private grief to the wider claims of the women’s movement, ‘always a distin-
guishing mark of her character’, came to the fore again.^57 She caught the train
from London to Manchester where over 5,000 people were waiting, including a
strong force of Liberals who wanted to interrupt the meetings. Una Dugdale
recollected that Emmeline’s speech was electrifying. The audience was amazed
that she had travelled to speak to them; those who came to create a disturbance
were silenced by the pathos of her words. ‘Surely every mother here knows that
I would rather be quiet to-night, by my own fireside with my sad thoughts, and
it is only a sense of my great responsibility and duty in this campaign that has
urged me to appear.’^58
With a heavy heart, Emmeline now threw herself into the by-election work
that was part of the general election campaigning. To what extent the heavy
losses sustained by the Liberals in the January 1910 general election were due to
WSPU policy is debatable, but they were returned with no overall majority in
the Commons polling only 275 seats while the Conservatives held 273, the
Irish Nationalists 82 and Labour 40.^59 Realising that the new political situation
might be useful to the women’s cause, Henry Brailsford set about forming a
Conciliation Committee for Women’s Suffrage which eventually consisted of
fifty-four MPs across the political spectrum. Although initially doubtful about
this new venture, the WSPU leaders offered their support, Christabel
explaining that the Conciliation Committee might avert the need for ‘stronger
militancy’ since mild militancy was more or less ‘played out’.^60 On 31 January,
Emmeline declared that there would be a truce on militancy, only peaceful and
constitutional methods being used.
Undoubtedly the increasing severity of the treatment being meted out to
imprisoned suffragettes, widely publicised in the press, put additional responsi-
bilities on Emmeline’s shoulders and contributed to the making of such a
decision. Just before Christmas, Selina Martin, a working-class prisoner, had
been forcibly fed in Walton Gaol, Liverpool, despite the fact that it was
contrary to the law for remand prisoners to be treated in this way. She had been
kept in chains at night and roughly frog-marched up the stairs to a cell, her
head bumping on each step.^61 Then, on 11 January, Lady Constance Lytton, in
the guise of a working-class seamtress, ‘Jane Warton’, had been arrested in a
protest outside Walton Gaol. Constance had felt ashamed that she had received
preferential treatment when on hunger strike in October 1909; rather than
being forcibly fed, she had been released after only two days. Determined to test
whether the prison authorities would recognise her need for exceptional favours
without her aristocratic name, she had assumed a new persona. In prison, ‘Jane
Warton’ went on hunger strike and was forcibly fed eight times before her true
identity was discovered. Her release on 23 January, and subsequent newspaper
accounts about the brutality of her treatment, created a storm of protest.^62
Such matters had weighed heavily on Emmeline as she discussed with
Christabel and Emmeline Pethick Lawrence whether or not the WSPU should
call a truce. By trying to focus her thoughts on the women’s cause, Emmeline
PERSONAL SORROW AND FORTITUDE