The Suffragette Bombers by Simon Webb

Author:Simon Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS015000; HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain
ISBN: 9781473838437
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2014-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Bombing and Arson

‘ If any woman refrains from militant protest against the injury done by the Government and the House of Commons against women… she will share responsibility for the crime. ’

(Emmeline Pankhurst, 10 January, 1913)

There had, from 1911 onwards, been sporadic and isolated attempts at arson and even, as at the Theatre Royal in Dublin, the occasional use of explosives by members of the WSPU. However, the campaign of bombing and arson began in earnest on 19 February 1913.

Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George was probably, for the suffragettes, the most hated man in the government besides Herbert Asquith. Why this should have been the case is something of a mystery. He was a dedicated supporter of the principle of women’s suffrage, although not enthusiastic about the Pankhursts’ idea of ‘equal suffrage’.

In early 1913 Lloyd George was having a house built for himself near the golf course at Walton-on-the-Hill in Surrey. The men working on the house arrived each morning at 6.30am and left at 5.30pm On the evening of 18 February, the workmen left as usual in the evening and secured the property behind them. There was, however, one small and unfinished window on the ground floor which could not be fully closed. It was later guessed that a boy, or slim woman, might have been able to squeeze through this window and then possibly open another window to let in accomplices.

Cars were something of a rarity at that time and a number of witnesses were woken by the sound of a motor vehicle driving to Walton in the early hours of the morning of 19 February. The car was also heard by a police officer, who noted that it arrived in Walton at about 2.50 am. The sound of a car was sufficiently uncommon to draw attention, particularly at night. He also heard a vehicle, possibly the same one, driving back towards London two hours later. It was unusual to hear a car driving about at that time, but nothing more was thought of it.

At 6.10 am, the windows of the Blue Ball pub in Walton were rattled by a loud explosion. Twenty minutes later, James Grey, foreman of the builders, arrived at the house that he and his men had almost completed and found a scene of devastation. The ceilings had been brought down by an explosion, windows blown out and the force of the blast had even cracked open an external brick wall. Five rooms were wrecked. The police were called and discovered that two bombs had been planted in the house. The method used to trigger the explosions was primitive in the extreme. A paraffin-soaked rag led from the bomb to a saucer of wood shavings, which had also been sprinkled with paraffin. A candle was then placed in this saucer and lit. When it burned down far enough, it set fire to the wood shavings and then ignited the rag which acted as a fuse.

Two bombs had actually been planted in

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