Black Friday was a suffragette demonstration in London on 18November 1910, in which 300 women marched to the Houses of Parliament as part of their campaign to secure voting rights for women. The day earned its name from the violence meted out to protesters, some of it sexual, by the Metropolitan Police and male bystanders.
During the January 1910 general election campaign, H. H. Asquith—the Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party—promised to introduce a Conciliation Bill to allow a measure of women's suffrage in national elections. When he was returned to power, a committee made up of pro-women's suffrage MPs from several political parties was formed; they proposed legislation that would have added a million women to the franchise. The suffrage movement supported the legislation. Although MPs backed the bill and passed its first and second readings, Asquith refused to grant it further parliamentary time. On 18November 1910, following a breakdown in relations between the House of Commons and House of Lords over that year's budget, Asquith called another general election and said that parliament would be dissolved on 28November.
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) saw the move as a betrayal and organised a protest march to parliament from Caxton Hall in Westminster. Lines of police and crowds of male bystanders met three hundred female protestors outside the Houses of Parliament; the women were attacked for the next six hours. Many women complained about the sexual nature of the assaults, which included having their breasts twisted and pinched. Police arrested four men and 115 women, although the following day all charges were dropped. The conciliation committee were angered by the accounts, and undertook interviews with 135 demonstrators, nearly all of whom described acts of violence against the women; 29 of the statements included details of sexual assault. Calls for a public inquiry were rejected by Winston Churchill, then Home Secretary.
The violence may have caused the subsequent deaths of two suffragettes. The demonstration led to a change in approach: many members of the WSPU were unwilling to risk similar violence, so they resumed their previous forms of direct action—such as stone-throwing and window-breaking—which afforded time to escape. The police also changed their tactics; during future demonstrations they tried not to arrest too soon or too late.
Background Women's Social and Political Union
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was formed in 1903 by the political activist Emmeline Pankhurst. From around 1905—following the failure of a private member's bill to introduce the vote for women—the organisation increasingly began to use militant direct action to campaign for women's suffrage. According to the historian Caroline Morrell, from 1905 "The basic pattern of WSPU activities over the next few years had been established—pre-planned militant tactics, imprisonment claimed as martyrdom, publicity and increased membership and funds."
From 1906 WSPU members adopted the name suffragettes, to differentiate from the suffragists of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, who employed constitutional methods in their campaign for the vote. From 1907 WSPU demonstrations faced increasing police violence. Sylvia Pankhurst—the daughter of Emmeline and a member of the WSPU—described a demonstration in which she took part in February that year:
Parliament was guarded by an army of police to prevent the women approaching its sacred precincts. The constables had their orders to drive them away, making as few arrests as possible. Mounted men scattered the marchers; foot police seized them by the back of the neck and rushed them along at arm's length, thumping them in the back, and bumping them with their knees in approved police fashion. ... Those who took refuge in doorways were dragged down the steps and hurled in front of the horses, then pounced upon by constables and beaten again. ... As night advanced the violence grew. Finally fifty-four women and two men had been arrested.
After one demonstration in June 1908 in which "roughs appeared, organised gangs, who treated the women with every type of indignity", Sylvia Pankhurst complained that "the ill-usage by the police and the roughs was greater than we had hitherto experienced". During a demonstration in June 1909 a deputation tried to force a meeting with H. H. Asquith, the Prime Minister; 3,000 police provided tight security to prevent the women from entering parliament, arresting 108 women and 14 men. Following the police violence used on that occasion, the WSPU began to shift to a strategy of breaking windows rather than attempting to rush into parliament. Sylvia Pankhurst wrote that "Since we must go to prison to obtain the vote, let it be the windows of the Government, not the bodies of women which shall be broken, was the argument".
At a demonstration in October 1909—at which the WSPU again attempted to rush into parliament—ten demonstrators were taken to hospital. The suffragettes did not complain about the rising level of police violence. Constance Lytton wrote that "the word went round that we were to conceal as best we might, our various injuries. It was no part of our policy to get the police into trouble.", quoted in The level of violence in suffragette action increased throughout 1909: bricks were thrown at the windows of Liberal Party meetings; Asquith was attacked while leaving church; and roof tiles were thrown at police when another political rally was interrupted. Public opinion turned against the tactics and, according to Morrell, the government capitalised on the shifting public feeling to introduce stronger measures. Thus, in October 1909, Herbert Gladstone, the Home Secretary, instructed that all prisoners on hunger strike should be force fed.
Political situation
The Liberal government formed in 1905 was a reforming one which introduced legislation to combat poverty, deal with unemployment and establish pensions. The Conservative Party-dominated House of Lords impeded much of the legislation. In 1909 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, introduced the so-called People's Budget, which had the expressed intent of redistributing wealth amongst the population. This budget was passed by the House of Commons, but rejected by the Lords. As a result, on 3 December 1909, Asquith called a general election for the new year to obtain a fresh mandate for the legislation. As part of the campaigning for the January 1910 election, Asquith—a known anti-suffragist—announced that should he be re-elected, he would introduce a Conciliation Bill to introduce a measure of female suffrage. The proposal was dismissed by suffrage campaigners as being unlikely to materialise. The election produced a hung parliament, with the Liberals' majority eliminated; although they won the largest number of seats, they returned only two more MPs than the Conservative Party. Asquith retained power after he was able to form a government with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party.
On 31 January 1910, in response to Asquith's statement, Pankhurst announced that the WSPU would pause all militant activity and focus on constitutional activities only. For six months the suffrage movement went into a propaganda drive, organising marches and meetings, and local councils passed resolutions supporting the bill. When the new Parliament convened, a cross-party conciliation committee of pro-women's suffrage MPs was formed under the chairmanship of Lord Lytton, the brother of Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton. They proposed legislation that would have enfranchised female householders and those women that occupied a business premises; the bill was based on existing franchise laws for local government elections, under which some women had been able to vote since 1870. The measure would have added approximately a million women to the franchise; it was kept to a relatively small number to make the bill as acceptable as possible to MPs, mostly Conservatives. Although the WSPU thought the scope of the bill too narrow—it excluded women lodgers and most wives and working-class women—they accepted it as an important step.
The Conciliation Bill was introduced into Parliament as a private members bill on 14June 1910. The question of women's suffrage was divisive within Cabinet, and the bill was discussed at three separate meetings. At a Cabinet meeting on 23June, Asquith stated that he would allow it to pass to the second reading stage, but no further parliamentary time would be allocated to it and it would therefore fail. Nearly 200 MPs signed a memorandum to Asquith asking for additional parliamentary time to debate the legislation, but he refused. The bill received its second reading on 11 and 12 July, which it passed 299 to 189. Both Churchill and Lloyd George voted against the measure; Churchill called it "anti-democratic". At the end of the month Parliament was prorogued until November. The WSPU decided to wait until Parliament reconvened before they decided if they were to return to militant action. They further decided that if no additional parliamentary time was given over to the Conciliation Bill, Christabel Pankhurst would lead a delegation to Parliament, demand the bill be made law, and refuse to leave until that was carried out. On 12 November the Liberal Party politician Sir Edward Grey announced that there would be no further parliamentary time given to the conciliation legislation that year. The WSPU announced that in protest they would undertake a militant demonstration to Parliament when it reconvened on 18November.
18 November
On 18 November 1910, in an attempt to resolve the parliamentary impasse arising from the House of Lords veto on Commons legislation, Asquith called a general election, and said that parliament would be dissolved on 28 November; all remaining time was to be given over to official government business. He did not refer to the Conciliation Bill. At noon on the same day the WSPU held a rally at Caxton Hall, Westminster. The event had been widely publicised, and the national press were prepared for the expected demonstration later in the day. From Caxton Hall, approximately 300 members—divided into groups of ten to twelve by the WSPU organiser Flora Drummond—marched to parliament to petition Asquith directly. The deputation was led by Emmeline Pankhurst. The delegates in the lead group included Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson, Hertha Ayrton and Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. The first group arrived at St Stephen's entrance at 1:20 pm. They were taken to Asquith's office where his private secretary informed them that the prime minister refused to see them. They were escorted back to St Stephen's entrance, where they were left to watch the demonstration.
Previous demonstrations at the Houses of Parliament had been policed by the local ADivision, who understood the nature of the demonstrations and had managed to overcome the WSPU tactics without undue levels of violence. Sylvia Pankhurst wrote that "During our conflicts with the ADivision they have gradually come to know us, and to understand our aims and objects, and for this reason, whilst obeying their orders, they came to treat the women, as far as possible, with courtesy and consideration". On the day of the demonstration, police had been drafted in from Whitechapel and the East End; these men were inexperienced in policing suffragettes. Sophia van Wingerden, in her history of the women's suffrage movement, writes that "the differing accounts of the event of that day make it difficult to determine the truth about what happened"; Morrell similarly observes that the government, the press and the demonstrators all provide markedly different accounts.