Emmeline Pankhurst and Winston Churchill

Whilst other suffragist organisations agreed to work with individual political parties I ensured that the WSPU had no such allegiances, indeed we would openly oppose political parties who did not make women’s suffrage a priority. We protested against all candidates belonging to the Liberal Party, who were in government at the time, because they refused to pass women’s suffrage legislation and this put us into conflict with the Liberal Party organisers, which was a pity as many Liberal candidates supported women’s suffrage. One target for the WSPU was the Liberal candidate Winston Churchill. My daughter Christabel led the campaign against him, which we understand led to his defeat. We were often heckled and derided for spoiling elections but in January nineteen o eight my associate Nellie Martel and I were attacked by a crowd of Liberal supporters who blamed the WSPU for costing them a recent by-election. They threw clay and rotten eggs and even stones wrapped in snowballs, we were quite badly beaten, but despite this we were determined to continue to protest until priority was given to women’s suffrage.