visited in prison. The two had been close from childhood, and the thought that
Mary, who was unhappily married and lived apart from her husband, was now in
solitary confinement in Holloway, experiencing what she herself had recently
been through, filled Emmeline with foreboding. Remembering how, during her
last imprisonment, C. P. Scott, the powerful liberal editor of the Manchester
Guardian, had taken an interest in the plight of the women political prisoners,
Emmeline wrote to him on 7 February, seeking his help:
I visited my sister Mrs. Clarke yesterday and found that she had just
been removed to hospital.
She is very weak & depressed & I fear that although in hospital she
will have better food and more comfortable surroundings these will do
her little good because she is in absolute solitude both in her cell &
during exercise. Her companions remain in the ordinary prison.
As you are aware she has no writing materials nor does she see
newspapers.
Will you use your influence with the Home Secretary to get her
permission to exercise with her companions & to see newspapers?
I am exceedingly anxious about her & Miss Douglas Smith who is
very nervous & this is my excuse for troubling you in the matter.^6Scott duly contacted Gladstone who was not sympathetic. ‘It is the old
story’, Gladstone insisted; ‘these ladies make a great fuss about going to prison,
and as soon as they get there they wish to be relieved of its main inconve-
nience.’ He also mentioned how Mr. Clarke had written to him. ‘He seems
singularly hostile to the views of Mrs. Pankhurst (and his wife) on Women’s
Franchise! but he asked that special attention should be paid to Mrs. Clark’s
[sic] health. I had a report three days ago which was quite satisfactory.’^7 Scott
seems to have persisted in his endeavours to wring some concessions since on
12 February Emmeline wrote to him from Bristol, where she was to speak at the
Colston Hall that night, stating that what he proposed to do was excellent. She
explained that she would be unable to see him in London the following
Monday since she would be in Glasgow. ‘My daughter Christabel however will
be there ... & I am sure would much like to see you if you can make an appoint-
ment to meet her either at your office or ours. Mr Asquith as you know is still
obdurate so the fight goes on.’^8 The crowded Colston Hall meeting, which
Annie Kenney chaired, was another great success for Emmeline. After the
tremendous greeting of welcome had quietened, she began in humorous fashion,
saying that she would have visited Bristol some time ago, but had fallen ‘into
the hands of the officers of His Majesty’s Government, and her visit was
delayed’. Laughter and applause rang around the hall as she held her audience
in the palm of her hand.^9
Soon Emmeline was back on the by-election trail, campaigning vigorously in
Scotland where she was joined, for some of the time, by a number of other
‘A NEW AND MORE HEROIC PLANE’