Suffrajitsu is a term used to describe the application of martial arts or self-defence techniques by members of the Women's Social and Political Union during 1913/14. The term derives from a portmanteau of suffragette and jiu-jitsu and was coined by an anonymous English journalist during March 1914.
During the Edwardian period, jujutsu was promoted as a way to foster women's self defence, autonomy and health, initially in the United Kingdom and then elsewhere in the Western world.
In contemporary usage, "suffrajitsu" describes the suffragettes' techniques of visible 'self-defence, sabotage and subterfuge' against the police and other aggressors, whilst promoting the benefits of jujitsu as a 'free activity' and a form of self-defense for dealing with both domestic violence in the home, and public attacks to women.
Etymology The term "suffragette" was first used in 1906 pejoratively by the journalist Charles E. Hands in the London Daily Mail describing female activists working for women's suffrage, in particular members of the WSPU. The latter, however, embraced the term and used it to distinguish their own, radical and militant approach from that of more staid and law-abiding "suffragist" organisations such as the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.
Martial arts instructor Edith Garrud believed the term "Ju-Jutsuffragettes" originated from Health & Strength Magazine prior to 1910.
The term 'Suffrajitsu' was coined by an anonymous English journalist in a widely republished article first issued in March 1914 and has subsequently been re-popularised by the Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons graphic novel series (2015).
Style of engagement and contemporary influence Suffrajitsu drew upon the techniques of the Japanese jujutsu teachers in London during the Edwardian period. Women in particular were seen as ideal to engage in Jujitsu, as their smaller on average builds allowed them an advantage in allowing their opponent to underestimate them based on their being the 'fairer/weaker' sex and then using their jujitsu to topple larger opponents.
Outside of the training suffragettes received related to ju-jitsu, weapons were also frequently taken into account by their practicality, to prevent attack on their persons, both domestically and by the police. Members of the WSPU Bodyguard (see below) were issued with Indian clubs for use as weapons. Women learned to defend themselves with everyday items of clothing such as the hatpin, used by Edwardian women to hold their large hats in place which could at times reach up to 16 inches in length, either to disarm or maim. Flora Drummond, known as 'The General' for wearing a military style uniform, Helen Ogston, Teresa Billington-Greig and Maud Arncliffe Sennett were each known to carry around whips, to intimidate opponents. At the Battle of Glasgow (1914), suffragettes engaged with police by deploying hidden barbed wire as a stalling tactic.
History Ju-jitsu was first demonstrated in London in 1892 by Tetsujiro Shidachi and later promoted in England by the Bartitsu founder and practitioner Edward Barton-Wright, who introduced Asian martial arts to the middle-classes between 1899 and 1902. Unusually for Edwardian-era "antagonistics" (combat sports) clubs, lessons at the Bartitsu Club were available to women as well as men.
In the interest of women practitioners and writing in the Daily Mirror in 1903, Evelyn Sharp called for 'women [to] take the special ladies classes offered by (former Bartitsu Club instructor Sadakazu) Uyenishi in Golden Square'. The specific classes being offered taught by Emily Diana Watts; who herself learnt from training at the Oxford Street dojo of Uyenishi's former associate Yukio Tani, along with other 'lady instructors' like Phoebe Roberts (1887–1937) who also taught Judo alongside Uyenishi by December 1904 at the Golden Square school. Uyenishi, remarking on woman learning ju-jitsu, was quoted as noting that "Balance and quickness will always win, and women are always quick."The War in the Far East, The Times, 12 May 1904, p. 9 Coupled with the heightened position of Japan as a nation state after the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the victory over Russia in 1905 based partly on the word of the Japanese army claiming Judo was their secret weapon and hyperbolic claims of jujutsu teachers and sportswriters, there was an inclination in Edwardian English society to learn about 'jiu-jitsu', and the art was taught to young women at Girton College and Newnham College.Twentieth-Century: The Cases of Phoebe Roberts, Edith Garrud, and Sarah Mayer, Mike Callan, Conor Heffernan, Amanda Spenn, The International Journal of the History of Sport, Volume 35, Issue 6: New Historical Work on Women and Gender, 2018, pp. 530–553
By 1905 Watts began teaching self-defence lessons to other high society women such as Duchess Bedford and by 1906 began teaching Jujitsu classes at the Princes Skating Club, Knightsbridge, also publishing The Fine Art of Jujutsu. Other female students of this style included Marie Studholme who trained under Tani in 1907. Ju-jitsu parties became all the rage, instructing upper and middle class in the art of self-defence in their homes, or at afternoon tea.
In 1908, Edith Garrud took over women's classes at the Golden Square School when Uyenishi left England. Garrud also founded the 'Suffragettes Self-Defence Club' in 1909, a suffragettes-only Jujutsu club, which from 1911 moved to the Palladium Academy, in Argyll Street.
The requirement for suffragette self-defence was reinforced by events such as the Black Friday Raid, wherein plain clothes police officers had allegedly physically and sexually assaulted unarmed women attempting to force entry to the House of Commons during a "Raid on Parliament" protest action.
Even after the dissolution of the more violent tactics used by the WSPU in 1914, in 1918 when Christabel Pankhurst was running for office for the Smethwick seat at the General Election, her supporters used jujutsu to deter protestors rallying against her running for the seat.Christabel Pankhurst and the Smethwick Election: Right-Wing Feminism, the Great War and the Ideology of Consumption, Nicoletta F. Gullace, Women's History Review, 23, No.3, June 2014, p. 336 With the founding of the Budokwai in 1918, Jujitsu and Judo began to attain non-political and international followings and were increasingly taught once again primarily as sport or for self-defence. The first female practitioner, Katherine White-Cooper, entering the Budokwai in April 1919.
Recreational activity or 'The Soft-Art'
Jujitsu was promoted as a way not only to help defend women but to for their mental and physical health and well-being. The suffragette movement (like the feminist movement to other contact and non-violent sport later onSee Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women's Self-Defense, Martha McCaughey, 1997 and Barbara Deming, Revolution and Equilibrium, 1971) promoted its recreational usage; The 1908 board game Suffragetto introduced a then-highly political topic into the domestic sphere, framing and engaging the issue in a more positive light for a wider audience. In this manner, self-defence could be marketed as a sport, hobby or entertainment rather than being pejoratively labelled by the wider society as an aggressive or niche activity for women. Performers and publicists like the strongman Eugen Sandow, promoted Jujitsu for women in his magazine on physical culture as a form of 'rational exercise' which supported 'feminine grace'.The Perfect Man: The Muscular Life and Times of Eugen Sandow, Victorian Strongman, David Waller, 2011, p. 132 Given a heightened interest in national health due to a national report revealing health issues in the United Kingdom, it was also in the national interest to increase public participation in sport. Indeed, in 1913 Edith Garrud's dojo was used as a base for militant suffragettes fleeing from pursuing policemen; hiding their protest implements and changing into jujitsu uniforms gave them the veneer of respectable sportswomen.
Promotion through the arts One way of promoting jiu-jitsu to the public was through theatre productions incorporating the style, with female participants performing and demonstrating the style's particular benefits when 'a light slim girl ... was able to throw heavy male opponents with the utmost ease.' In 1904, Roberts and Watts performed with Tani and Uyenishi at Caxton Hall to promote the style, in the guise of stage entertainment, Roberts later performing for the Japan Society in 1906 at the Kew, Regents Park and in 1908 at the Palace Theatre, Manchester. Roberts eventually toured Barcelona demonstrating Jujitsu for female audiences.
Garrud demonstrated Jujitsu for the WSPU in 1909, and in January 1911 choreographed the fight scenes for the play What Every Woman Ought to Know. In August Garrud wrote about using jiu-jitsu as a form of self-defence in Health and Strength magazine.
"ju-jutsu has over and over again been proved to be the most effective means, ... because it is easy to learn, and because it is, quite apart from its combative value, a splendid exercise; it is the very thing for women as well as men to take up thoroughly." — Edith Garrud, July 23, 1910
Filmography + Title Company Year Jiu-jitsu Downs the Footpads Pathé 1907 – in which a woman played by jujutsu instructor Edith Garrud is pursued by two "ruffians" and ultimately defeats both of them with her martial arts skills Charley Smiler Takes Up Ju-jitsu Pathé 1911 – features a sequence in which the protagonist is defeated by "Miss U.I. Throwe" in a jujutsu match, after which she hands him a calling card reading "Votes for Women!"
Militancy in WSPU and The Bodyguard Jujitsu was initially demonstrated and promoted as a style of self-defence, but after the death of women like Mary Jane Clarke and the Conciliation Bills fiasco, the WSPU began to employ more militant forms of protest such as midnight raids on parliamentarians homes as well as nationwide arson and bombing campaigns, albeit the latter two categories of action were only carried out against unoccupied properties.
In response to the 'Cat and Mouse Act' (the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act 1913), the WSPU formed what was termed variously the 'Bodyguard', 'Jiujitsusuffragettes' or 'Amazons'; a group of about 30 suffragettes tasked with protecting suffragettes who had been released from hunger striking in prison from being re-arrested. In order to be eligible to serve with the Bodyguard, women had to be in good physical condition, trained in self-defence and willing to risk their safety and freedom in service of their cause. The organisation engaged Edith Garrud to teach them how to prevent bodily harm against themselves from the police.
Active members of the Bodyguard employed hand-to-hand combat when necessary to protect their charges, but by preference employed techniques of distraction, evasion and misdirection in collaboration with the large, semi-underground network of WSPU sympathisers.
The Bodyguards' most well known hand-to-hand combats engagements with police officers were the "Battle of Glasgow" on 9 March 1914, during which about 30 Bodyguards battled a much larger contingent of police constables and detectives on the stage of St. Andrew's Hall before a shocked audience of some 4500 people, and during their "Raid on Buckingham Palace" on 24 May 1914, when club-wielding suffragette Bodyguards fought police in the streets while attempting to access Buckingham Palace and present a suffrage petition to King George.
The Bodyguard group was disbanded shortly after England declared war against Germany at the outset of the First World War, because the WSPU no longer required protection when they discontinued their militant activism and instead turned to supporting the war efforts.