‘Deeds Not Words’: the nurse suffragettes arrested between 1906-1914

Vari Drennan

 

Introduction

Between 1906 and 1914 over 1000 women were arrested for acts in support of the campaign for female suffrage in the United Kingdom (UK).ⁱ We know nurses were involved in supporting the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) campaign for Votes for Women for example: by their presence in uniform in the demonstration processions organised by the WSPU; by Sister Townsend’s testimony for nurses as part of the WSPU Working Women’s Suffrage Deputation to prime minister Lloyd George in 1913; and by both Nurse Catherine Pine’s provision of a convalescence home to temporarily released hunger-striking WSPU suffragettes and also her frequent presence beside Mrs Pankhurst, who referred to her as her ‘devoted Nurse Pine.’ⁱⁱ. In this context, were there also nurses who took up the challenge of the motto of the WSPU – ‘Deeds, not Words’ – and undertook militant acts that led to their arrest? ⁱⁱⁱ This paper reports on research that explored this question. First, it briefly contextualises the study with information on the nursing profession in this period and on the militant suffragettes, before setting out the methodology used and then reporting the findings.

Background

At the start of the twentieth century there were about 69,000 nurses and midwives in England and Wales and it has been estimated that about 70% were in private household employment.^iv While 1902 saw the passage of legislation to ensure that midwives were appropriately trained and registered on a national roll, similar legislation for nurses took a further sixteen years to be enacted in 1919.^v The first two decades of the twentieth century saw intense public debates for, and against, standardised nurse training and registration with multiple failed parliamentary bills.^vi Many might assume that nurses who worked and lived in what Mrs Bedford Fenwick, a leading campaigner for the registration of nurses, described in 1912 as ‘an atmosphere of repression’ were unlikely to be militant. ^vii This was an assumption that could be made not least because many doctors were prominent in the anti-women’s suffrage movement in Britain in this period.^viii It is possible to infer that nurses were likely to be under professional as well as social pressure to avoid involvement with the suffrage movement, and particularly any militant actions.

The perception that nurses were unlikely to be viewed as militant was evidently more widely held since prominent WSPU members used nurses’ uniforms as disguises in evading the police.^ix Between 1905-8 the WSPU activities were described by founder Mrs Pankhurst as peaceful militancy through undertaking educational activities and raising the question of women’s suffrage at public party-political meetings, with government ministers and by petitioning parliament.^x All of these activities met with a police response that led to arrests with charges such as of obstruction^xi. The refusal of most of the arrested suffragettes to pay fines led to their imprisonment.^xii In 1908 the first stone was thrown by a suffragette at the windows of the Prime Minister’s house in Downing Street and from then on, the WSPU also employed militant guerilla action of damage to property to greater publicise their cause.^xiii In 1909 the first suffragette went on hunger strike in prison, namely Margaret Dunlop Wallace.^xiv The tactic of hunger-striking was adopted by many other suffragette prisoners. The subsequent forcible feeding of hunger-striking suffragettes by prison doctors and nurses was met with public outrage, which forced the government to introduce a new law, the Prisoners Temporary Discharge for Ill Health Act in 1913.^xv With the outbreak of war in August 1914, the WSPU declared a truce and the suffragette prisoners were released.^xvi

Some historians have suggested that the imprisoned militant suffragettes were only ever drawn from the middle or upper class.^xvii June Purvis, amongst others, has demonstrated this to be incorrect, identifying teachers and actresses as working women undertaking acts of militancy.^xviii So did nurses, as working women, commit militant acts that led to their arrest and imprisonment between 1906 and 1914?

To investigate this question, I searched multiple archives for contemporary national and local newspapers, nursing journals, suffragette newspapers and autobiographies of leading suffragettes, as well as contemporary and subsequent histories and analysis. I searched for any reference to ‘nurse’ and ‘nurses’ in conjunction with suffragette activities and arrests. Any names identified were then cross referenced with the Home Office file of names of those arrested for verification.^xix I then searched for more than one source to confirm that they were working as nurses. In this paper I present some preliminary findings of an ongoing research study.

The arrested militant nurse suffragettes

I have identified at least twenty working nurses who were arrested for militant actions between 1906-14 out of the 1224 women and 109 men recorded by the Home Office.^xx Two others, Sarah Cawin and Lettice Lloyd, had been hospital nurses but by the time of their arrests were full-time WSPU organisers and so are not included in this paper.^xxi

So, who were these nurses? What did they do to be arrested for the cause of women’s suffrage? What was the outcome of their arrest? In starting to address these questions, I first provide a brief overview of the twenty nurses before focusing on one nurse, Fanny Jane Pease (1866-1946), to explore some of the intersections between nurses, nursing and suffrage militancy.

The twenty nurses identified so far were arrested thirty-eight times. Six of the nurse suffragettes were only arrested once. Purvis has documented the consequences of arrest and imprisonment for some working women such as teachers, who lost pay they could ill afford, and actresses, who then found it hard to get acting jobs.^xxii This raises the question as to what the consequences of imprisonment might be for working nurses. It is possible that the six only arrested once decided not to risk further arrest and perhaps jeopardise their employment by participating in suffragette actions. It may be that these nurses continued to support the women’s suffrage campaign but with the more moderate suffragist organisations rather than with the WSPU.^xxiii

The twenty nurse suffragettes were arrested for a range of offences. Ten nurse suffragettes were arrested during the events of Black Friday, 18 November 1910, when suffragettes peacefully attempted to reach the Houses of Parliament to petition the government and were forcibly prevented by the police and onlooking crowds of men.^xxiv Most of the 132 women arrested that day were charged with obstruction although the charges were subsequently dropped at the magistrate’s court.^xxv The earliest arrest of a nurse I found was of Nurse Olivia Smith in 1907, which was during the period of peaceful militancy. Nurse Smith chained herself to the Downing Street railings as a diversionary tactic while others rushed to number 10 to demand to see the Prime Minister.^xxvi Nurse Smith was charged with obstruction, as was Nurse Elise Evans, arrested in 1909 for chalking ‘Votes for Women’ slogans on the Strand in London.^xxvii As the WSPU moved to militant guerilla actions against property, so too did some of the nurse suffragettes. Ten nurses were arrested for acts of stone-throwing and window-smashing. Eight of the ten were arrested in the mass window-smashing event in central London in March 1912.^xxviii Nurse Ellen Pitfield was also charged with arson in 1912, having set light to a basket of wood shavings in the General Post Office in London, which she then put out.^xxix

The outcomes of the arrests and charges were also varied. Some like Nurse Elise Evans in 1909 paid a fine and were released.^xxx However, thirteen of the nurses refused to pay the fines and were imprisoned in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Newcastle. The length of the prison sentences varied from five days to four months, and for some the sentence was for hard labour, not just detainment. The fines and imprisonment were more severe for damage to property than for just obstruction, and Nurse Pitfield received a sentence of six months for committing arson.^xxxi So far, I have identified evidence that nine of the imprisoned nurses went on hunger strike and all were forcibly fed. One of these was Nurse Fanny Pease, identified as a forcibly-fed hunger-striker through her embroidered signature on the West Hoathly Suffragettes’ Handkerchief.^xxxii So, who was Nurse Fanny Pease, what were her militant actions, and did this affect her employment and nursing career?

Nurse Fanny Pease

Nurse Fanny Pease was arrested and imprisoned twice in suffragette actions. The first arrest was at the attempt to petition the House of Commons on Black Friday (November 1910). Nurse Pease was charged with obstruction and assault of a policeman.^xxxiii The WSPU Votes for Women newspaper reported that Fanny asserted she did not assault the policeman but rather restrained his arms from behind after he had hit an older WSPU member in the mouth.^xxxiv Fanny was sentenced to a forty-shilling fine or fourteen days imprisonment in Holloway Prison; she chose imprisonment.^xxxv She subsequently wrote to the Home Secretary, using her status as a trained nurse, to protest about the unhealthy conditions in Holloway Prison.^xxxvi Her complaints were widely, but mockingly, reported in the press.^xxxvii The Home Secretary wrote back to Nurse Pease saying conditions in the prison were satisfactory.^xxxviii

Nurse Fanny Pease was arrested a second time at the well organised WSPU mass window-smashing action in London in March 1912.^xxxix Fanny, in the company of two other militant suffragettes, smashed a small pane in a window of the Mansion House, the official residence of the Major of London.^xl

Aside from her arrests, it has been possible to identify some of Fanny’s other activities in support of women’s suffrage. She was a member of the Kensington Branch of the Church League for Women’s Suffrage.^xli As her name is missing from the 1911 census record for her known address, one can assume she supported the suffrage movement boycott of the 1911 census when many returned their census papers with the slogan ‘No vote, no census’.^xlii Fanny publicly supported and subscribed to the WSPU. She was listed by name and profession with her donation amount in the annual WSPU reports when many donations were recorded as anonymous.^xliii The London newspaper The Standard, with its anti-suffragette stance, published her name as a WSPU subscriber in June 1914 at a point when the government was drawing up legislation to prosecute subscribers to WSPU.^xliv

Her longer biography suggests the origins of her activism and provides some clues to factors which underpinned her public militancy in the face of social and professional disapproval. Fanny Pease was born in 1866 in Woolwich South London to Mary and Joseph Pease.^xlv An account in the Votes for Womennewspaper states that Nurse Fanny Pease was a descendant of the nineteenth-century industrialist and philanthropic Pease family, who were Quakers in the North of England. ^xlvi Members of the northern Pease family were publicly notable for their anti-slavery stance and their support of male and female suffrage.^xlviiThis raises the question as to whether the strength of her beliefs originated from the Quaker commitment to social justice or from other sources.

Fanny Pease trained as a nurse at the Hospital for Consumption, Brompton Road, South Kensington, London in 1888.^xlviii She was employed as a staff nurse until 1891 when she listed herself as a private duty nurse in the 1898 Burdett Directory of Nurses.^xlix Evidence of her employment as a private duty nurse, rather than in a hospital, appeared in the 1901 census when Fanny Pease was recorded as a nurse living in a private household in Hampstead, London.^l At the time of her arrest, Fanny Pease was a self-employed private duty nurse and as such she was outside the purview of a matron or hospital management committee. Did her self-employment make Fanny view the potential impact of arrest and imprisonment on her employment differently from those nurses who were employed in hospitals?

By 1910, the time of her first arrest, Fanny Pease was registered on the Borough of Kensington’s electoral register as a joint homeowner with two other women, and as such she was eligible to vote in the parish elections.^li As a homeowner, Fanny was not at risk of losing her housing because of an employer’s displeasure at her arrest or imprisonment for suffragette actions. Was this residential security also a factor underpinning Fanny’s willingness to risk arrest and imprisonment?

Fanny Pease was aged forty-four at her first arrest. Purvis described a wide range of ages in the imprisoned suffragettes including grandmothers in their seventies. While some may assume that younger women, for example those in their twenties, were more likely to be militant, nurses in their twenties in the early part of the twentieth century were more likely to be employed in hospitals with matrons controlling their lives, their livelihood and their housing. Was Fanny’s independence gained through age also a factor influencing her public support of WSPU?

In August 1914 war was declared, and the WSPU stopped all actions on suffrage and actively supported the war effort.^lii Fanny followed the lead of the WSPU and actively pursued a military nursing career during the First World War. Fanny was selected to be the Nursing Times’ Nurses’ Nurse, funded by nurse subscribers to join the military medical services in France.^liii Fanny’s military nursing career, serving in the Territorial Forces Nursing Services (TFNS) in France, Egypt and then Hull UK, was documented in reports in the Christian League for Women’s Suffrage Journal and the Nursing Times.^liv For her exemplary nursing of military patients, Fanny was awarded the Royal Red Cross medal, second class in 1919.^lv It is possible to infer that Fanny’s very public support of WSPU and her imprisonments were not viewed detrimentally by many in the nursing profession, including those leading the recruitment of military nurses, the editor of the Nursing Times or subsequently the leaders of the TFNS.

After the First World War, the Representation of the People Act 1918 enfranchised all men over twenty one and women over the age of thirty who met minimum property qualifications in Britain and Ireland.^lvi Fanny Pease resumed her civilian nursing career as a hospital-employed nurse at the Hospital for Consumption, Brompton Road, London until her retirement just before the beginning of the Second World War.^lvii It is not known whether her employers knew of her prior militant actions, but she was admitted to the new General Nursing Council Register for Nurses under rule 9 r (g) in which three doctors gave testimony to her nursing skills and competency.^lviii On her retirement, Fanny moved to Hove, Sussex and died on 19th October 1946, leaving £969 12s Id (equivalent to about £35,000 in 2025).^lix

Conclusion

This study has demonstrated for the first time that working nurses were among the militant WSPU activists. In comparison to the numbers of working nurses at the time, the militant nurse suffragettes were a very small group, but the women who did combine nursing with militant suffrage action had to stand up to both social and professional opposition. Fanny Pease publicly described herself as a nurse and a militant suffragette and provides evidence of deep-seated commitment to women’s suffrage and the methods of the WSPU. Further study is required to investigate the extent of any similarities in characteristics between Fanny Pease and the other arrested nurses who followed the WSPU motto of ‘Deeds Not Words’. The short-term impact of those nurses’ arrests on their employment is as yet unknown but Fanny Pease had a notable military and civilian nursing career from 1915 onwards which suggests there was little negative impact on her employment as a nurse in the longer term.

Endnotes