decision was announced in the Commons, five days after the great procession,
the WSPU leaders were bitterly disappointed but not entirely despondent since
he also made the ambiguous statement that ‘the Government recognises that
the House ought to have opportunities, if that is their deliberate desire, for
effectively dealing with the whole question’.^81 Emmeline clung to the last
shreds of optimism, writing to Elizabeth Robins on 6 July that there seems ‘good
hope that the Conciliation Bill will really weather the storm & get into
harbour’.^82 On 12 July, the bill passed its second reading with a majority of 109;
however, both Asquith and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, now Lloyd
George, voted against it. The Commons then voted to follow the ‘mischievous
course’, as Emmeline denounced it, of sending the bill to a committee of the
whole House which meant that it could not be brought up for its committee
stage unless given special facilities. ‘Could women be blamed if, realising that
they were tricked again, they reverted to those clumsy methods of forcing the
question that they had been compelled to adopt in the past?’^83
On 23 July, the anniversary of the 1867 Hyde Park demonstration when
working men had agitated for the vote, the WSPU organised another great
peaceful procession to that Park with meticulous care and new spectacular
themes in order to attract a large crowd for the second time that month. A
number of other suffrage groupings also participated, including the Actresses’
Franchise League, the Irish Suffragists, the Women’s Freedom League, the Men’s
Committee for Justice to Women, the New Union for Men and Women, the
Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage, the Women’s Tax Resistance League, the
Fabian Society, the New Constitutional Suffrage Society, the Men’s Political
Union for Women’s Enfranchisement, the International Women’s Franchise
Club, and a contingent of women representing New Zealand and Australia also
joined in.^84 But the NUWSS refused to join the procession since the WSPU
leaders had given no guarantee that they would refrain from a resumption of
militant tactics before the 23rd.^85 Since the number of people involved was so
large, the police suggested two processions rather than a single one. Emmeline,
wearing a long white cloak, walked side by side with the joint honorary secre-
tary, Mabel Tuke, in the West Procession which formed at Shepherd’s Bush;
immediately in front of her were the WSPU’s popular drum and fife band while
three horsewomen, Maud Joachim, the Hon. Evelina Haverfield, and Vera
Holme headed the gathering, followed by the colour bearers. When the
colourful West and East processions reached Hyde Park, Emmeline presided
over one of the forty platforms as did her three daughters, Christabel, Adela and
Sylvia, and her sister, Mary Clarke. In addition to this kinship network, the
chairs of the other WSPU platforms were women that the Union leader knew
well, including Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, Dorothy Pethick, Charlotte
Marsh, Flora Drummond, Annie Kenney, Dora Marsden, Lady Constance
Lytton, Mary Leigh, Georgina and Marie Brackenbury, and Ada Flatman.^86
It was estimated that about a quarter of a million people, all friendly, assem-
bled in the blazing sunshine that day, demonstrating to Asquith, Emmeline
PERSONAL SORROW AND FORTITUDE