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Biography of Mrs. Pethick Lawrence

Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence is known in many countries as a Feminist who played a leading part in the world-wide Suffrage Campaign before the War.

She often says she was born to take part in the great Movement of Thought, which in her life time has entirely transformed the Status of women in every sphere of life. At any rate she remembers that as a very young child, slighting references to women made carelessly, aroused in her a burning protest, and a desire to become their champion. This desire found outlet first in Social Service, including the founding (with Miss Mary Neal) of Maison Espérance—a Business for working girls with the 8 hours day—a minimum wage, and the many activities associated with it.

In the ear 1905 came the clarion call of the Militanti† Suffrage Movement. In 1906 Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence became Treasurer for the Campaign and during the next 6 years there was raised in one organisation, a fund of a Quarter of Millions {1} sterling.

Together with her husband she started the first Militant Suffrage Paper Votes for Women, which they carried on as co-Editors.

In 1908 she was arrested for attempting to speak in the Lobby of the House of Commons, after the refusal of the Government to receive a Deputation of Women (that had come to put their case) had been announced to them by the Police. Subsequently she was arrested twice for leading a Deputation to Parliament, and once under the old Conspiracy laws. In the latter case she was sentenced to 9 months and placed in the 1st division. The majority of her fellow suffragists in prison were not accorded the same treatment as political prisoners. They protested by the Hunger Strike, and she made common cause with them, was forcibly fed and subsequently released, having served five weeks of the 9 months sentence.

In the Autumn of 1914 a cable summoned her to New York to address a vast Suffrage Meeting in the Carnegie Hall. On that occasion she helped to inaugurate the campaign which two years later led to the political enfranchisement of the women of the State. Further she called up {2} the Women of America (this the greatest of the neutral Powers) not to become obsessed by the War spirit but to combine their allegiance to the principle of arbitration and to work for a real settlement rather than a fight to the finish. She travelled from the East to the West of America, speaking everywhere of the Solidarity of women as the Mothers of the human race and therefore the {3} natural Peacemakers. As a result of her campaign the Women[’]s Peace Party (afterwards the American Section of the Women’s International League) was formed {4} with Jane Addams as its president, and the two women sailed with fifty American delegates to take part in an International Conference of Women held at the Hague in April 1915. It will be remembered that this Congress representing 16 nations was unanimous in urging a Peace by Negotiation, and that a delegation appointed at the Hague was received by several Chancellors in Europe, by the President of the Swiss Republic and by the United States; it was also received by the Pope. On behalf of the women of the world this delegation pleaded for a continuous Council of Mediation and Reconciliation to be formed by the Neutral States, in order to conduct negotiations between the warring Powers, and if possible secure an understanding and a[n] agreement which would avoid a fight to the finish and its consequent devastation of the whole of Europe.

Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence has continued up to the present moment to work towards the Removal of all legal Restrictions upon the equality and freedom of the sexes, also towards and for the practical realization of the solidarity of the Human race (rooted in the Solidarity of women of all races as political {5} Mothers) which demands the abolition of Poverty and War.

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Carbon copy of a typed original, corrected by hand. ‘? About 1920’ has been added by hand at the top of the first sheet. A few mistypings which are not easy to represent in print or describe briefly have been corrected, as noted below.

{1} ‘of Millions’ mistyped.

{2} Perhaps a slip for ‘upon’.

{3} Mistyped.

{4} Altered from, or to, ‘founded’.

{5} Altered from ‘potential’.

† Sic.

Commends her address on Jane Addams, particularly her avoidance of words of Christian consolation.

(Marked ‘Copy’, but probably a draft.)

24 Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead, N.W.3.—Thanks him for his letter (see 3/179). She had kept in mind the fact that Jane Addams did not call herself a Christian.

(Carbon copy, with handwritten corrections. This note was prepared in connection with a broadcast in Australia.)

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Transcript

Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence is well known all the world over as an ardent champion of liberty and as an opponent of war and all other antagonisms of race, class, or sex which threaten the freedom of the human spirit.

One of her earliest recollections is of the great fight which her father put up in Weston-super-Mare for the right of free speech over a Salvation Army case; and his ultimate victory [in the Beatty v Gilbanks judgment] {1} establishing an important tradition of liberty made her very proud to be his daughter.

When she was only eight years old she fought her own first battle for democracy. At her school a barbarous and antiquated rule forbade the pupils to speak to the domestic servants in the house. Emmeline Pethick broke this rule and was “sent to Coventry” for a whole week as a punishment. On another occasion, when one of the head mistresses was relating to the girls with great approval an assault made with rotten eggs upon the late Henry Bradlaugh, she horrified the school by protesting in the presence of the lady and before them all that Bradlaugh’s atheism was preferable to the kind of Christianity that resorted to such cowardly persecution.

In her teens her spirit was fired to a sense of injustice by the reading of many books such as “Adam Bede”, Goethe’s “Faust”, {2} and “The Story of a South African Farm”.—Later in life Olive Schreiner the author of the latter was to become one of her intimate friends.

Determined to do her part she enlisted as a “Sister” in Mrs. Prior Hughes’ West London Mission. In these {3} days the working girls of London had no holiday at all during the year except Sundays and bank holidays. “Sister Emmeline” personally visited a number of employers and persuaded them not to sack their girls if they absented themselves for a week in the summer. Of course they got no wages but Sister Emmeline herself took them away into the country.

Later she and another sister founded the Espérance Working Girls Club which became famous through introducing the old Morris Dances into every county of England.

It was during a performance by the Esperance Club that she first met her future husband, and their common Cornish heritage at once drew them together. The guests at the wedding included the old women of St. Pancras Workhouse, the members of the Canning Town Men’s Club, and Mr. Lloyd George then known mainly as an opponent of the Boer War. After marriage they decided to unite their two surnames of Pethick and Lawrence and for a time their interests were absorbed in the London Evening paper of which Mr. Lawrence was the editor.

But it was not long before the militant suffrage movement with its insistent challenge to Authority was to claim all their attention. The name of Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence coupled with those of Mrs. Pankhurst and “Christabel” was on everybody’s lips. Six times she faced arrest and imprisonment, once going through the hunger strike and being forcibly fed. As Treasurer of the W.S.P.U. (Women’s Social and Political Union) her speeches at the Royal Albert Hall, London, were famous and her success was demonstrated by the gathering of no less than a quarter of a million pounds for the movement.

She and her husband edited the weekly newspaper “Votes for Women” which rapidly attained a large circulation. It chronicled at one time two hundred meetings a week on behalf of the organisation & reported that at a demonstration in Hyde Park the audience had been estimated by the Times newspaper in the neighbourhood of half a million.

On one occasion when Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence was announced to take the chair at a meeting from which it was intended that women should start a march to the House of Commons, a body of students broke into the hall for the express purpose of preventing the meeting. Mrs. Lawrence came in and mounted the platform and addressed the students. She told them that as men who had already secure[d] the rights that women were struggling for she was confident that their sense of fair play would not allow them to stand between women and their freedom, and she called upon them one by one to withdraw. So great was the power of her personality that they went out row by row and the meeting took place as originally arranged.

On another occasion addressing the jury in a law court she explained and defended the militant methods of the suffragettes in the following words:—“This great movement is, as you heard counsel for the plaintiff say, gathering momentum every day like a great flood. Now, when a tide is dammed back it overflows, and inevitable destruction is wrought. But men do not argue with a flood; they do not put the responsibility on the flood; they put the responsibility upon, and they argue with, those who have dammed back the stream and prevented it from flowing in its ordinary channel.”

“The Story of the progress of the human race is the story of the birth of great moral ideas, new ideas that have pushed their way into the common life, either by the process of evolution or by the process of revolution. Evolution is the natural and the right process, but there have been occasions in history, as you know very well, where the process of evolution has been obstructed by those who held the sceptre or rule. That is the position at the present moment.” Mr. Justice Darling who tried the case said at the opening of his summing up that hers was the “most eloquent speech he had ever heard in that Court”.

During the years of the great war Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence used all her powers as a speaker and writer to urge upon her countryment the need for securing a Peace by negotiation and reconciliation rather than one dictated by victories on the field of battle.

Summoned to the U.S.A. in the Autumn of 1914 to address a vast suffrage meeting in the Carnegie Hall (inaugurating the campaign which two years later led to the adoption of the women’s vote throughout the whole of the United States), she made a tour of that country speaking both on questions of peace and of women’s disabilities. Largely as a result of her campaign the American section of the Women’s International League was formed with Jane Addams as its President; and the two women sailed with fifty American delegates to take part in the International Conference of Women held at the Hague in April, 1915.

Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence strongly disapproved and protested against the terms of the Versailles treaty which she clearly foresaw contained the germs of future trouble in Europe. After the war was over she travelled over the Continent and was the first English person to address meetings in the principal cities of Austria. She also spoke in the Reichstag in an international conference.

Many parts of the British Empire have secured visits from her. In Canada, India, and South Africa she has held many public meetings. On more than one occasion she has hoped to come to Australia to return the visit of Miss Vida Goldstein, but so far circumstances have always intervened to prevent her.

During recent years she has continued to urge the claims of peace and disarmament and to champion the right of the married women to the choice of her own nationality and the character of her employment. In all her activities Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence has had the active support of her husband who was Financial Secretary to the Treasury in the late Government in England.

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At the top of the first sheet is written the file number ‘2069’ and the following note: ‘Compiled by F.W.P.L August 1934 & sent to Mrs Littlejohn in Australia for a Broadcast in Sydney.’

{1} The square brackets were added in pencil.

{2} Closing inverted commas supplied.

{3} This should probably read ‘those’.

(Typed, with handwritten corrections.)

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Transcript

Biography of Mrs. Pethick Lawrence.

Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence is well known all over the world as a feminist who played a leading part in the world wide Woman Suffrage Campaign before the war She is also known as an internationalist who during the four years of the great war brought all the influence she possesses as a public speaker upon the people of her own country and upon the people in America to work for a Peace by negotiation and reconciliation, rather than a Peace dictated by the victorious armies.

In the Autumn of 1914, a cable summoned her to New York to address a vast suffrage meeting at the Carnegie Hall. On that occasion she helped to inaugurate the campaign which two years later led to the political enfranchisement of the women of that State. As a result of her campaign the American section of the Women’s International League was formed at Washington in January 1915, with Jane Addams as its President, and the two women sailed with fifty American women delegates to take part in an International Conference of Women held at the Hague in April 1915.

At the Conference of the Women’s International League in Zurich in May 1919, she registered her vigorous protest against the terms of the Versailles Treaty which had been published a few hours before the meeting was held.

In June 1920, Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence represented her country in an International Peace meeting in the German Reichstag in Berlin. She also spoke in the Mozarteum Great Hall in Salzburg, in the Town Hall, Vienna and in other towns on the “Women’s International League and Constructive Peace”.

She has since visited America twice and has been once to South Africa where she took part in the celebrations that welcomed the granting of woman suffrage in South Africa, the last dominion in the British Commonwealth to enfranchise its women. Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence is President of the Women’s Freedom League and vice-President of the Women’s International League, British Section,

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‘Revised March 1933’ has been written at the top of the first sheet, together with the file number ‘2069’.

Women’s Cosmopolitan Club, 133 East 40th Street (New York).—Has been writing articles, giving interviews, and discussing her ‘War and Women Campaign’. Refers to forthcoming engagements. Christabel Pankhurst is lying low.

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Transcript

Women’s Cosmopolitan Club, 133 East 40th Street
Nov. 3

Dearest. Just a line to say that I am very well & very busy. This morning I am writing articles for “Harpers”, & for The Survey. And giving material to reporters & interviewees also. One wants a day 36 hours long.

The weather is lovely—friends are delightful. Interests are many & there are vistas of work that could be done. One thing leads to another. Even yet I have no cut & dried plan. {1} Feakins is out of town for days & only makes flying visits to New York. He has rather broken down over my arrangements, but not I think through his own fault. In the meantime he ties me up from answering my own invitations from Suffrage Societies—& going ahead with my own programme.

But I am so busy here that I dont much care. I am seeing people every day & talking my War & Women Campaign & a new kind of organization is getting itself born. Lots of people—men & women quite outside Suffrage Movement are getting very keen.

But of course new things take time & have to encounter obstacles & difficulties. I speak in Boston. Nov. 8. Washington Nov. 15. Have several unfixed invitations & am going to Hull House to stay with Miss Addams. {1} I expect great things from that. I feel absolutely uncertain as to time of my return. If War & Women Campaign is still-born, I should like to fulfil my engagements which (including invitations not yet accepted) {2} would take me up to about Dec 8th & get home for Christmas—but if that new organization passes successfully through the various stages of its initiation then I should like to stay on into the New Year.

Unless you want me to come home, I should like to settle down to this piece of real constructive work. Of course I wouldn’t dream of staying, if it were merely to enjoy myself & have a good time. At any moment of course, the idea may be turned down as impracticable & then I should get a boat straight away & cable to you that I was on my way home. But the knowledge that you can join me whenever you want to, makes me feel that it is all right to go cautiously ahead, & seize any opportunity that may present itself of getting a few constructive ideas launched upon the world if I can.

I am sending you the Century with Miss Doty’s article. {1} You might pass it round. {1} Dorothy especially would be interested as she knows Miss Doty. I am sending a separate copy to Con Lytton. Susan is writing an article on the Police Courts for V.f.W. C. P. is still here in New York lying very low. “Waiting till Mrs P. L is gone” they say. She doesnt come across my path the very least. In great haste

With lots of love. Ever yours
Patz

Sent off circular letter yesterday about morning in Children’s Court.

[Added at the head:] Going to dinner with Mr & Mrs Wells tomorrow night. (E. Robin’s) {3} friends

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{1} Full stop supplied.

{2} ‘including … accepted’ interlined; brackets supplied.

{3} Closing bracket supplied.

† Sic.

Women’s Cosmopolitan Club, 133 East 40th Street (New York).—Sends news of her activities in the United States.

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Transcript

Circular letter.

Women’s Cosmopolitan Club, 133 East 40th Street

Nov. 2.

Well! Since I landed at New York on Monday a week ago, I have not had a dull minute. I’ve really been thrilled all the time. So far, I have not begun to sort up my impressions at all—I am much too taken up with receiving them.

This morning I was invited to attend the Children’s Court. {1} Judge Hoyt is the permanent Acting Judge in this Court. He is the grandson of Chase, {2} who was a Member of Lincoln’s Cabinet, a man, thirty-five years of age—Conservative in politics but in this matter of reform an enthusiast. He has been educated to his present position by Miss Doty a solicitor & barrister who at present holds an official position as one of the Prison Commissioners. Arriving at the Court, seats were placed for us beside Judge Hoyt who explained the cases to us & handed us the wonderful dossiers supplied with each little offender—giving all details as to parents, character of home, school-record—health record—standard of living & every conceivable fact to be ascertained with regard to the child, his conditions & surroundings.

The Judge has a personal talk to each child brought before him & encourages the child to talk to him & to confess his fault. {1} If confessed, he can deal with the matter without any formality. If the offence is denied, the procedure of a trial with witnesses has to be gone through—but it is very informal—the group stands right in front of the Judge—face to face—& there are no police to be seen, unless it is the officer who has arrested the culprit, then he comes up to give his evidence like anybody else & goes away again as soon as his witness is ended. The Parents of the child stand just within call—and the Probation Officers who have first won the confidence of the children, stand beside them to encourage them or to confer with the Judge.

There are 26 Probation Officers attached to the Court, besides missionaries of very denomination—there is also a Guild of “Big Brothers” which the Judge himself has founded—each Big Brother taking voluntary friendly charge of some wayward little brother & trying to pull him through the critical period of his life.

Every child is put under probation for a certain number of months, only in very hopeless cases is he (or she) sent to a Reformatory—as the Judge holds that almost any sort of a home is better for a child than a semi penal institution. The parents are visited & helped by sympathy & advice. About 10,000 children pass through this Court per annum & the greater percentage of these turn out well under the system. A new Children’s Court is now being built—here the Judge’s bench is begin done away with entirely, & he will see every case alone—in conference with probation officers, parents etc. Waiting rooms are large airy & comfortable & a special waiting room is set aside for Mothers with babies. We saw 7 cases dealt with in an hour & a half. Most of these were remanded—or were being dealt with at a a second or third hearing after being thoroughly investigated in the meanwhile.

In one case a little boy was arrested by the police intolerantly & in an ill judged way. The small boy gave his version of the story to the Judge, obviously sincerely & truthfully, & his word was taken & the boy was discharged quite kindly & left the Court. Judge Hoyt is very proud of the record of the Court for the last four years. Speaking to Miss Doty he said. We have done this thing between us. “You educated me & I have educated the Court.” {1}

He would like to have Miss Doty as Assistant Judge to deal especially with the girls. But that would need a Bill being passed in the Legislature, as Women Judges are not yet admitted into the scheme in New York State. There is some hope of such a Bill being passed before very long.

We returned to lunch with Miss Doty & had a most thrilling talk. Before taking up the duties of Prison Commissioner—Miss Doty went to prison for a week as an ordinary criminal. No one knew of her identity except the Head Commissioner who sent her to Sing Sing Prison under the escort of two police officers. Some of her stories of prisoners were simply wonderful. One about a man who was executed for a murder, (in her opinion the man was innocent of the charge) was the most touching I ever heard. They made a compact together to use his story to help save “the kids” & he was writing this story for her up to the very moment that he was taken from his cell for execution. Many other stories she told us till we had to tear ourselves away to keep the next appointment. Tomorrow is the anniversary of her voluntary imprisonment & she is dining with us & we are going together afterwards to the Night Courts, to see how New York attempts to deal with its women prostitutes.

Subsequently today I had an interview with Miss Mullholland who is trying to get a Bill introduced in the Legislature to alter the law that deprives American women of citizenship upon their marriage with aliens. This she thinks will be taken up & passed owing to the women’s votes in the Western States.

Tomorrow the Elections will take place & we shall know how many more Suffrage States are to be added to the record.

This letter only deals with a few hours out of one day. And every day is full.

My own work is going on all the time too. And when I am not listening & learning—I am talking & laying down the law!

I am going to Boston, Washington & Chicago shortly. At the latter place we are invited to stay with Miss Jane Addams at Hull House.

Now I must go. Love & greeting to the circle of dear friends at home.

Emmeline Pethick Lawrence

Yesterday was a typical day. Here is my Diary—

10. a.m. Interview—Mrs Chapman Catt
1.30 Luncheon[.] Miss Lewisohn & friends.
4.0 Tea. Miss Doty & a large circle.
6.30 Dinner. Miss Stanton Blatch.

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{1} Full stop supplied.

{2} Salmon Portland Chase (1808-1873). Judge Hoyt was the son of Chase’s youngest daughter, Janet, known as ‘Nettie’.