Emmeline, Flora Drummond, Mary Clarke (Emmeline’s sister), Lucy Roe
(Sylvia’s landlady), Nellie Martel, Mary Neal (a life-long friend and colleague
of Emmeline Pethick Lawrence), and Irene Fenwick Miller, whose mother had
been a member with Emmeline on the Executive Committee of the Women’s
Franchise League. Within a week of her appointment, the Honorary Treasurer
had put the Central Committee on a sound financial and business-like basis;
Alfred Sayers, a chartered accountant and old friend, was appointed auditor of
the accounts, a stipulation that Emmeline Pethick Lawrence insisted on, before
she took up office.^10 By March, Sylvia and Emmeline Pethick Lawrence had
only their names on a new WSPU manifesto which claimed that, ‘The New
Movement for the political enfranchisement of women, initiated by the
Women’s Social and Political Union, is a people’s movement, and is not
confined to any section of the community.’^11
Back home in Manchester, Emmeline continued the WSPU campaign there
and had to content herself with reading about the exploits of the militants in
London. On 2 March 1906, a small group of women seated themselves on the
doorstep of 10 Downing Street when the Prime Minister, Campbell-
Bannerman, refused to receive a deputation. One week later, about thirty
women went to the same address, requesting an audience, but after waiting
about an hour, they were asked to leave. Irene Fenwick Miller then knocked on
the door which Flora Drummond managed to open, rushing inside. Both
women were promptly arrested. Annie Kenney jumped onto the Prime
Minister’s car, and began to speak to the crowd, and then she too was arrested.
At the police station, the three women were released on the orders of
Campbell-Bannerman who promised to receive a deputation of all the women’s
societies on 19 May. When Annie returned to 62 Nelson Street after these
events, Emmeline found her run-down and overstrained and so persuaded
William Stead to lend the young woman his cottage in Hayling Island where
she rested for a week.^12 Emmeline travelled back down to London for the
dinner organised by the Labour Party and held in the House of Commons, on 4
April, to celebrate its formation.^13 Two days later, in a long letter to the Labour
Leader, she reaffirmed that members of the separate WSPU were committed to
the socialist movement but stressed that the enfranchisement of women was the
key issue which had to take precedence:
To secure votes for women is our first object, but all our members take
part in the general work of the Socialist movement. ... We do not wish
women to relax their efforts for Socialism, for we realise that Socialism
is even more necessary for women than it is for men.
What we do maintain is, that the immediate enfranchisement of
women must take precedence for us of all other questions. We must,
equally with men, vote for the makers of the Co-operative
Commonwealth. We also must choose our law-makers. ... It is only by
the joint efforts of men and women working together on equal termsTO LONDON