King’s Speech, condemning the way women’s suffrage had been ignored. His
desire to include women’s enfranchisement as a Labour measure was not
supported by his colleagues who decided that the five places they drew for
private members’ bills should be devoted to issues that were foremost in the
Party programme, such as the feeding of necessitous schoolchildren, old age
pensions and the right of the unemployed to work. When there was some doubt
about which measure should take up one of the places, Emmeline demanded
that it be reserved for votes for women; instead, the Labour MPs decided for a
checkweighing bill, designed to protect the wages of workmen. The insult was
hard to bear. Emmeline felt betrayed. Was it for this that she had joined the
ILP? Was it for this that she and her husband had suffered boycott? Discussions
she now had with her old friend Keir Hardie, at his rooms at 14 Nevill’s Court,
were painful. Surely he could persuade his colleagues to sponsor a women’s bill?
Hardie’s promise that if he won place for a bill or resolution he would devote it
to a women’s suffrage measure cut no ice; it must be the Labour Party that spon-
sored women’s enfranchisement. The success of the Labour Party with the bills
that it did sponsor that first session of parliament ‘only embittered’ Emmeline’s
disappointment.^6
Later that month of February 1906, Hardie, who had raised £300 to help the
WSPU get started in London, gave to Emmeline a letter of introduction to
Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, a wealthy, radical social worker who lived in a
large apartment in Clement’s Inn, close to his own rooms. Hardie had a high
regard for Emmeline Pethick Lawrence’s executive capabilities and thought she
could be a useful colleague to develop the WSPU in the metropolis. After her
first visit to Mrs. Lawrence’s flat, Emmeline returned to Sylvia disappointed.
‘She will not help’, she said, ‘she has so many interests.’^7 However, a luncheon
invitation soon afterwards was more productive, especially when Annie Kenney
joined the small group after they had eaten their meal. ‘There was something
about Annie that touched my heart’, remembered Emmeline Pethick Lawrence.
‘She was very simple and she seemed to have a whole-hearted faith in the good-
ness of everybody that she met.’^8 Before her return to England in January 1906
with her husband, Frederick, a lawyer, Emmeline Pethick Lawrence had been
visiting South Africa where she had read of the furore over the arrest of
Christabel and Annie in Manchester. Now, when Annie told the story in her
own words, she no longer held back and agreed to become Honorary Treasurer
of the WSPU. She welcomed the new militant approach since she believed that
the NUWSS had made the suffrage movement like ‘a beetle on its back that
cannot turn itself over and get on its legs to pursue its path’.^9 Emmeline Pethick
Lawrence brought necessary administrative skills to the growing organisation, as
well as considerable wealth and social contacts. In addition to her skills at fund
raising, she helped to develop the use of spectacle in WSPU campaigns. The
Central London Committee of the WSPU was now formed with Sylvia, who
had been Acting Secretary of the smaller initial group, as Honorary Secretary,
and Annie as a paid organiser at £2 weekly. The other members included
TO LONDON