Etta Lemon by Tessa Boase

Author:Tessa Boase
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aurum
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

At a shouted order, the police strode towards them, pushing through the ranks of the procession to turn the women back. The suffragettes rallied quickly and pressed forward again. This time they were met with a body of mounted police – the London Cossacks – coming towards them ‘at a smart trot’. All hell broke loose. Shouting women were pushed to the ground and under hooves; clothes were torn, hats rolled along gutters, bruised female bodies clambered to their knees and up again to keep pushing towards the Houses of Parliament. Again and again they were driven back by the heavy policemen, pursued onto pavements and down side roads, crushed up against railings and dragged out of doorways. The cold night air rang with high screams and gruff curses.

To Emmeline Pankhurst, fragile but determined in the dreadful mêlée, there seemed to be ‘hundreds on hundreds’ of police, on foot and mounted. The struggle, ‘quite indescribable for brutality and ruthlessness’, went on for an incredible six hours. At its core was a group of female militants recruited in advance from the north of England, women who had been briefed closely on their roles in quasi-military style. They proved to be astonishingly resilient. Fifteen suffragettes managed to fight their way through to the Strangers’ Lobby of the House, where they began to hold a meeting. In all, 57 women and two men were arrested, including a dishevelled but triumphant trio: Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst.

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