Suffragettes in Newcastle Gaol
“As the motor appeared I stepped out into the road, stood straight in front of the car, shouted out, ‘How can you, who say you back the women's cause’…and threw a stone at the car.”
In October 1909 the Women's Social and Political Union planned a series of protests to coincide with the visit of the Chancellor, David Lloyd George, to the Palace Theatre in Haymarket, Newcastle. In the preceding years activists in the women's suffrage movement grew increasingly frustrated with the refusal of the Liberal government to extend voting rights to women and because of this they began to practice the motto "Deeds not Words". Although Lloyd George was closely guarded and the city was packed with police, some WSPU activists managed to break windows at the Liberal Club, General Post Office, and Palace Theatre. These protests, later dubbed the "Battle of Newcastle", led to the arrest of 12 women who served sentences of up to one month in Newcastle Gaol. Here are some of their stories.
Lady Constance Lytton
Lady Constance Lytton (1869-1923), daughter of the first Earl of Lytton, Viceroy of India, was convicted of “disorderly behaviour with intent to disturb peace” during Chancellor Lloyd George’s visit to Newcastle in October 1909. Lytton waited among the crowds at Haymarket for Lloyd George’s car to pass: “As the motor appeared I stepped out into the road, stood straight in front of the car, shouted out, ‘How can you, who say you back the women's cause, stay on in a government which refuses them the vote, and is persecuting them for asking it’, and threw a stone at the car. I aimed low to avoid injuring the chauffeur or passengers”. Three charges were brought against her in the police court on Pilgrim Street: for assault on Sir Walter Runciman, a minister who was in the car; for malicious injury to the car, damages assessed at £4; and for disorderly behaviour in a public place. Lytton had no idea she had done so much. Owing to her social status, she was offered the alternative of being bound in money sureties for a year, however she did not accept the offer and thus pleaded guilty to the charges. In a loud voice she shouted across the court: “My disorderly behaviour of throwing a stone with violence in a public space was deliberate and intentional”.
As anticipated, the court could not go on with the case and thus bound her over in the sum of £50 and two sureties of £25 each, to be enforced for twelve months; and in default, one month's imprisonment in the 2nd division. She was subsequently dismissed and taken away to fulfil her full sentence.
On arrival at the gaol, she was separated from the rest of the women who were sentenced to the more extreme, 3rd division. She described her cell as a “dreary scene”, where the cell windows looked more like tiny shutters, and she could make out the infinitesimal small windows of the punishment cells in the ground below. Adding to this unpleasantness, there was no attempt to put her into prison clothes, and so, Lytton was left in her underclothes that were covered in fleas. She noted: “the prospect of a month in them as they were was extremely undesirable”.
Lytton was visited by the Governor, who she described as “very civil and begged us not to go on the hunger-strike”. However, Lytton commenced her hunger strike, which she maintained along with Jane Brailsford for the remainder of her sentence. In her memoir Lytton noted that her and Brailsford’s cells were next door to each other, and they spoke together frequently all day about the cause. However, sustaining the hunger strike through refusing all the meals brought to her cell by the wardresses proved difficult. Lytton suffered during her second night in particular, writing “the knotting in my stomach from lack of food was fairly painful”. Through fatigue, she experienced back pain almost straight away and found herself waking up with her knees curled below her chin. Such a deterioration of health resulted in a visit from the prison physician Dr Hardcastle and Dr Smalley the next day on Wednesday, October 13th.
During this inspection Lytton wanted to avoid the possibilities of force-feeding, and so stood in the corner of the cell “with my arms crossed and my fingers caught in my nostrils and mouth”. However, to Lytton’s surprise, the Doctors did not appear with a tube, but to examine her heart. In their medical reports Dr Smalley and Dr Hardcastle had discovered the presence of cardiac disease, writing ”she is getting weak, more anaemic, and says she had a restless night”; “It is clearly a case which it is undesirable to have any struggling”. Finding her to be in a “feeble” condition, the doctors recommended her release at once.
Lytton was stunned to discover it was only herself and Brailsford that were released this early, despite the condition of the other women in the gaol. Although Lytton knew she had heart disease, she believed she was released without applying force-feeding because of her rank. Constance Lytton carried on the strength of determination outside the walls of the Newcastle Prison, campaigning to make the public aware of the “partiality and injustice” of force-feeding in prisons and asking what the Liberal Government were prepared to do about it. Lytton later disguised herself as a working woman “Jane Wharton” to prove the injustices of force-feeding against women of lower social status and in 1910 she was force fed in Walton Gaol, Liverpool.
Writing her memoir in 1914, Lytton had some kind words for the staff and inmates in Newcastle Gaol. In a particular touching scene she registered the fleeting presence of another prisoner: “The only thing which made an impression on me, not told in the above, was that once the wardress led me out to one of the lavatories. Just in front of it a woman had been sick, and I was taken away to another. It showed the great loneliness of prison life. There, in rows thickly set all around me, were the cells, in each a prisoner. One had been taken out immediately before I had, but she was put back and all the cells were locked before I came. The mystery was intense, the silence, the loneliness as great as they could be”. Lytton never fully recovered from the treatment she received in various prison cells between 1909-11, suffering a heart attack and stroke that contributed to her early death in 1923, aged 54.
For a full account of her stay at Newcastle Gaol see here,
Dorothy Pethick Lawrence
“my action was entirely prompted by the injustice of the present Government, and if it continues in this way, we shall do worse things”.
Dorothy Pethick Lawrence was sentenced to 14 days of hard labour for the wilful damage of the General Post Office by throwing stones alongside Kitty Marion. Dorothy pleaded not guilty to the crime but “guilty of trying to”. She told the magistrate: “my action was entirely prompted by the injustice of the present Government, and if it continues in this way, we shall do worse things”. This was her first time in prison and she was appointed spokeswoman for the other 11 women imprisoned after the protests on October 9th. The Governor begged her: “Don't break your windows—please don't break your windows”, to Pethick Lawrence replied: “if you feed us by force, we shall break every window we can lay hands on”.
For the first few days she refused food brought to her, however, on the third, her cell was opened, and she was instructed to go to prison hospital. There, she found three doctors along with the matron and wardress, all of whom set upon her and forced her into a chair where she was tied down with a bedsheet. The doctor proceeded to push the tube up her nostril while a wardress covered her mouth. It was noted in a letter to the Governor that she was fed three-quarters of a pint of milk and egg via a nasal tube which resulted in Pethick becoming violent and striking the officers in the face, even causing one of the officers nose to bleed. She recalled one of the doctors saying: “oh, we have not tested her heart”, to which another replied “oh, I expect that is all right”, and the operation resumed. This process was repeated twice a day for several more days until her nostrils became inflamed and the tube had to be lubricated with glycerine. Adding to the horror, she reported to the Votes for Women newspaper that she saw the feeding tube lying open and exposed in a basket in the reception room.
Pethick Lawrence lost weight through vomiting after these feedings and after a few days was force fed with the feeding cup until her release. She later complained to the Government Inspector that the doctor had been unnecessarily rough in his treatment, but he defended himself by claiming: “of course, one was not in the best tempers; Miss Pethick was not the first I had to deal with”.
Growing tired and sick, Dorothy requested to see her solicitor before her release date but was refused. Just a few days later, she once again requested legal advice, writing “that an assault is being committed on my person daily by officers in this prison”. However as she was due for release five days later, she stated that unless she could see a representative before that date, it would be useless for him to come on her account. Pethick Lawrence was released on October 23rd, 1909 along with Winifred Jones, and after being welcomed by their friends, they were driven away to recover in a nursing home in Rye Hill.
Kitty Marion
Kitty Marion (Katherina Maria Schafer) c.1913. Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
“I am more than ever convinced of the necessity for militant action”.
Kitty Marion was another of the Suffragist activists who came to Newcastle to protest against Lloyd George’s visit in October 1909. Marion - real name Katherine Marie Schäfer - was a well-known music hall artist who became active in the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1908. Marion was condemned to one-month’s hard labour for wilfully and maliciously damaging a plate-glass window, valued at £3 17s. 6d, at the General Post Office on St. Nicholas Street. Despite committing the same crime as Dorothy Pethick, Marion was sentenced to one month’s hard labour compared with Pethick who was sentenced to only 14 days. The only difference between these women was that Marion pleaded guilty to the crime whereas Dorothy did not. In a report to Votes for Women newspaper, Marion stated: “I have only practiced what Mr Lloyd George preaches. Revolt is the only weapon to carry on the cause”.
This was Marion’s first time in prison, yet she maintained the same spirits as the other women by embarking on a hunger strike in solidarity with their comrades in Winson Green prison, Birmingham, where force-feeding was pioneered. Upon arrival at Newcastle Prison, Marion was the last of the prisoners to be taken into a cell and was led into a different wing to the others. From the moment she set foot in the cell, she immediately caused an upheaval by barricading the door with the furniture and refusing to let anyone in aside from the Governor, who had gone home for the evening. The next morning Marion said she would only allow the Governor when women were granted the vote, and “the best thing he could do was get the Bill rushed through the Commons”. As the Governor was unable to satisfy her wishes, Marion refused food and held force for another 24 hours by placing her bed in front of the door and refused further entry to the chaplain and the schoolmistress: “I told her I would not open the door, even to Mrs Pankhurst, unless she came and told me all’s well”.With growing frustration, the staff eventually forced entry with a crowbar and chiselled the hinges away. Marion was stripped of her prison privileges by being dressed in prison clothes and moved to another cell where she could be closely monitored.
In her next cell, Marion was disturbed by the loud noises across the building - “the ringing of bells, the grating of keys in the locks, the clanking of doors; footsteps and voices rang through the bare corridors, all of which were getting on my nerves, and worked me up into a state of nervous tension”. This was however to be only the beginning of an unpleasant experience for Marion as she was removed from her cell later that evening by eight wardresses into the presence of three doctors. She informed them of a throat weakness from which she suffered, but taking no notice of this, they forcibly fed her via a tube through the right nostril. In her memoir, Marion recalled the “horrible feeling of choking and vomiting. My head felt as if it were bursting, my heart beat furiously. Words cannot describe my sensations.”. Marion was seen to be choking and retching as the tube was forced down to the stomach and the liquid was poured in, most of which was vomited back up. When the tube was removed, she found herself lying flat on the floor in a dazed and confused condition. Marion labelled the doctors as “a lot of dirty cringing door-mats to the Government” and in anger, hit one of them across the face with the back of her hand before she was bundled back to her cell by the wardresses.
Reflecting on this brutal treatment and the length of her sentence, Marion remembered Harry Houdini, with whom she had once shared a billing, and how he might have made his escape. Conceiving the idea of a fire as protest against such tyranny, she tore the stuffing out her pillow by gnawing at it “which was more difficult than it sounds”. She then proceeded to tease out the coconut fibres and “tore a page from the Bible to make a spill to take a light from the glass mantle”. She struggled to with the idea of using the Bible in such way but she reasoned that “God’s words stand for our fight for freedom and Justice and a replaceable copy could not be used in a better cause”. Setting fire to the heap using the gas jet, Marion was soon overcome with smoke and had to be dragged out of her cell by the wardresses and left on the stone cold floor of the corridor while they put out the fire. She was immediately transferred to a cell where the floor was padded and there was no furniture. When the governor came to visit, Marion informed him that unless she was released that evening, she would do herself some fatal harm.
After a day she was moved back to a regular prison cell, closely watched and visited by the governor, the matron and the doctor. As Marion was weak, she took very small supplies of food voluntarily at her own pace, although not enough to the Doctor's standards and the feeding cup was still used. She was fed by the matron who was “most kind and motherly” and gave her milk from the feeding cup which she was too weak to resist.
Marion was considered the most “difficult” of all the Suffragist prisoners and managed to break 10 squares of glass in her cell when a crowd came to the prison walls to shout support on the evening of October 13th. Despite slapping the doctor, Marion was treated with some sympathy after she took small amounts of food. Hardcastle told her he considered tube feeding “demoralising and degrading” but he couldn’t let her starve or he would be guilty of manslaughter. She felt she was treated with care and kindness in the prison and was “disarmed by the real potting and coaxing I had received”. After the fire a wardress was stationed outside Marion’s cell and she would talk to the prisoner, asking her “if she was the Kitty Marion she had seen at the Manchester Hippodrome? She had admired me very much and little dreamed she would ever meet me like this”. In the final days of her sentence, Kitty received a visit from a local magistrate who believed her sentence was excessive, but told her it was cowardly to take her fight into prison.
Marion was released from Newcastle Prison on November 10th 1909, on the completion of her sentence of a month’s hard labour and was greeted with the most enthusiastic welcome. In a statement she released to Votes for Women, she claimed: “I am more than ever convinced of the necessity for militant action”. The courage and fight that Marion demonstrated was later rewarded with a “For Valour” medal awarded by Sylvia Pankhurst.
