t recall any other royal supporting the actions of the women’s movement, especially actions as provocative, controversial, and risky as the Women’s Social and Political Union, which led the suffrage movement.
In the same month of 1914, a crowd of women’s suffragettes attempted to enter the palace to present a petition to the king demanding the vote for women. The monarch had already refused to meet the women. But they showed up anyway. They were the kind of women who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Facing 1,500 police, all armed with batons, the protest quickly turned into a riot. Sixty-six women and two men were arrested, most of whom were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two weeks to three months.
The highly organized and courageous protests of the suffragettes have inspired activists for more than 100 years. In 1981 there was a Greenham Common protest. Women then marched from Wales to Greenham Common in Berkshire wearing purple, white and green suffrage colors and carrying banners to protest the presence of American nuclear weapons on RAF bases. Some Greenham women camped at the gate until 2000 (the base was closed in 1992). They frequently chained themselves to miles of electrical wire surrounding the base as a living tribute to suffrage tactics.
Since then, women’s suffrage has been named by protesters such as Climate Rush, Extinction Rebellion, and Just Stop Oil. These modern protest tactics owe a lot to the suffrage movement, which lasted from 1903 to World War I. The suffragettes’ tactics were divisive and controversial. In a dynamic direct action campaign best described by the slogan “Deeds, not words,” women are storming Congress to take their rightful place. And they invented a modern, eye-catching visual brand for the campaign.
They marched, were arrested, and at personal risk reminded politicians and the press that they would not stop fighting until the vote was won. Hundreds of women served time at London’s Holloway Prison, many of whom went on hunger strike. Those who refused to eat were tortured by force-feeding. They were tied to a chair and forced to lie on their backs, and rubber tubes were inserted into their noses and mouths, through which a liquid substance (usually a mixture of raw eggs) was poured. The milk is then poured through a funnel into a tube and drips down the throat. The women struggled to stop the feeding. Some suffered damage to their vocal cords, while others gagged and regurgitated the food, which could easily get into the lungs and cause pneumonia for which there are no antibiotics.
One example of the hundreds of stories of suffragist courage I have found is a letter written by Dr Charles Rigby in 1914 about his wife Edith, a militant suffragette from Preston, who was on the run from the police. It was inside. He had no idea where she was. “This is a difficult business… but for me there is only one way and that is to support Edith. I know her perfect integrity and love of justice. She knows it is the only way her conscience will allow. She is willing to suffer blows, loss of friends… and starvation… She has the smile of an angel and the courage of a lion, yet can barely stand in the shadows… I don’t have the moral courage to do something like she did. I don’t think I could do that for any reason. It’s so embarrassing and I feel like it’s not worthy of her.”
We may debate the methods of women’s suffrage, but we cannot debate their effectiveness. Their campaign was a single-issue campaign that focused sharply on a single goal and recruited like-minded women. Sometimes leaders did not have time for democracy. In many cases, their tactics took a huge toll on the physical and mental health of campaigners. But we should pay homage to them, too, as modern electoral campaigns continue to draw inspiration from women’s suffrage and its loud, unladylike ways. They gave everything to their cause and made extraordinary sacrifices to give women the right to vote.
