Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T19:20:14.373Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“A Star Chamber of the Twentieth Century”: Suffragettes, Liberals, and the 1908 “Rush the Commons” Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Ian Christopher Fletcher
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The suffragette in the dock at Bow Street police court is one of the emblematic scenes of the “votes for women” agitation. She usually stood alone in the prisoners' box, facing the magistrate, flanked by tables lined with lawyers and police officials and backed by benches full of friends and supporters, newspaper reporters, and ordinary spectators. Notwithstanding the state's claims of legal equality and judicial impartiality, she seemed to be engaged in an unequal contest speaking truth to unbending masculine authority. She was powerless to alter the outcome, a guilty verdict and a spell of imprisonment. This scene, like those of the protester arrested in the streets and the hunger striker being forcibly fed in prison, underlines the spectacular nature of suffrage militancy. Yet its very power to seize and hold our attention can obscure the complex interactions and effects that made militancy such a profoundly ambiguous moment in the intertwined histories of the women's suffrage movement and the Liberal-ruled Edwardian state.

Recent research has displaced the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) from its once central place in suffrage history. Jill Liddington, Jill Norris, and Jo Vellacott have recovered the very important contributions of radical and democratic feminists to the movement. In recounting the efforts of moderate women's suffragists, Claire Hirshfield, Leslie Parker Hume, and others have helped to paint a much more complex picture of the high politics of franchise reform. Historians have also begun to examine the distinct experiences of the movement in Ireland and Scotland.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , October 1996 , pp. 504 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Pankhurst, E. Sylvia, The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905–1910 (New York: Sturgis & Walton, 1911), pp. 271–72Google Scholar. For depictions of police-court proceedings, see Lytton, Constance, Prisons and Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences (1914; reprint, London: Virago, 1988), pp. 54–57Google Scholar; Mitchell, Hannah, The Hard Way Up (1968; reprint, London: Virago, 1977), pp. 144–46Google Scholar; Wells, H. G., Ann Veronica (1909; reprint, London: Virago, 1984), pp. 196–98Google Scholar. See also Tickner, Lisa, The Spectacle of Women: Imagery of the Suffrage Campaign, 1907–14 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), esp. pp. 192–213Google Scholar.

2 Indeed, the suffragettes of the WSPU were not alone. Beginning with the Women's Freedom League in 1907, several other militant women's suffrage organizations were formed in Britain and Ireland. See Mayhall, Laura E. Nym, “‘Dare to Be Free’: The Women's Freedom League, 1907–1928” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1993)Google Scholar.

3 Liddington, Jill and Norris, Jill, One Hand Tied behind Us: The Rise of the Women's Suffrage Movement (London: Virago, 1978)Google Scholar; Vellacott, Jo, From Liberal to Labour with Women's Suffrage: The Story of Catherine Marshall (Montreal and Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

4 Harrison, Brian, “Women's Suffrage at Westminster, 1866–1928,” in High and Low Politics in Modern Britain, ed. Bentley, Michael and Stevenson, John (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 80–122Google Scholar; Hirshfield, Claire, “Fractured Faith: Liberal Party Women and the Suffrage Issue in Britain, 1892–1914,” Gender and History 2, no. 2 (1990): 173–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hume, Leslie Parker, The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, 1897–1914 (New York: Garland, 1982)Google Scholar; Morgan, David, Suffragists and Liberals: The Politics of Woman Suffrage in Britain (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975)Google Scholar; Pugh, Martin, Electoral Reform in War and Peace, 1906–18 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978)Google Scholar.

5 Leneman, Leah, A Guid Cause: The Women's Suffrage Movement in Scotland (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Murphy, Cliona, The Women's Suffrage Movement and Irish Society in the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989)Google Scholar; Owens, Rosemary Cullen, Smashing Times: A History of the Irish Women's Suffrage Movement, 1889–1922 (Dublin: Attic Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Ward, Margaret, “‘Suffrage First—above All Else!’: An Account of the Irish Suffrage Movement,” Feminist Review 10 (1982): 21–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 For example, Burton, Antoinette, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1994)Google Scholar; Holton, Sandra Stanley, Feminism and Democracy: Women's Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar, and “The Suffragist and the ‘Average Woman,’” Women's History Review 1, no. 1 (1992): 9–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kent, Susan Kingsley, Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 1860–1914 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Morley, Ann and Stanley, Liz, The Life and Death of Emily Wilding Davison (London: Women's Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

7 Harrison, Brian, “The Act of Militancy: Violence and the Suffragettes, 1904–1914,” in his Peaceable Kingdom: Stability and Change in Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 26–81Google Scholar; Vicinus, Martha, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 247–80Google Scholar.

8 Porter, Bernard, The Origins of the Vigilant State: The London Metropolitan Police Special Branch before the First World War (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987), p. 166Google Scholar; Townshend, Charles, Making the Peace: Public Order and Public Security in Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 For previous accounts of this episode, see E. S. Pankhurst, pp. 271–321; Rosen, Andrew, Rise Up, Women! The Militant Campaign of the Women's Social and Political Union, 1903–1914 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 110–12Google Scholar. See also the memoirs of Lytton, pp. 18–30; Pankhurst, Christabel, Unshackled: The Story of How We Won the Vote (1959; reprint, London: Hutchinson, 1987), pp. 102–12Google Scholar; Pankhurst, Emmeline, My Own Story (London: Hurst's, 1914), pp. 120–30Google Scholar; Thorne, Will, My Life's Battles (London: George Newnes, [1925]), pp. 173–76Google Scholar.

10 Lawrence, Emmeline Pethick, My Part in a Changing World (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), p. 205Google Scholar.

11 For an important study that, however, has very little to say about Britain, see Kirchheimer, Otto, Political Justice: The Use of Legal Procedure for Political Ends (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961)Google Scholar.

12 For a wide-ranging discussion of the state's legal regulation of women, see Levine, Philippa, “Consistent Contradictions: Prostitution and Protective Labour Legislation in Nineteenth-Century England,” Social History 19, no. 1 (1994): 17–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Dangerfleld, George, The Strange Death of Liberal England (1935; reprint, New York: Capricorn, 1961), focuses on the years 1910–14Google Scholar.

14 Bew, Paul, Conflict and Conciliation in Ireland, 1890–1910: Parnellites and Radical Agrarians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

15 Brown, Kenneth D., Labour and Unemployment, 1900–1914 (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1971)Google Scholar; Kidd, Alan J., “The Social Democratic Federation and Popular Agitation amongst the Unemployed in Edwardian Manchester,” International Review of Social History 29, no. 3 (1984): 336–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 See Holton, Sandra Stanley, “In Sorrowful Wrath: Suffrage Militancy and the Romantic Feminism of Emmeline Pankhurst,” in British Feminism in the Twentieth Century, ed. Smith, Harold L. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990), pp. 7–24Google Scholar. For recent studies of later Victorian and Edwardian radicalism, see Biagini, Eugenio F., Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Biagini, Eugenio F. and Reid, Alastair J., eds., Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organised Labour and Party Politics in Britain, 1850–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Joyce, Patrick, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lawrence, Jon, “Popular Radicalism and the Socialist Revival in Britain,” Journal of British Studies 31, no. 2 (1992): 163–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 But see Hardie, J. Keir, “Women and Politics,” in The Case for Women's Suffrage, ed. Villiers, Brougham (London: Fisher Unwin, 1907), p. 79Google Scholar, for his suggestion that the WSPU had simply “adopted” and “applied” the militant methods of the Independent Labour Party.

18 The literature on later Victorian and Edwardian women's activism is large and growing, but see esp. Hollis, Patricia, Ladies Elect: Women in English Local Government, 1865–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Lewis, Jane, Women and Social Action in Victorian and Edwardian England (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Walkowitz, Judith R., Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the relevant essays in Koven, Seth and Michel, Sonya, eds., Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States (New York: Routledge, 1993)Google Scholar; and in Rendall, Jane, ed., Equal or Different: Women's Politics, 1800–1914 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987)Google Scholar.

19 E. S. Pankhurst (n. 1 above), p. 142.

20 J. Spender to M. Fawcett, October 30, 1906, Manchester Central Library, Fawcett papers, M50/2/1/242.

21 Under the Justices of the Peace Act of 1361, better known as the Statute of Edward III, and the even older commission of the peace, magistrates were empowered to order a person to enter into recognizances in a specified amount of money and to find sureties in a specified amount among his or her friends, for keeping the peace and good behavior for a certain period of time. Although preventive rather than punitive in nature, magistrates could impose such orders as an alternative to criminal conviction or, on conviction of a defendant, as an alternative to a fine or sentence of imprisonment. Binding orders were difficult to evade. Under the Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879, a person in England and Wales could call witnesses but not appeal the magistrate's decision. In Ireland, a person was still not allowed to call witnesses. For the person who refused to accept binding orders and was consequently imprisoned, release could be secured by agreeing to comply. See Supperstone, Michael, ed., Brownlie's Law of Public Order and National Security, 2d ed. (London: Butterworths, 1981), pp. 312–15Google Scholar; Giffard, H. S., earl of Halsbury, and other lawyers, The Laws of England (London: Butterworth, 1909), 9:412–14Google Scholar; Bodkin, A. H. and Kearshaw, Leonard W., eds., The Law Relating to Riots and Unlawful Assemblies, 4th ed. (London: Butterworth, 1907), pp. 182–90Google Scholar.

22 For a brief overview of penal policy towards the suffragettes, see SirRadzinowicz, Leon and Hood, Roger, A History of English Criminal Law and Its Administration from 1750, vol. 5, The Emergence of Penal Policy (London: Stevens & Sons, 1986), pp. 439–61Google Scholar.

23 M. Chalmers to E. Henry, December 14, 1906, London, Public Record Office (PRO), Home Office (HO) 45/10349/147337/2.

24 E. Troup to A. Plowden, February 1, 1908, PRO, HO 144/871/161505/5.

25 For a brief but suggestive discussion of “the ‘gentlemanly’ conventions of state administration” in the Edwardian era, see Mort, Frank, Dangerous Sexualities: Medico-Moral Politics in England since 1830 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), p. 142Google Scholar.

26 See Porter (n. 8 above), p. 72.

27 E. Troup to E. Ruggles-Brise, December 20, 1907, Chelrasford, Essex Record Office, Ruggles-Brise papers, box 4, item 1/301.

28 For more on this generation, see Pellew, Jill, “Law and Order: Expertise and the Victorian Home Office,” in Government and Expertise: Specialists, Administrators and Professionals, 1860–1919, ed. MacLeod, Roy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 59–72Google Scholar; Wiener, Martin J., Reconstructing the Criminal: Culture, Law, and Policy in England, 1830–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 339–41Google Scholar. But see also Cannadine, David, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 239–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who emphasizes a shift from patricians to professionals rather than a generational change in the civil service.

29 H. Gladstone, unpublished memoir, British Library (BL), Gladstone papers, Additional (Add.) MS 46118, fols. 161–63.

30 See Bailey, Victor, “The Metropolitan Police, the Home Office and the Threat of Outcast London,” in Policing and Punishment in Nineteenth Century Britain, ed. Bailey, Victor (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1981), pp. 94–125Google Scholar. For continuing frictions within an increasingly interventionist state, see Petrow, Stefan, Policing Morals: The Metropolitan Police and the Home Office, 1870–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 See Riley, Denise, “Am I That Name?” Feminism and the Category of “Women” in History (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), p. 51Google Scholar.

32 Historically specific gender analysis of the connection between Edwardian masculinities, politics, and the state is preliminary and uneven, but, in addition to the work of Frank Mort (n. 23 above), see Harrison, Brian, Separate Spheres: The Opposition to Women's Suffrage in Britain (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1978), esp. pp. 27–107Google Scholar, and “Bertrand Russell: The False Consciousness of a Feminist,” in Intellect and Social Conscience: Essays on Bertrand Russell's Early Work, ed. Moran, Margaret and Spadoni, Carl (Hamilton, Ontario: McMaster University Library Press, 1984), pp. 157–205Google Scholar; Jalland, Pat, Women, Marriage and Politics, 1860–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), esp. pp. 241–49Google Scholar; Koven, Seth, “From Rough Lads to Hooligans: Boy Life, National Culture and Social Reform,” in Nationalisms and Sexualities, ed. Parker, Andrew, Russo, Mary, Sommer, Doris, and Yaeger, Patricia (New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 365–91Google Scholar.

33 Wallas, Graham, Human Nature in Politics (1908; reprint, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1981), pp. 26–30, 193–95Google Scholar. See Harris, José, Private Lives, Public Spirit: Britain, 1870–1914 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994), pp. 13–17, 180–219Google Scholar.

34 Pellew, Jill, The Home Office, 1848–1914: From Clerks to Bureaucrats (London: Heinemann Educational, 1982), pp. 83–86Google Scholar.

35 For rising expectations of order from the 1880s, see Townshend (n. 8 above), pp. 36–55. More generally, see Gatrell, V. A. C., “Crime, Authority and the Policeman-State,” in The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950, ed. Thompson, F. M. L. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 3:243–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 E. Troup to H. Gladstone, September 16, 1908, BL, Gladstone papers, Add. MS 45993, fols. 168–69; E. Troup to H. Gladstone, September 29, 1908, Add. MS 45993, fols. 206–7; E. Henry to H. Gladstone, October 6, 1908, Add. MS 46066, fol. 65.

37 The Times (October 9, 1908).

38 The Times (October 12, 1908).

39 The Times (October 12, 13, 15, 1908).

40 M. Waller to H. Gladstone, October 10, 1908, BL, Gladstone papers, Add. MS 45994, fols. 164–65.

41 E. Troup to H. Gladstone, October 10, 1908, BL, Gladstone papers, Add. MS 45993, fols. 218–20.

42 But for Gladstone's denial of any responsibility for the “rush” case, see Parliamentary Debates (Part. Deb.), 4th ser., vol. 194 (October 13, 1908)Google Scholar, cols. 171–72.

43 E. Henry to Home Office, October 12, 1908, PRO, HO 45/10389/170808/1.

44 The Times (October 14, 1908).

45 For the sensational newspaper coverage of apparently the first woman ever to speak in the House of Commons, see the Margaret Travers Symons press cuttings album, ca. 1908, National Library of Scotland (NLS), Edinburgh, Hughes papers, Dep. 176/2(3).

46 Bailey, Victor, “The Fabrication of Deviance: ‘Dangerous Classes’ and ‘Criminal Classes’ in Victorian England,” in Protest and Survival: Essays for E. P. Thompson, ed. Rule, John and Malcolmson, Robert (London: Merlin Press, 1993), pp. 221–56Google Scholar.

47 C. Ilbert, diary, October 12, 1908, London, House of Lords Record Office (HLRO), Ilbert papers, House of Commons Library (H.C. Lib.) MS 72.

48 Lindsay, David, earl of Crawford, The Crawford Papers, ed. Vincent, John (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), pp. 114–15Google Scholar.

49 R. Haldane to M. Haldane, October 17, 1908, NLS, Haldane papers, MS 5980, fols. 132–33.

50 Punch (October 21, 1908).

51 The Times (October 15, 1908); Votes for Women (October 22, 1908).

52 Lawrence, F. W. Pethick, “The Trial of the Suffragette Leaders,” in Suffrage and the Pankhursts, ed. Marcus, Jane (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), p. 82Google Scholar.

53 Ibid., p. 84.

54 Parl. Deb., 4th ser., vol. 194 (October 14, 1908), cols. 310–11Google Scholar.

55 E. Henry to Home Office, October 15, 1908 PRO, HO 144/1029/170854.

56 E. Troup minute, October 15, 1908, PRO, HO 144/1029/170854.

57 London metropolitan police (LMP) report, October 15, 1908, PRO, Metropolitan Police (MEPO) 2/1264.

58 The Times (October 17, 1908).

59 M. Waller to H. Gladstone, October 17, 1908, BL, Gladstone papers, Add. MS 45994, fols. 167–68; The Times (October 17, 1908).

60 The Times (October 22, 1908).

61 H. Nevinson, diary, October 21, 1908, Oxford University, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Nevinson papers, MS Eng. misc. e 615/1, fol. 87. See also Grigg, John, Lloyd George: The People's Champion, 1902–1911 (London: Eyre Methuen, 1978), pp. 167–69Google Scholar.

62 Lawrence, F. W. Pethick, “The Trial of the Suffragette Leaders” (n. 51 above), pp. 93–95, 106–7Google Scholar.

63 Ibid., p. 101. For Smith's stunned response to this “absolutely wicked falsehood” and “most extraordinary mistake,” see H. Smith to A. de Rutzen, October 28, 1908, PRO, HO 45/10389/170808/44. For Herbert Samuel's official denial of the allegation, see Parl. Deb., 4th ser., vol. 195 (November 2, 1908), col. 779Google Scholar.

64 The Times (October 24, 1908); Wontner & Sons to LMP, October 24, 1908, PRO, MEPO 2/1221. For inquiries from provincial police officials about using this precedent to prosecute seditious speakers elsewhere, see Burnley chief constable to LMP, October 24, 1908, and Sheffield town clerk to LMP, November 13, 1908, both PRO, MEPO 2/1221.

65 Justice (October 31, November 7, 14, 1908).

66 The Times (October 26, 1908); Votes for Women (October 29, 1908). See also Wontner & Sons to LMP, October 27, 1908, PRO, MEPO 2/1222, fols. 16–19.

67 Joyce, Patrick, Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 192CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Epstein, James A., Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual, and Symbol in England, 1790–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), esp. pp. 3–69Google Scholar.

68 Lawrence, F. W. Pethick, “The Trial of the Suffragette Leaders,” p. 54Google Scholar.

69 Ibid., p. 55.

70 Ibid., p. 56.

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid., p. 57.

73 Ibid.

74 Ibid., pp. 61–62.

75 Ibid., p. 65.

76 Ibid., p. 69.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid., p. 70.

79 Ibid., p. 71.

80 But for a persuasive argument that late Victorian and Edwardian feminists like Christabel Pankhurst still based their understanding of English liberty on racialized notions of national difference and colonial subordination, see Burton (n. 6 above), pp. 41–59.

81 Labour Leader (October 23, 1908). See Corbett, Mary Jean, Representing Femininity: Middle-Class Subjectivity in Victorian and Edwardian Women's Autobiographies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 155–56Google Scholar. For Georgiana Weldon, see Walkowitz, Judith R., City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 171–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For other feminists actively engaged with the law, see Bland, Lucy, “‘Purifying’ the Public World: Feminist Vigilantes in Late Victorian England,” Women's History Review 1, no. 3 (1992): 397–412CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 For the anger this protest caused in the Commons and the cabinet, see Parl. Deb., 4th ser., vol. 195 (October 28, 1908), cols. 403–4Google Scholar; J. Pease, diary, October 28, 1908, Oxford University, Nuffield College Library, Oxford, MS Gainford 38, fol. 38; R. Haldane to M. Haldane, October 29, 1908, NLS, Haldane papers, MS 5980, fols. 152–53.

83 The Times (October 30, 1908); K. Hardie to H. Gladstone, October 29, 1908, BL, Gladstone papers, Add. MS 46066, fols. 80–81; E. Troup minute, October 31, 1908, and A. de Rutzen to E. Troup, October 31, 1908, both PRO, HO 144/891/171454/15; M. Waller to H. Gladstone, October 31, 1908, BL, Gladstone papers, Add. MS 45994, fol. 173. Soon afterward, the jurisdictional boundaries of certain West End police courts were redrawn with the effect that any cases arising from protests around the Palace of Westminster went to Bow Street. See E. Henry to Home Office, November 9, 1908, PRO, MEPO 2/1220.

84 The Times (November 3, 1908); Parl. Deb., 4th ser., vol. 195 (November 4, 1908)Google Scholar, cols. 1211–12.

85 Parl. Deb., 4th ser., vol. 195 (November 4, 1908), cols. 1193–95Google Scholar; vol. 196 (November 11, 1908), cols. 252–53; (November 17, 1908), cols. 1040–43; (November 18, 1908), cols. 1202–3.

86 Parl. Deb., 4th ser., vol. 196 (November 18, 1908), col. 1203Google Scholar.

87 The Times (October 20, 27, 30, 31; November 4, 7, 1908); Justice (October 24, 31; November 7, 1908); Parl. Deb., 4th ser., vol. 194 (October 26, 1908), col. 1611Google Scholar. See also Brown (n. 13 above), pp. 99–102.

88 W. Dodgson to H. Gladstone, October 27, 1908; M. Waller to W. Dodgson, October 30, 1908; W. Dodgson to H. Gladstone, November 5, 1908; all in PRO, HO 45/24560.

89 M. Waller to clerk of assize, North Eastern Circuit, November 4, 1908; W. Pickford to R. Holtby, November 5, 1908; M. Waller to Holtby, November 7, 1908; all in PRO, HO 45/24560.

90 R. Holtby to M. Waller, November 12, 1908, PRO, HO 45/24560; The Times (November 13, 1908).

91 W. Robson to H. Gladstone, November 14, 1908, BL, Gladstone papers, Add. MS 46066, fols. 157–58.

92 The Times (November 19, 1908); Votes for Women (November 19, 1908).

93 The Times (November 21, 1908); Votes for Women (November 26, 1908); Lawrence, F. W. Pethick, Fate Has Been Kind (London: Hutchinson, 1943), pp. 79–80Google Scholar. According to Pethick Lawrence, an attempt was made afterward to disbar him as punishment for his involvement in Baines's defense.

94 C. Ilbert, diary, October 29, 30, November 2, December 3, 8, 11, 1908, HLRO, Ilbert papers, H.C. Lib. MS 72; Parl. Deb., 4th ser., vol. 195 (November 4, 1908), col. 1238Google Scholar; “Report of the Select Committee on the Admission of Strangers to the House of Commons; Evidence,” Parliamentary Papers, 1908 (Commons 371), vol. 9. See also Ullswater, Viscount, A Speaker's Commentaries (London: Edward Arnold, 1925), 2:64–66Google Scholar.

95 C. Ilbert, diary, January 19, 1909, HLRO, Ilbert papers, H.C. Lib. MS 53; H. Asquith to Edward VII, February 2, 1909, PRO, Cabinet 41/32/2. See also H. Simpson minute, February 26, 1909; E. Troup to A. Thring, March 1, 1909; F. Liddell to E. Troup, March 2, 1909; all in PRO, HO 45/10395/176079.

96 House of Commons Debates, 5th ser., vol. 1 (March 4, 1909), col. 1581Google Scholar; vol. 2 (March 15, 1909), col. 753; vol. 3 (March 30, 1909), cols. 185–86.

97 House of Commons Debates, 5th ser., vol. 3 (April 20, 1909), col. 1396Google Scholar.

98 Ibid., col. 1393.

99 Ibid., col. 1432.

100 C. Ilbert, diary, April 20, 1909, HLRO, Ilbert papers, H.C. Lib. MS 73.

101 The Times (April 28, 1909).

102 Lytton (n. 1 above), p. 30.

103 See McWilliam, Rohan, “Radicalism and Popular Culture: The Tichborne Case and the Politics of ‘Fair Play,’ 1867–1886,” in Biagini, and Reid, , eds. (n. 14 above), pp. 44–64Google Scholar.

104 H. Asquith, transcript of meeting, June 20, 1914, Oxford University, Bodleian Library, MS Asquith 89, fol. 151.