Emmeline Pankhurst is carried bodily from
a demonstration outside Buckingham Palace in 1914suffragettes, some of whom were barbari-
cally beaten up by the police. Suffragette
bombs, stone-throwing, arson and assaults
on cabinet ministers became almost
daily occurrences.
To counter the sex war, Mrs Fawcett
decided in 1913 to stage a peaceful march,
and this often neglected demonstration
forms the core of Robinson’s book. The
pilgrimage was an extraordinary feat of
organisation, with 50,000 women converg-
ing on London by six different routes. Wear-
ing the hems of their skirts cut a daring four
inches above the ground to prevent them
from getting covered in mud, the women
marched for 20 miles a day, sleeping in the
horse-drawn caravans which accompanied
them. It was a gigantic, law-abiding demon-
stration, the most democratic episode in the
entire suffrage campaign, embracing women
of all classes. Such was the hostility provoked
by the suffragettes, however, that the pil-
grims found themselves pelted with stones
and mobbed by angry crowds.
With the pilgrimage, the suffragists con-
vincingly distanced themselves from thesuffragettes, but they didn’t win the vote.
Instead, the first world war intervened. Some
people argue that neither the suffragettes not
the suffragists can claim the credit for getting
the vote, which was granted to women as a
reward for their work during the war. This
theory, says Atkinson, is misleading. Women
were able to work as effectively as they did
during the war, running hospitals and soup
kitchens, labouring in factories and on the
land, because of their training in the suffrage
campaign. For many women before 1914 the
movement had been a full-time occupation,
giving them the confidence and teaching
them the skills needed for war work. ‘It wasour Eton, our Oxford, our regiment, our ship,
our cricket match,’ said one.
When war broke out the government
granted an amnesty to suffragettes in pris-
on, and soon after the movement fell apart.
The Pankhursts split — Emmeline was a
fervent patriot, handing out white feath-
ers to men who didn’t join up, while Syl-
via defected and became a pacifist. Mrs
Fawcett, by contrast, managed to keep
most of her ladies together in support of
the war effort. When the government pro-
posed to introduce a new franchise bill, she
wrote to Asquith asking for the inclusion
of women. The 1918 Representation of
the People Act granted universal suffrage
to men, but only gave the vote to proper-
tied women over 30. Ever the pragmatist,
Mrs Fawcett declared that half a loaf was
better than none.
Hearts and Minds makes it very plain
why Mrs Fawcett deserves her statue in
Parliament Square. Robinson has
researched the lives of ordinary suffragists
as well as the stars of the movement, and her
book is clear-headed, perceptive and thor-
oughly engaging. From her narrative it’s
clear also how important Mrs Pankhurst
was in bringing passion, anger and publicity
to the women’s cause. I think she deserves
a statue too.THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARYWorking-class suffragettes who
refused food in prison were
particularly abused by the authorities