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131 Chapter 4 Paying the Price Militancy, Prison, and Violence Knowing that she would shortly be heading to gaol (jail), Emily Davison made her will on October 20, 1909, the same day she was arrested in Radcliffe, near Manchester, for breaking windows in protest against the exclusion of women from a public meeting being held by Sir Walter Runciman.1 Not knowing what might happen to them in prison, many suffragettes wrote their wills when they expected to have to serve time in prison. Davison’s will is formulaic , short, and to the point: if she were to die she left all her “personal property and money” to her mother. As it turned out, she was convicted and sentenced to two months hard labor in Strangeways Gaol, a minatory sentence seemingly out of proportion to the offence she committed, and likely intended to be a warning to other suffragettes. Davison endured many imprisonments, but the term she served in the fall of 1909 and the six months she served in the spring of 1912 became celebrated cases in which she accused agents of the Government—­ and, by extension members, of the Cabinet—­ of gratuitous cruelty and torture. Publicized, debated in Parliament, the details of the two imprisonments raised questions then, as they do today, about disproportionate and punitive sentences and about the status of the politically powerless at the mercy of the full power of the state. In particular the two cases highlight how women, overwhelmed by what Davison referred to as “brute force,” turned food into a strategic weapon. The use of voluntary starvation as a tactic to expose the ruthless1 . One of the witnesses of her will was Helen Gordon Liddle, also arrested with Davison on the same charge; the other, Jane Ratcliffe, was treasurer of the Manchester branch of the WSPU. 132 In the Thick of the Fight ness of their opponents testifies to both their bravery and the government’s intransigence.2 The crime and the two imprisonments described in this chapter center in struggle between the militant weapon of the hunger strike and the government weapon of forcible feeding by means of nasal and oral tubes inserted violently, painfully, and against the will of the women subjected to a deliberate form of torture masked as concern for their health. The stories are narrated by Davison and her contemporaries. Taken together, the documents display the complex dynamics of the ultimate form of suffragette protests—­ bodies on the line, the doctrine of no surrender, willingness to submit to the court and prison system in order to use them to suffrage ends, and a reliance on the press to bring it all to the attention to the British public. Although she is the center of all the events she describes, Emily Davison writes with a sense of distance and a lack of emotion, which may be a conscious choice in order to emphasize her steadfast determination to endure whatever she must suffer. From time to time her sense of humor inflects the narratives, even at the most dramatic moments. She explains her choices as formed with an expectation that “the sacrifice we have all agreed will probably be demanded” is at hand. Prisons and Protests 1. “The Outrage in Strangeways Gaol,” Votes for Women, November 5, 1909 Miss Davison Released After the Use of the Hose-­ pipe The authorities at Manchester have gone one step too far in their efforts to break down the invincible determination of the Suffragette prisoners. As we 2. Suffragettes were injured and some died years before Emily Davison’s death. Mary Pilsbury , who was forcibly fed, died by suicide in early 1910 (Hansard, HC Debate, April 19, 1910, vol. 16), after her release from prison. The death of Mary Clarke, sister to Emmeline Pankhurst, was reported in Votes for Women on January 13, 1911. She died on Christmas Day 1910, a result of injuries received on Black Friday. Henria Williams, a member of the deputation to Parliament on Black Friday was injured on that occasion, was treated, but never recovered and died two months later. On January 5, 1912, the death of Celia Wolsely Haig was reported in the same paper, “after a year’s painful illness brought on in consequence of the terrible treatment to which she was subjected on Black Friday. On April 19, 1912, Votes for Women reported that Mr. William Ball, a male suffragist, was “reduced to insanity after over five weeks’ forcible feeding in Pentonville Gaol . . .” [18.223...

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