to engage in high profile political work. Emmeline was in a dilemma. She knew
that if she could hold onto the post for a couple of years, she would be eligible
for a pension; on the other hand, she also believed, as she told Helen Fraser, ‘If I
go on, we can get the vote in that time.’^20 The shop in King’s Street brought no
financial security since it was running at a loss and was soon to be closed. Harry
was still at school, in Hampstead, while Christabel and Sylvia were not yet in
employment. Adela, now an elementary schoolteacher, was the only other
family member earning a living; although Emmeline had considered
schoolteaching ‘rather a come down’, she had come to accept the situation.^21
Her old friend, Noémie, wrote a sharp rebuke, telling Emmeline to give up poli-
tics and to concentrate her efforts upon placing her daughters in the professions.
But the idealistic and determined Emmeline could not do that. She saw her
quest for the vote as ‘the fulfilment of her destiny, ready to die for it as the
tigress for her young’.^22
When Campbell-Bannerman met the leaders of the suffrage societies on 19
May, he reassured them of his sympathy with their cause but could only preach
‘the virtue of patience’, explaining that he could do nothing because of the
opposition of some of his Cabinet.^23 A meeting of protest was held in Trafalgar
Square at which the speakers included not only Emmeline and Keir Hardie but
also Eva Gore-Booth, Annie Kenney (dressed as a mill worker, in her shawl and
clogs), Dora Montefiore, Selina Cooper, Emmeline and Frederick Pethick
Lawrence and Teresa Billington. This was the first large open-air women’s
suffrage gathering ever to take place in London, although the audience of 7,000
was predominantly male.^24 Now that it was clear that the Liberal government
was resolved not to bring in a women’s suffrage bill, there was nothing for
WSPU women to do, declared Emmeline, but ‘to continue our policy of waking
up the country, not only by public speeches and demonstrations, but by a
constant heckling of Cabinet Ministers’.^25 A particular target was Herbert
Asquith, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, known to be the most vehement
anti-suffragist of all the Liberal ministers. In mid June 1906, Emmeline and
some of her followers, preceded him to Northampton where he was due to speak
on forthcoming government education bills. The president of the local
Women’s Liberal Association indignantly reassured Emmeline that the violence
towards suffragettes that had occurred in other towns would not happen in
Northampton where women had done so much for the Liberal Party. Emmeline
slipped into the hall where Asquith was speaking and sat down in the front row
which had been set aside for wives and women friends of the Liberal leaders.
She sat in silence, hearing men interrupt the speaker and get answers to their
question. At the close of Asquith’s speech, she stood up and said she would like
to ask a question. She reminded Asquith that he had spoken about the right of
parents to be consulted in the matter of their children’s education, especially in
regard to religious instruction and then said, ‘Women are parents. Does Mr.
Asquith think that women should have the right to control their children’s
education, as men do, through the vote?’ Immediately Emmeline had finished
TO LONDON