“Black Friday”

Throughout much of 1911 the suffrage movement continued to carry out peaceful protests and in January 1910 the leader of the suffragette movement Emmeline Pankhurst announced they would suspend all militant behaviour, after the Prime Minister Asquith pledged that if the liberals returned to office, a vote would be held about adding an amendment on women’s suffrage to the reform bill which implied that property holding women would finally be given the vote. However after being re-elected Asquith went back on his promises, and newspaper articles  stated that  “ The prime minster… says the time at the disposal of the government will not admit of further progress being made with the women suffrage bill this year.” Making it apparent that Asquith had betrayed them. This led to both the suffragists and the suffragettes to step up rallying “our power as women is invincible if we are united and determined.” 

On 18 November 1910, the violence against the movement reached a terrifying low which would later be known as Black Friday. In a campaign to secure women right to vote 300 women marched the house of parliament dressed in suffrage colours and wearing a milk badge with the slogan deputation 1910. The women were  met with a blockade of police. In the past when WSPU women  attempted to rush past the police lines they were quickly and politely arrested, however on this occasion, instead of being promptly arrested the police assaulted them using tactics to intentionally subject the women to sexual humiliation in a public setting ,Marlow stated “They deliberatley tore my undergarments,using the most foul language.” (Marlow, 2000) This consequently led to over 100 demonstrators being arrested and the  possible death of two member of the surrogates as result of the injuries they received on the day. In most news papers it wrote about a unruly mob of women descending of parliament ignoring the assault subjugated by the police and ignoring the fact that the display was organised to be a peaceful protest with  only 13 people in each group that were staged intervals with the first group carrying suffrage banner stating the words of the memorial to be delivered to Asquith with the aim to get to the gates of the house of commons in order to have an audience with the prime minster due to the lies he told.

The terrible events of “Black Friday” led to a change in approach and the movement became more violent, with members targeting private property with vandalism, window smashing and fire bombing in order to be taken seriously and not be disregarded again.

Bibliography

ATKINSON, D. (2018). RISE UP WOMEN!. london: BLOOMSBURY Publishing.

Collinson, A. (2018). Black Friday and the Suffragette struggle | Museum of London. [online] Museum of London. Available at: https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/black-friday [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].

En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Black Friday (1910). [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(1910) [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].

Hawksley, L. (2013). March, women, march. london: Andre Deutsch limited, pp.161-175.

Pugh, M. (2004). The march of the women. Oxford [England]: Oxford University Press.

Smith, H. (2010). The British Women’s Suffrage Campaign 1866-1928. Florence: Taylor and Francis, p.50.

Writing Class. (n.d.). The Suffragettes – Black Friday (1910). [online] Available at: http://www.working-class-women-writing.co.uk/the-suffragettes—black-friday-1910.html [Accessed 24 Apr. 2019].