expense too is great & just now I am obliged to spend more money than I feel I
can well afford.’ She expressed the hope that when she returned to England, she
would be able to take a short holiday with Adela. Her concern for Adela did
not abate, as she continued:
Is it necessary that Adela should be up at 6 a.m. during the holidays? If
she is paying £2.2s. per week for her board alone it seems to me she
should only work if she wishes. Dr. Hamilton must see that she is tired
& needs rest. The crossness is evidence of that. I think for the 1st week
of her holiday she should be in bed late with a book & just laze about
the grounds & country side. Surely this can be arranged.
I sent A a summer dress yesterday addressed to you. I hope it will
suit her. It may be too big & long but it can easily be altered. A hat she
must get herself in Birmingham.After speculating about Adela’s future, when she finished her agricultural course
next March, Emmeline went on to thank Helen for her kindness to the young
woman while also expressing her impatience with her youngest daughter and,
like most parents, offering excuses for her behaviour:
I cannot tell you how glad I am that you are with her at Studley. She
ought to think herself a very fortunate girl. She has a family life & a
College life in one without cares or responsibilities. How many women
at her age are overburdened with worries of a terrible kind. Why won’t
she be happy. Later on she will wonder at herself & be sorry that she is
not more appreciative of all your goodness to her. Of course at heart
she really is. The crossness is only on the surface & I am sure a little
rest will put that all right.^6Perhaps Emmeline found it somewhat ironic that as Adela was beginning to
withdraw from her WSPU work, another daughter, Sylvia, was increasingly
being brought into the WSPU fold, or so it appeared. In London, against a
background of forcible feeding of WSPU prisoners, Sylvia and Flora Drummond
had been busy organising a large demonstration to take place in Hyde Park on
this 14 July, to celebrate Emmeline’s ‘birthday’ and Bastille Day.^7 The local
London branches of the WSPU were responsible for this demonstration which
included twenty-one platforms of upwards of fifteen different societies including
the ILP, the WFL, the New Constitutional Society of Women Suffrage, the
Women’s Tax Resistance League, the Cymric Suffrage Society, the Irish League
for Women Suffrage, the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage and Men’s
Federation, the Actresses Franchise League, the Church League for Women
Suffrage, and the Women Writers Suffrage Society. Massed bands were the
centre of the meeting and at three o’clock, Ethel Smyth in her academic robes,
hatless in the blazing sun, conducted ‘The march of the women’. Keir Hardie
BREAK WITH THE PETHICK LAWRENCES