The Suffragettes Tales from the Old Bailey

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I am the court reporter.

Since 1674, every trial that's been played out between these walls

at London's Old Bailey Court, every single one,

has been faithfully recorded by a reporter like me.

I sat just here.

I wrote down what was said by whom, and now you, some while later,

can listen in.

You can press an ear against these walls

and hear once again these voices from the past.

Now, here's a case of politics and crime entwined,

where respectable ladies

are prepared to do the almost unthinkable

and defy the law.

GLASS SMASHES

It's the year 1912.

At this moment in time,

women of this country do not have the right to vote.

Campaigning to change this fact - the Suffragettes.

At the head of the Suffragettes is one Emmeline Pankhurst,

on trial here for the charge of inciting others

to commit criminal acts.

On trial, you could say, the bigger picture.

How far would you go to change the world?

Pankhurst, Emmeline.

Hereby charged with conspiring with others

to unlawfully and maliciously damage

and incite others to unlawfully and maliciously damage

certain property to wit, glass windows on 54 counts,

the property of the liege subjects of our Lord, the King.

Right now, a critical bill is in the hands of the Government.

It's what all the protesting has been for.

But just as the Prime Minister was about to sign on the dotted line,

it looks as though the whole enterprise might be derailed

and women will be denied the right to vote.

Denied, as they see it, their political freedom.

Gentlemen, let us be clear.

The question of women's suffrage is not at issue here.

Rather, we are to concern ourselves with the question of incitement

to criminal activity.

I will show that the defendant gave speeches at public meetings

with the explicit intent of inciting those attending

to partake in what was described as militancy.

I will also show that written materials

were published and distributed with the express intent

of recruiting supporters to militancy in general

and expressly to the protest on the 4th of March

at which 54 windows were broken.

I should like to call my first witness,

Detective Sergeant Frederick Everest.

I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I shall give

shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Detective Sergeant Everest,

you attended a meeting on October the 26th.

Can you tell us what you heard?

I took longhand notes of Mrs Pankhurst's speech

and made a report of the speeches. One extract is as follows.

"It is becoming clear that the Prime Minister, Mr Herbert Asquith..."

..Wants to make the bill so all-encompassing,

so unworkable, that many who now support it would drop it.

Denying at the last hurdle the right to vote we have been fighting for.

APPLAUSE

I understood Mrs Pankhurst to say

that militancy was not going on at that time, but she said...

"If Mr Lloyd George, the Home Secretary..."

..Forced his amendment, militancy would be again started.

We are watching.

So, October the 26th, gentlemen,

what was said at that meeting

was not a call to action but a "wait and see".

I will show that by February of the following year,

the tenor of the defendant's public words had changed.

Detective Sergeant Everest,

would you please read an extract

from the speech the defendant made on February 15th?

"Great as have been the need on previous occasions..."

..The need now is greater still.

APPLAUSE

The people of China won freedom at the price of blood.

But the women of England can win freedom

only at the price of a few panes of glass.

APPLAUSE

Since we cannot win freedom by women's ways,

then I am going out to throw my stone with the rest of you.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I ask, sir, that the whole of the speech be read aloud

to better appreciate the context.

"If the Home Secretary continues in his efforts to wreck the bill..."

..Then we must commit to act by storm.

APPLAUSE

But if we undertake this action on a sufficiently large scale

then victory will be ours.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The militant woman must create a crisis,

a difficulty from which all concerned are eager to escape.

Then, and then only, will women become politically free.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

May I remind you that the allegation

is that the accused entered into a conspiracy

to incite certain persons to commit breaches of the law,

but how the changes of policy of this or that minister

has any bearing on the issue now being tried is difficult to see.

It is part of the defence that these occurrences arose

because of the breaches of faith of ministers.

We say, and I believe we are entitled to say,

the real criminals are not the persons in the dock.

The persons who are guilty of incitement

are the ministers of the Government.

The question we have to answer is only whether Mrs Pankhurst

did or did not incite others to break the law.

I shall now show that this incitement was explicit

in materials written and published by Mrs Pankhurst and her colleagues.

I would like to call George Eton Hart,

printer of Clement's Press, Portugal Street.

Mr Hart, please tell the court your engagement with the Suffragettes.

My firm has for some time printed the publication Votes For Women.

About 30,000 copies of which we printed weekly.

On March the 4th, I saw the proof of an article titled Broken Windows

in this publication, and I declined to print it.

And your reasons for declining to print this article?

We declined to print the following...

"Democracy has never been a menace to property.

"I will tell you what has been a menace to property,

"when power was withheld, when they had no voice in the government.

"When they had no means of securing redress, except by violence.

"Then property has many times been swept away."

In that same paper, gentlemen,

a paragraph headed, Be Prepared For Action, A Call To Arms.

"On Tuesday next at 7.30pm,

"the Caxton Hall will be crowded with women

"who will assemble for the sole purpose of resolving upon such action

"whether militant or otherwise,

"as the Prime Minister's statement may render necessary."

Is that not explicitly an invitation and an incitement

to participate in militant action?

Its intent is perfectly clear.

So this is what happened next.

The Prime Minister made his choice, did as was feared,

and quashed the bill.

All the years of marching in protest had seemed to come to nothing.

For the Suffragettes, a line is drawn. A stark choice.

Do nothing, or do something more extreme.

I do not think these ladies are of a mind for backing down.

So, thus equipped, on March the 4th,

the Women's Social And Political Union

gathered members at the pavilion to decide upon militant action.

I shall call Police Constable Thomas Whitbread, who attended this meeting.

Constable Whitbread, can you tell us what you saw at the meeting?

There was some 900 attended the meeting.

-..Politically free.

-APPLAUSE

In the early evening, the women left in small groups.

Several officers were instructed to follow.

I followed two who went to Whitehall

and there broke two windows at the War Office.

GLASS SMASHES

Mrs Pankhurst, do you have anything you wish to say to this court?

I submit that there is a higher law.

We stand here in this dock,

defending ourselves against a charge which may mean

long terms of imprisonment.

Let them give us seven years penal servitude, if they like,

but they shan't give it us for nothing.

We shall do our bit, even if it is burning down a palace.

LAUGHTER

Then we shall go into prison and leave the others to join us.

One by one.

Are you, Mrs Pankhurst, calling any witnesses?

I am not able to call the only witnesses I should desire to call.

They are the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary.

THEY MURMUR

To the ministers who I say incited us to throw our stones.

To them, I say this.

Beware how you incite us to do worse.

I should like to call Miss Ethel Smyth.

I'm a doctor of music.

I was present at the meeting and I heard your speech.

I was not incited by what I heard to play the part I played.

Before I heard your speech,

I had already made up my mind to make some sort of protest.

I wrote and said, "I am coming."

Miss Lilian Ball.

I'm a dressmaker from Tooting.

Of my own accord, I took up a hammer,

on which was written, "Better broken windows than broken promises".

I put the hammer up my sleeve.

I broke a window of the United Service Museum.

Miss Henrietta Wilson.

I did not see how any self-respecting woman

could stay at home.

I broke two windows at the Gardenia restaurant.

GLASS SMASHES

No further questions.

Gentlemen, it now falls to you to make your decision.

May I remind you that at issue here

is the question of whether the defendant is guilty

of the charge of incitement to criminal acts.

So now they make up their minds.

12 men to pass judgement

on a woman who seeks to change the balance of power.

To shake the dust off them, you might say.

To put a cat amongst the pigeons.

Whatever they decide,

there's no denying that these Suffragettes

are not about to give up their fight.

Have you reached your verdict?

On the charge of conspiring together with others

to unlawfully and maliciously damage,

and incite others to unlawfully and maliciously damage certain property,

we find the defendant, E Pankhurst, guilty.

Emmeline Pankhurst,

I hereby sentence you to nine months' imprisonment.

Well, another day, another historic trial. A window on the wider world.

A moment captured in the tides of time.

And all was faithfully recorded.

I must tell you, there will be six more years of fighting

before finally women win political freedom and the right to vote.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd