Now! Then! Morley-born Liberal PM Asquith gives a speech on alcohol licensing at the Leeds Coliseum, as suffragettes, suffragists, unemployment activists and mounted police entertain outside

10 October 1908: Morley-born Liberal PM Asquith gives a speech on alcohol licensing at the Leeds Coliseum, as suffragettes, suffragists, unemployment activists and mounted police entertain outside

Times. 1908/10/12. Woman Suffrage Demonstration. London. Get it:

Excerpt

Contingents of the unemployed were early on the scene, but the proceedings were orderly until the arrival of the woman suffragists. After an unsuccessful endeavour to ambush Mr Asquith at the station a great crowd soon gathered round the women in their carriage, and so interested were the onlookers that the arrival of the Prime Minister was scarcely observed. A smaller crowd had congregated round the stage door, and Mr Asquith was heartily cheered as he alighted from his carriage, accompanied by Lord Airedale and Mr Gladstone. When the meeting had started the suffragists began a demonstration of their own in the street near by, Miss Vera Lambert evoking rounds of laughter by her reference to the Premier as “Asquith, this autocrat, this Tsar of England.” Miss Lambert was succeeded by Mrs Baines, who provoked interruptions from the crowd, which had grown to great dimensions by this time. Mounted police were keeping a close watch on tho gathering, which became more lively every minute. A number of the unemployed demonstrators thon joined forces with the suffragists, and two of them were allowed to speak from the ladies’ carriage. When they had finished Mrs Baines jumped up on to the seat, and in excited tones urged her audience to “break down the doors of the Coliseum.” The advice was greeted with great cheering, and a rush was made across the road to the main entrance of the hall. The police, however, were ready, and for a moment or two there was a scuffle, during which some children were knocked down. The suffragists, without Mrs Baines, who had been arrested after her incitement to violence, drove away to a quieter spot, and there began to address the crowd again. [Tried by jury for unlawful assembly, refused to be bound over by a court administered by men, six weeks in Armley.]

Order the book

Subscribe to the free daily email

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Via Leeds Riot Map:

A great number of the tickets were overstamped “Men only”, and the door stewards were commanded to not allow any woman not holding one thus stamped; this was because the organisers knew that the suffragettes could disguise themselves to make them appear fully respectable members of a Liberal audience. Meanwhile, in Victoria Square, a large meeting of unemployed took place by the Leeds Permanent Committee on Unemployment, chaired by a man, Mr. Kitson. As the PM Asquith approached the Coliseum, some 600 or so men moved up the hill to where Ms Baines was declaring that unemployment was “more a woman’s question than a man’s, for it was the wife that had to meet the landlord’s demand for rent”. Precisely what happened next, and what was intended, remains unclear. The press, in the form of the Evening News and the Leeds Mercury, agreed that Ms Baines was heard to say “Break down the barricades and compel a hearing”, but it is not clear if this was intended as an explicit incitement to the men to interpret her literally. Whatsoever, there was a rush of people which was subsequently interpreted as a riot, although the only recorded damage was a broken pane of glass. It seems one stone was thrown which a policeman claimed had hit him, but no injury was recorded, to him or anyone else. In Leeds, Kitson and five suffragettes were arrested. Trial proceedings dragged on into the next year and the excitement subsided, but Jennie Baines is recorded the honour of being the first suffragette to be imprisoned after conviction.

Who was Vera Lambert? Who was Mr Kitson? Presumably no relative of Lord Airedale. I hope I’ve tagged the right Gladstone.

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMONSTRATION. Outside the Coliseum patrols of police, mounted and on foot, kept the road clear. Contingents of the unemployed were early on the scene, but the proceedings were orderly until the arrival of the woman suffragists. After an unsuccessful endeavour to ambush Mr. Asquith at the station a great crowd soon gathered round the women in their carriage, and so interested were the onlookers that the arrival of the Prime Minister was scarcely observed. A smaller crowd had congregated round the stage door, and Mr. Asquith was heartily cheered as he alighted from his carriage, accompanied by Lord Airedale and Mr. Gladstone. When the meeting had started the suffragists began a demonstration of their own in the street near by, Miss Vera Lambert evoking rounds of laughter by her reference to the Premier as “Asquith, this autocrat, this Tsar of England.” Miss Lambert was succeeded by Mrs. Baines, who provoked interruptions from the crowd, which had grown to great dimensions by this time.

Mounted police were keeping a close watch on tho gathering, which became more lively every minute. A number of the unemployed demonstrators thon joined forces with the suffragists, and two of them were allowed to speak from the ladies’ carriage. When they had finished Mrs. Baines jumped up on to the seat, and in excited tones urged her audience to “break down the doors of the Coliseum.” The advice was greeted with great cheering, and a rush was made across the road to the main entrance of the hall. The police, however, were ready, and for a moment or two there was a scuffle, during which some children were knocked down. The mounted police officers rode up and down the side streets, and for a time cleared away the crowds. The suffragists, without Mrs. Baines, who had been arrested after her incitement to violence, drove away to a quieter spot, and there began to address the crowd again.

It became known afterwards that Mr. Kitson, the chairman of the Leeds Permanent Committee on Unemployment, had also been arrested. A number of persons were struck during the disorder which followed on the action of the mounted police in clearing the streets, but no serious injuries were recorded.

377 words.