drawing upon her long years of experience of political agitation, decided that the
moment had come for a demonstration ‘such as no old-fashioned suffragist had
ever attempted. I called upon the women to follow me outside for a meeting of
protest against the government.’^47 Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy began to speak
but the police rushed into the crowd of women and jostled them down the steps.
The well-dressed, feminine Emmeline, with her air of authority, demanded to
know where women could meet to voice their indignation. After some argument,
the police inspector took them to Broad Sanctuary, near to the gates of
Westminster Abbey, where Keir Hardie joined them. Here the small group
demanded government intervention to save the talked-out bill while the police
took the names of offenders. This protest, which Emmeline defined as ‘the first
militant act’ of the WSPU, displayed some of the qualities that were to mark her
future leadership, in particular, the fact that she could be ‘superb in moments of
crisis’, initiating action and taking command.^48 As we see in this particular
instance, ‘militancy’ for Emmeline Pankhurst meant engaging in forms of
behaviour that challenged conventional expectations about women being
submissive and accepting of their subordinate status, and especially about
middle-class women being genteel and ladylike.^49 Christabel put it in a nutshell
when she defined militancy as ‘the putting off of the slavespirit’.^50
That summer of 1905, Emmeline, Christabel and the small band of WSPU
women departed again from the ‘old’ way of campaigning for women’s suffrage
in that they organised a number of outdoor meetings in Lancashire and
Yorkshire. Some of these were held on Sunday evenings in Tib Street,
Manchester, in association with the Manchester Central Branch of the ILP,
and often included a brass band or choir, while others were organised by the
Union itself. In mid June, Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy told Harriet
McIlquham how the NUWSS was ‘objecting’ to these open-air gatherings
which, she insisted, would not be given up ‘to please their high
respectability’.^51 In addition to now attracting money from sympathisers, the
WSPU had a valuable new recruit in Annie Kenney, a young working-class
factory operative from Oldham who had been converted to the cause that
spring, when she heard Christabel speak. Annie’s mother had died early in
1905 and the kind and hospitable Emmeline often invited the slightly built
young woman with the thin elfin face, large luminous eyes and powerful voice
to her home; that factory machinery had torn off one finger from one of
Annie’s ‘restless, knotted hands’ was a frequent reminder to Emmeline of the
hazards that working-class women faced in the workplace.^52 Keen to become
an effective WSPU speaker, Annie suggested that the Union members should
follow the annual fairs or wakes, held during the summer in Lancashire
villages, since there they would find a ready-made audience. The young
women visited such places as Royton, Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley, Lees and
Oldham, speaking alongside travelling showmen and the sellers of quack
medicine; often they relied upon the local ILP to form a ‘sort of bodyguard’,
to keep rowdy elements in order so that they had a fair hearing.^53 Emmeline,
FOUNDATION AND EARLY YEARS OF THE WSPU