From Scotland, Emmeline then campaigned in Lancashire and the Midlands,
with the occasional flying visit to London to speak at the Monday afternoon At
Homes in the Queen’s Hall. She also pleaded in Votes for Womenfor WSPU
members to show how much they valued the work of the imprisoned Emmeline
Pethick Lawrence by contributing towards the cost of buying what ‘our devoted
Treasurer’ had always wanted for Union work – a motor car decorated with the
Union’s colours.^17 In private, Emmeline had confided to Scott that although
she feared for Emmeline Pethick Lawrence’s health, since she was not strong,
they did not wish to get Mrs. Lawrence released ‘on the ground of illness. She
would very much object to this being done.’ Instead, Emmeline had asked Scott
if he could help in any way to get the sentence reduced from two months to
one, in parity with that served on Charlotte Despard, leader of the WFL.^18
Emmeline also warned the government that the WSPU could not remain quiet
in the face of their refusal to deal with women’s suffrage this parliamentary
session. ‘Militant action is again forced upon us, and so strong is the indignation
of our women that, in addition to our London members, others are coming from
Lancashire ... to join yet another deputation.’^19 After the eighth Women’s
Parliament, held on 30 March, the deputation, led by the elderly Georgiana
Soloman, widow of the Governor General of South Africa, with Dora Marsden,
a graduate of Manchester University as the standard bearer, sallied forth to the
Commons. Twelve arrests were made, including one man, a journalist, who
objected to the way the women were being treated. At Bow Street Police Court
the next day, Patricia Woodlock, who already had three previous convictions,
was sentenced to three months in the Second Division and the rest to one
month.^20 ‘The time was rapidly approaching’, noted Emmeline, ‘when the
legality of these arrests would have to be tested.’^21 She therefore planned for a
yet more spectacular Women’s Parliament to be held on 29 June, when the
WSPU would insist on the ancient right of petition. But private matters
impinged on Emmeline’s public life again when, to her acute distress, her son,
Harry, was unexpectedly taken ill.
Harry, who was back at Joseph Fels’ farm in Essex, had suddenly developed
serious inflammation of the bladder and was brought to the nursing home of
two members of the WSPU, Nursing Sisters Gertrude Townend and Catherine
Pine, at 3 Pembridge Gardens. Emmeline was deeply shocked when she was told
that Harry needed an examination, under chloroform, fearing that it was ‘the
precursor of a fatal result’.^22 Her fears subsided, however, when her son came
round safely from the anaesthetic and some of the symptoms of his illness
appeared to recede. In a more optimistic, but nevertheless cautious, mood she
wrote to Dr. Mills asking if it would be possible to alter Harry’s next appoint-
ment with him from Saturday, 3 April to Monday, the 5th:
Mr Pethick Lawrence has very kindly invited Christabel, Harry &
myself to go with him to Margate for the weekend and on my telling
him the position of affairs he suggested that I should write & ask you if‘A NEW AND MORE HEROIC PLANE’