On 21 May 1914 the suffragettes marched to Buckingham Palace to petition the King. Daisy Parsons, a member of the East London Federation of Suffragettes, was there and her description of what she saw was printed in the following week’s edition of the Woman’s Dreadnought:
“Mrs Parsons entered the park by Admiralty Arch, and made her way to the Victoria Memorial. There she saw a large crowd of people, a large proportion of whom were youths hardly out of their teens, standing with their backs to the memorial, watching the palace.
There was a wide vacant space between the people and the palace, and the middle of this space was a line of police, not standing shoulder to shoulder but with a space of some yards between each one… Every now and then a woman would dart out from amongst the dense throng of spectators into the space, and the police rushed at her, caught her, and threw her back into the crowd. Then the young men in the crowd would turn on the woman and beat her and tear her clothes and drag down her hair and shout that she ought to be burnt. Then the woman would run out again towards the police only to be caught and thrown back again by the police and again beaten by the men. This would be repeated until at last she was hustled away out of sight or placed under arrest.
In one case Mrs Parsons saw one woman face this eleven times before arrest. The police never attempted to protect any of the women who were assaulted, and one young woman they lifted right up and threw over the heads of the nearest people.
At last the mounted police came up at a gallop and drove everyone away… She saw a young woman dressed in pink with a jeering crowd behind her. The young woman stopped and stood with her back against the wall. A sentry walked up to her and pushed her. She said ‘How dare you’, and he struck her in the face with his fist.”
Another ELFS member, Charlotte Drake, was there with May Billinghurst in her wheelchair, who drove directly at the police with her typical daring:
“I was beside her. They threw us back, but we returned. Two policemen picked up the tricycle with Miss Billinghurst in it, turned it over, and dropped her on the ground. The excitement gave me strength – I picked her up bodily and, and lifted her back. We straightened the machine as best we could, rested a little to take breath and struggled on again. The police would not take us – only knock us about. Then in the enormous crowd I got sent flying one way and, she another. I tried to find her. It seemed as though the earth had swallowed her…”
“Mrs Parsons entered the park by Admiralty Arch, and made her way to the Victoria Memorial. There she saw a large crowd of people, a large proportion of whom were youths hardly out of their teens, standing with their backs to the memorial, watching the palace.
There was a wide vacant space between the people and the palace, and the middle of this space was a line of police, not standing shoulder to shoulder but with a space of some yards between each one… Every now and then a woman would dart out from amongst the dense throng of spectators into the space, and the police rushed at her, caught her, and threw her back into the crowd. Then the young men in the crowd would turn on the woman and beat her and tear her clothes and drag down her hair and shout that she ought to be burnt. Then the woman would run out again towards the police only to be caught and thrown back again by the police and again beaten by the men. This would be repeated until at last she was hustled away out of sight or placed under arrest.
In one case Mrs Parsons saw one woman face this eleven times before arrest. The police never attempted to protect any of the women who were assaulted, and one young woman they lifted right up and threw over the heads of the nearest people.
At last the mounted police came up at a gallop and drove everyone away… She saw a young woman dressed in pink with a jeering crowd behind her. The young woman stopped and stood with her back against the wall. A sentry walked up to her and pushed her. She said ‘How dare you’, and he struck her in the face with his fist.”
Another ELFS member, Charlotte Drake, was there with May Billinghurst in her wheelchair, who drove directly at the police with her typical daring:
“I was beside her. They threw us back, but we returned. Two policemen picked up the tricycle with Miss Billinghurst in it, turned it over, and dropped her on the ground. The excitement gave me strength – I picked her up bodily and, and lifted her back. We straightened the machine as best we could, rested a little to take breath and struggled on again. The police would not take us – only knock us about. Then in the enormous crowd I got sent flying one way and, she another. I tried to find her. It seemed as though the earth had swallowed her…”
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