dependent upon the generosity of that network of WSPU members and sympa-
thisers who answered Una’s appeal for help with hospitality, the loan of motor
cars, and the advertisement and arrangement of meetings.^95 ‘Mrs Mansell
Moullin is having me the first week end so the Bridge of Allan meeting can be
fixed up for the Monday or Tuesday & the North Berwick one to follow’,
Emmeline informed Una from Duncans Farm, Billinghurst, Sussex, where she
was staying prior to her tour. ‘I shall have Mrs Cranfield’s car for that week.’^96
When her Highland tour had ended, the Union leader then sailed in early
October to Ireland where, escorted by the Irish suffragist Gretta Cousins, she
toured all the major towns, explaining how important it was for Irish women to
support the forthcoming demonstration in support of the Conciliation Bill. The
‘most famous woman in England’, as Margaret Ward called Emmeline, was
enthusiastically received; several members of the militant Irish Women’s
Franchise League offered to undertake what they described as ‘danger service’
on the next deputation to parliament.^97
Back in England, Emmeline could not resist the temptation to join the by-
election campaigning in South Shields and Walthamstow, but encouraging
volunteers for the demonstration planned originally for 22 November was her
main preoccupation now. ‘Our power as women is invincible, if we are united
and determined. ... I know that you will not willingly stand aside at this time.
Will you write and tell me whether you can join the deputation?’, she pleaded
in late October in a general letter sent to the WSPU membership.^98 Evelyn
Sharp, a WSPU Organiser for Kensington North, hastily explained that she was
unable to participate, to which an understanding Emmeline replied:
Don’t worry! After all it would never do for our best speakers to get
shut up for they will be needed to keep up popular indignation while
the rest of us are in prison. Names are coming in well.
Do what you can between now & the Albert Hall meeting to get
people to go there & to persuade women who cannot do your work to
volunteer for prison.^99At the big Albert Hall meeting held on 10 November 1910 in support of the
Conciliation Bill, at which £9,000 was raised, Emmeline spoke alongside
Christabel, Emmeline Pethick Lawrence and Israel Zangwill, the novelist and
staunch supporter of the women’s cause. That Emmeline should be on a plat-
form with a male speaker was not unusual at this stage of the militant campaign;
she occasionally shared a platform with Henry Nevinson who, the day before,
had noted in his diary that Brailsford had complained to him that he ‘had
trouble with the Pankhursts; accuses them of having no means but threats and
flattery: says they are wrecking all his diplomacy, and refuses to go on the plat-
form. Almost incredible, but both sides are difficult.’^100 Brailsford would not
have been happy with Emmeline’s address to the enthusiastic audience at the
Albert Hall when, after calling for an end to the veto on the Conciliation Bill,
PERSONAL SORROW AND FORTITUDE