speaking, she was violently ejected from the meeting, an action that so shocked
the president of the local Women’s Liberal Association that she resigned her
office and joined the WSPU.^26 A little later, when Asquith was speaking in
Aberdeen, Emmeline was implored to hold her militants back, on the pledge
that Asquith would give an answer on women’s enfranchisement to a question
put to him quietly by the president of the local Women’s Liberal Association
there, Mrs. Black. When Mrs. Black rose to speak, however, she was howled
down and declared out of order by the Chair of the meeting. When Emmeline
rose to protest, she was once again roughly thrown out of the meeting.^27
Later that month, Emmeline sat in Marylebone Police Court when Annie
Kenney, Adelaide Knight and Jane Sparboro were charged with conduct likely
to create a breach of the peace before the residence of Mr. Asquith in
Cavendish Square, namely attempting to ring his doorbell! After the case was
adjourned, she led a procession of several hundred suffragettes to Hyde Park
where she moved a resolution calling upon the government to insert in the
proposed Plural Voting Bill a clause conferring the franchise on women. She
had barely begun to launch her attack on Asquith when Dora Montefiore was
arrested; despite a police warning, she had continued to distribute handbills,
contrary to the regulations governing Hyde Park.^28 Such arrests for infringing
the law and for heckling were now common. Indeed, Emmeline felt particular
concern for Adela, a frail child, who was serving a one-week imprisonment in
Manchester after being charged with ‘disturbance, assault and endeavouring to
rescue a prisoner’ when heckling a meeting addressed by Churchill and Lloyd
George in Belle Vue Gardens. Elaborate arrangements had been taken to keep
the suffragettes out, and Adela, who was known in the area, had avoided detec-
tion by dressing in her mother’s best broad-brimmed hat and silk coat.^29
Emmeline was already back in Manchester the day Adela was released and made
sure that she was the first person to greet the heroine who was welcomed by a
crowd outside Strangeways Prison. She listened in horror as Adela recounted
stories about how she had slept on a plank bed under a dirty blanket, used dirty
lavatories, eaten stale bread and coarse porridge, and sewed mail bags.^30
Such tales of the hardships endured by women, fighting for their citizenship,
fired Emmeline’s enthusiasm. She demanded the immediate enfranchisement of
women and the release of all WSPU prisoners from Holloway Jail, London, at a
number of meetings held in the Manchester area over the next month,
including the evening demonstrations held in Stevenson Square to welcome
the released prisoners. A meeting of 15,000 people in Boggart Hole Clough on
Sunday, 15 July, at which both Emmeline and Keir Hardie spoke, was inter-
rupted by rowdy youths; in the confusion, Emmeline Pethwick Lawrence and
Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy were hustled and Adela nearly trampled under
foot. Realising the dangers, Emmeline did her utmost to preserve order.
Undeterred by the break-up of the main meeting she then succeeded in holding
a smaller meeting close by where she addressed some 1,500 people and in the
evening, a further gathering of 1,000. At another great rally of 20,000 people
TO LONDON