the cause rather than the individual that was important, the WSPU lost many of
its most influential supporters. As Annie Kenney sadly reflected in her memoirs,
‘The old days were over ... the fight continued, but the Movement, as a
Movement, lost. The two had gone who had been the creative geniuses of the
constructive side of a word-famed fight.’ Elizabeth Robins was of the opinion
that what the Pankhurst leaders failed to recognise, despite their shrewdness,
was that the Pethick Lawrences brought ‘steadiness’ to their ‘force and fire’.^7
From now on the WSPU was increasingly driven underground as some militants
secretly engaged in terrorist acts of violence, initially targeted at letter-boxes and
fire alarms. By early December, the government was claiming that 5,000 letters
had been damaged – by red ochre, jam, tar, permanganate of potash, or varnish
and various inflammable substances, especially phosphorous – while some 425
false fire-alarm calls had been made; some twenty-seven convictions were
secured in regard to the latter but only one for the much larger number of
attacks on post boxes.^8 Under such conditions, suffragettes had to decide
whether they supported the ‘Panks’ or the ‘Peths’, asPunchput it. Jessie Kenney
recalled that loyalties became ‘even fiercer’ while Rachel Barrett enthusiastically
commented ‘the Lawrences are just the Lawrences & this is the movement’.^9
Emmeline now became Honorary Treasurer of the WSPU, with responsi-
bility for raising finances, an enormous responsibility for her already burdened
shoulders. That she chose to take on this role, which had proved taxing to
Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, was a grave error of judgment. As leader of the
WSPU, she would have been wiser to have chosen a trusted Union member for
the post; that she chose, instead to be bothleader and Honorary Treasurer meant
that she concentrated too much power in her own hands, opening herself to
accusations about how the money was spent, a grumble that was to rumble on
for many years to come. Further, such a concentration of power meant that, at
the personal level, Emmeline exposed herself further to accusations of autocracy
while at the organisational level, she put the future of the WSPU at risk if she
became ill or, as seemed increasingly probable, was arrested and imprisoned.
While the financial accounts continued to be kept carefully and audited regu-
larly, she introduced the additional safeguard – since police raids were now a
constant fear – of keeping the books in duplicate in different, secret locations.^10
Still restless, but unshaken in her belief that the new form of militancy was the
right one to win the parliamentary vote for her own sex, she spoke at the usual
London meetings and undertook some meetings in the provinces, often
receiving a less than warm welcome. Emily Blathwayt now refused to put up
overnight the WSPU leader when she came to speak at Bath that autumn since
she was ‘going about inciting to violence’; but Emily, nevertheless, showed
support in a different way, by paying Emmeline’s hotel and taxi bills.^11 But it
was Emmeline’s work in the East End of London, rather than the provinces,
that attracted newspaper headlines at this time.
That October and November, she campaigned in the East End, speaking in
solidly working-class areas such as Limehouse, Bow and Bethnal Green, as part
HONORARY TREASURER OF THE WSPU AND AGITATOR