Women's Social and Political Union - Campaigning Becomes More Militant

Campaigning Becomes More Militant

In opposition to the continuing and repeated imprisonment of many of their members, the WSPU introduced the prison hunger strike to Britain, and the authorities' policy of force feeding won the suffragettes great sympathy from the public. The government later passed the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913 (more commonly known as the "Cat and Mouse Act"), which allowed the release of suffragettes who were close to death due to malnourishment. Officers, however, could re-imprison them again once they were healthy. This was an attempt to avoid force-feeding.

A new suffrage bill was introduced in 1910, but growing impatient, the WSPU launched a heightened campaign of protest in 1912 on the basis of targeting property and avoiding violence against any person. Initially this involved smashing shop windows, but ultimately escalated to burning stately homes and bombing public buildings including Westminster Abbey. It also famously led to the death of Emily Davison as she was trampled by the King's horse, Anmer, at the Epsom Derby in 1913.

Included in the many militant acts performed were the burning of churches, restaurants, and railway carriages, smashing government windows weekly, cutting telephone lines, spitting at police and politicians, partial destruction of the home of then-Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George, cutting and burning pro-suffrage slogans into stadium turf, sending letter bombs, destroying greenhouses at Kew gardens, chaining themselves to railings and blowing up houses. A doctor was attacked with a rhino whip and in one case suffragettes rushed the House of Commons. On 18 July 1912, Mary Leigh threw a hatchet at Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith. On 10 March 1914 suffragette Mary Richardson (known as one of the most militant activists, also called "Slasher" Richardson) walked into the National Gallery and attacked Diego Velázquez's Rokeby Venus with a meat cleaver. In 1913 suffragette militancy caused £54,000 worth of damage, £36,000 of which occurred in April alone.

The organisation also suffered divisions. The editors of Votes for Women, Frederick and Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, were expelled in 1912, causing the WSPU to launch a new journal, The Suffragette, edited by Christabel Pankhurst. The East London Federation of mostly working class women and led by Sylvia Pankhurst was expelled in 1914.