That June of 1915 was an especially significant and busy month for
Emmeline as she spoke at a number of WSPU ‘At Homes’ as well as rallies
attracting large crowds, as at Plymouth where she addressed a reported ten thou-
sand people.^44 The government, she believed, was still too slow to enlist the
skills of millions of capable women who were ready to serve their country. She
again demanded universal war service for women and appropriate training, so
that women could enter jobs traditionally held by men, especially in munitions
factories. She regarded the latter as particularly important since Lloyd George,
recently appointed Minister of Munitions, had introduced the Munitions Bill in
parliament and issued a call only to men to enrol for such work.^45 An article by
Christabel on this theme which appeared in The Observeron 27 June 1915
attracted the eye of the King whose secretary wrote the following day to Lloyd
George, ‘His Majesty feels strongly that we ought to do more to enlist women-
workers. ... The King was wondering whether it would be possible or advisable
for you to make use of Mrs. Pankhurst.’^46 Lloyd George asked Sir James Murray,
MP, a friend of his and of the WSPU, to act as an emissary. When Emmeline
received the invitation, asking her to meet Lloyd George, she was astounded;
this was the man who was partly responsible for bringing her near to death’s
door and for the still poor state of her health, and now he was asking for her
help. It was hard for her to give an acceptance, although she did. Accompanied
by Annie Kenney, Emmeline heard about the grave situation at the war front
where men were being sacrificed for want of munitions while the munitions
factories were short of labour, due to strong industrial and trade union opposi-
tion to the employment of women. Lloyd George asked Emmeline if she would
help by organising a great procession of women to demonstrate both their readi-
ness and their wish to engage in war work, especially munitions work.^47 £3,000
would be provided to cover costs. Always a practical politician, Emmeline felt
she could do business with the man that she had once so distrusted. ‘I pointed
out that no demonstration of the sort is needed to rouse women’, she explained
to Nancy Astor. ‘They are ready to respond without it but he wishes us to do it
for the effect it will have on “public opinion” meaning of course men.’^48
As Tickner comments, it was convenient for Lloyd George to exploit the
Pankhursts’ organisational skills and their claim to speak for women while it
also suited the WSPU to carve out a place for itself in the limelight, deliber-
ately courting the support of those ‘not actively concerned with the question of
“women’s rights” in ordinary circumstances’; the ‘right to serve’ march, she
continues, might almostbe described as the first suffrage procession since the
NUWSS pilgrimage of 1913.^49 The significance of Emmeline’s stand on
women’s war work was not lost on the anti-suffragists. Mrs. Humphry Ward
confessed to Lord Cromer, another arch anti, that Mrs. Pankhurst and
Christabel ‘have been extra-ordinarily clever! – and I knowthat the line they
have taken in actively supporting the war, and trouncing Mrs. Fawcett’s paci-
fists, have won over a number of people’. She believed that it would not be so
easy to fight the WSPU, after the war was over, since all their militancy could
WAR WORK AND A SECOND FAMILY