Photo: Norah Smyth
In the spring of 1914, Sylvia Pankhurst wrote to Prime Minister Herbert Asquith requesting, and then demanding, that he meet with a deputation of working women from the East End to hear their case for the vote. If he did not agree to meet them she pledged to hunger strike to the point of death, and vowed that she would die on the steps of the House of Commons. Of course Asquith – a vocal opponent of women’s suffrage - refused.
On 10 June thousands of the Federation’s members and supporters gathered in Bow for a procession to Westminster, accompanying Sylvia, who had to be carried in a chair as she was too weak to walk. The procession was attacked by the police shortly after setting off, and Sylvia was taken back to Holloway to finish her sentence under the Cat and Mouse Act.
Just over a week later Sylvia was released, so weak from her hunger strike that she couldn’t walk or even stand. She was taken to the House of Commons in a cab, from which she was lifted and carried to the steps of the House. There she waited, with her friends and supporters, and a growing crowd of onlookers. Just before the police began to try and drag her away, word came that Asquith had given in, and agreed to meet with six of the east London suffragettes.
On the morning of Saturday 20 June 1914 a deputation of six East End women arrived at 10 Downing Street to meet with Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. The deputation was led by Mrs Julia Scurr, with Mrs Payne, Mrs Bird, Mrs Ford, Mrs ‘Hughes’ (whose real name was Mrs Savoy) and Mrs Parsons.
Mrs Scurr began the meeting by delivering a speech which Sylvia had helped to write, listing some of the most pressing problems facing working women, and calling for the opportunity to help solve them by participation in law-making:
“Parliament is constantly dealing also with questions affecting the education and care of our children, with the houses in which we live, and more and more with every item of our daily lives. We feel… that it is both unwise and unjust to legislate without the help of women… We would further point out that whilst women are taxed on exactly the same basis as men; and like men are obliged to obey the same laws, they are allowed no voice in these questions.
We women of East London are much concerned in regard to social conditions in our district. There is very great poverty around us and the rents are terribly high. There is much unemployment amongst the men and a very large proportion of the women are the principal breadwinners, although they are both the childbearers and the keepers of the home. We want to say to you that, in our view, a woman attending to her home is as much a wage earner as if she went out into a factory, and that because women bring children into the world they perform the greatest of all services to the State, and they have the greatest of all reasons to desire to help in securing its welfare.”
'Mrs Hughes’ spoke first after Mrs Scurr’s introduction. Her speech to the Prime Minister was brief, but conveyed the hardship she had known her whole life:
“I am a brush maker, and I work from eight in the morning till six at night making brushes ten hours a day, and while I work I have to cut my hands with wire, as the bristles are very soft to get in. I have brought brushes to show to you. This is a brush I have to make for 2d, and it is worth 10s 6d.
(Mrs Hughes then walked to the table and laid a brush and a bundle of bristles on it. The Prime Minister and the officials who were present started nervously as though they feared that the brush might be a bomb.)…
As I have to work so hard to support myself I think it is very wrong that I cannot have a voice in the making of the laws that I have to uphold… I do not like having to work 14 hours a day without having a voice on it, and I think when a woman works 14 hours a day she has a right to a vote, as her husband has… We want votes for women.”
Her speech was echoed by Mrs Ford, who explained that she had started work in a jam factory at 11 years old: “I do think, as we have to work under those conditions, we should be the ones who should be able to bring forward reforms, and help to voice them and show what is really wanted in the reform of sweated labour.“
Mrs Ford also attacked the sexual double standard, using a tragic story of a young friend of hers as an illustration of the impossible situation faced by unmarried mothers:
“She had to go to the Workhouse to have a baby. When she came out she had no mother and no home to go to. I took her with me, and she shared my bed and my room, where there was five of us. Money was very short, and sooner than take the food, as she felt she was doing, out of my children’s mouths… she went away, and I did not see her until three days afterwards when she was drawn out of the river Lea with her child.”
Next spoke Mrs Daisy Parsons:
“I went to work in a factory in Aldgate and there I was a cigarette packer. We used to pack a thousand cigarettes for 3d and in the morning when we were quite fresh we could pack 2000 cigarettes, but as we got tired after dinner we could only pack a thousand and a half. There you see that the wages some days that we earned were less than a shilling a day.”
She explained that men were allowed time for lunch and had a place away from the factory line where they could eat, but the women and girls had neither. “We know that if the men were working under these conditions, through their trade unions, and through their votes they would say they would not tolerate that sort of thing.”
Mrs Payne spoke last, and told the Prime Minister about her daughter who had a learning disability:
"Once when my girl was taken bad she went into the Poplar Workhouse, because I thought I was compelled to let her go. When I got there the next morning they had placed her in a padded room, and I asked the doctor why she was there. He told me I had no voice, I was not to ask why or wherefore, only the father had the right… If my girl had not had a good father to look after her, the same as her mother, I could not have got her out of the workhouse…
I think we ought to have a voice in the different laws for women, because when you make laws, such as this Mental Deficiency Bill, it is all very well to make them; but unless you have had dealings with the mentally deficient people you do not know what they really need.
We come from the East End and we have the voice of the people, they want us to ask you to give the vote for every woman over 21.”
Listening to the women’s speeches, Asquith appeared to be genuinely shocked by the appalling living and working conditions they endured. He delivered an uncharacteristically sympathetic response, which was hailed as a turning point by the press:
“I will take all these things into careful consideration… On one point I am glad to say I am in complete agreement with you… if you are going to give the franchise to women, you must give it to them upon the same terms that you do to men. That is, make it a democratic measure… If the change has to come, we must face it boldly and make it thorough going and democratic in its basis.”
When the first women were finally awarded the vote four years later he was no longer Prime Minister, and the franchise was restricted to women over 30 with some property, excluding most of the working women of east London.
On 10 June thousands of the Federation’s members and supporters gathered in Bow for a procession to Westminster, accompanying Sylvia, who had to be carried in a chair as she was too weak to walk. The procession was attacked by the police shortly after setting off, and Sylvia was taken back to Holloway to finish her sentence under the Cat and Mouse Act.
Just over a week later Sylvia was released, so weak from her hunger strike that she couldn’t walk or even stand. She was taken to the House of Commons in a cab, from which she was lifted and carried to the steps of the House. There she waited, with her friends and supporters, and a growing crowd of onlookers. Just before the police began to try and drag her away, word came that Asquith had given in, and agreed to meet with six of the east London suffragettes.
On the morning of Saturday 20 June 1914 a deputation of six East End women arrived at 10 Downing Street to meet with Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. The deputation was led by Mrs Julia Scurr, with Mrs Payne, Mrs Bird, Mrs Ford, Mrs ‘Hughes’ (whose real name was Mrs Savoy) and Mrs Parsons.
Mrs Scurr began the meeting by delivering a speech which Sylvia had helped to write, listing some of the most pressing problems facing working women, and calling for the opportunity to help solve them by participation in law-making:
“Parliament is constantly dealing also with questions affecting the education and care of our children, with the houses in which we live, and more and more with every item of our daily lives. We feel… that it is both unwise and unjust to legislate without the help of women… We would further point out that whilst women are taxed on exactly the same basis as men; and like men are obliged to obey the same laws, they are allowed no voice in these questions.
We women of East London are much concerned in regard to social conditions in our district. There is very great poverty around us and the rents are terribly high. There is much unemployment amongst the men and a very large proportion of the women are the principal breadwinners, although they are both the childbearers and the keepers of the home. We want to say to you that, in our view, a woman attending to her home is as much a wage earner as if she went out into a factory, and that because women bring children into the world they perform the greatest of all services to the State, and they have the greatest of all reasons to desire to help in securing its welfare.”
'Mrs Hughes’ spoke first after Mrs Scurr’s introduction. Her speech to the Prime Minister was brief, but conveyed the hardship she had known her whole life:
“I am a brush maker, and I work from eight in the morning till six at night making brushes ten hours a day, and while I work I have to cut my hands with wire, as the bristles are very soft to get in. I have brought brushes to show to you. This is a brush I have to make for 2d, and it is worth 10s 6d.
(Mrs Hughes then walked to the table and laid a brush and a bundle of bristles on it. The Prime Minister and the officials who were present started nervously as though they feared that the brush might be a bomb.)…
As I have to work so hard to support myself I think it is very wrong that I cannot have a voice in the making of the laws that I have to uphold… I do not like having to work 14 hours a day without having a voice on it, and I think when a woman works 14 hours a day she has a right to a vote, as her husband has… We want votes for women.”
Her speech was echoed by Mrs Ford, who explained that she had started work in a jam factory at 11 years old: “I do think, as we have to work under those conditions, we should be the ones who should be able to bring forward reforms, and help to voice them and show what is really wanted in the reform of sweated labour.“
Mrs Ford also attacked the sexual double standard, using a tragic story of a young friend of hers as an illustration of the impossible situation faced by unmarried mothers:
“She had to go to the Workhouse to have a baby. When she came out she had no mother and no home to go to. I took her with me, and she shared my bed and my room, where there was five of us. Money was very short, and sooner than take the food, as she felt she was doing, out of my children’s mouths… she went away, and I did not see her until three days afterwards when she was drawn out of the river Lea with her child.”
Next spoke Mrs Daisy Parsons:
“I went to work in a factory in Aldgate and there I was a cigarette packer. We used to pack a thousand cigarettes for 3d and in the morning when we were quite fresh we could pack 2000 cigarettes, but as we got tired after dinner we could only pack a thousand and a half. There you see that the wages some days that we earned were less than a shilling a day.”
She explained that men were allowed time for lunch and had a place away from the factory line where they could eat, but the women and girls had neither. “We know that if the men were working under these conditions, through their trade unions, and through their votes they would say they would not tolerate that sort of thing.”
Mrs Payne spoke last, and told the Prime Minister about her daughter who had a learning disability:
"Once when my girl was taken bad she went into the Poplar Workhouse, because I thought I was compelled to let her go. When I got there the next morning they had placed her in a padded room, and I asked the doctor why she was there. He told me I had no voice, I was not to ask why or wherefore, only the father had the right… If my girl had not had a good father to look after her, the same as her mother, I could not have got her out of the workhouse…
I think we ought to have a voice in the different laws for women, because when you make laws, such as this Mental Deficiency Bill, it is all very well to make them; but unless you have had dealings with the mentally deficient people you do not know what they really need.
We come from the East End and we have the voice of the people, they want us to ask you to give the vote for every woman over 21.”
Listening to the women’s speeches, Asquith appeared to be genuinely shocked by the appalling living and working conditions they endured. He delivered an uncharacteristically sympathetic response, which was hailed as a turning point by the press:
“I will take all these things into careful consideration… On one point I am glad to say I am in complete agreement with you… if you are going to give the franchise to women, you must give it to them upon the same terms that you do to men. That is, make it a democratic measure… If the change has to come, we must face it boldly and make it thorough going and democratic in its basis.”
When the first women were finally awarded the vote four years later he was no longer Prime Minister, and the franchise was restricted to women over 30 with some property, excluding most of the working women of east London.
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