On March 9, 1914, a large meeting of the Women’s Social and Political Union gathered at St Andrew’s Hall in Glasgow.
On a day that came to be known as The Battle of Glasgow, over 30 suffragettes battled 50 police officers. At this point, the 1913 ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act was dealing with the problem of hunger striking suffragettes - giving early release to prisoners who were so weakened they were at risk of death, who would then be recalled to prison once their health was recovered.
The WSPU formed the Bodyguard, a group of trained women responsible for protecting suffragettes from arrest. These women travelled from London to Glasgow the day before Mrs Pankhurst was due to speak - knowing that she was subject to re-arrest under the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’.
Inside the hall, bouquets and garlands had been arranged along the stage to conceal barbed wire to hold back police. As 4,000 people gathered for the meeting, officers hoped to arrest Pankhurst before she made it into the hall.
In reality, she had been smuggled in a laundry basket earlier that day and was already in the venue. When she began to give her speech, it was only moments before officers attempted to arrest her.
With police tangled in the barbed wire, the suffragettes were prepared with buckets of water and used flag poles as battering rams. Things took a turn when Scottish suffragette Janie Allan pulled out a pistol from her skirt.
The riots that followed saw police drawing batons, with several suffragette supporters including Mrs Pankhurst arrested. She was taken to Central Police Station where according to the Aberdeen Evening Express, she refused food or drink overnight.
The publication told readers on March 10: “Mrs Pankhurst, in charge of two of Scotland Yard officers, left Glasgow this morning and joined an express for London, great secrecy being preserved as to the police arrangements.
“A crowd of sympathisers paraded in front of the Central Police Station all night. A large body of suffragettes went to Glasgow Central Station in the expectation of seeing Mrs Pankhurst join the express, and disappointment was general when the news of the police manoeuvre became known.”
Following the events, complaints were made on the behaviour of the police with letters written to the Lord Provost of Glasgow as well as local newspapers. Janie Allen campaigned for an enquiry into the police brutality of the day, and wrote to attendees with a written questionnaire about the event.
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Authorities dismissed the demands for an official enquiry, adding that there was ‘no cause of complaint against the police’.
William Thomson, Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, gave a statement to the Magistrates Committee. It reads: “I wish to say a few words on the Glasgow Suffrage Riot from the point of view of its demoralising influence on everybody concerned.
“To set large detachments of police to storm a hall or its platform in order to secure a single individual conscientiously supported by a meeting that embraces a large part of the elite of the citizens must at all times be a hazardous trial of the moral qualities of the men on whom that work is imposed.”
It would be four years until only some women were given the right to vote - those over the age of 30 who owned land or premises valued above £5. It wasn’t until 1928 that women gained electoral equality, given to all women over 21 regardless of property.
Emmeline Pankhurst, who is synonymous with the suffragette movement, passed away just weeks before the Equal Franchise Act was introduced in 1928.
