Winston and the women
From Mr Paul Courtenay Sir: Where on earth did the Saudi ambassador get the idea that Winston Churchill ordered troops to fire on suffragettes in 1917 Mush is leading us to tragedy', 7 September)? There was no suffragette activity during the first world war, as women put national duty above politics and immersed themselves in war work; moreover, in 1917 Churchill was minister of munitions, with no authority over police or military.
Taking the charitable view that the date was misheard or misprinted, it is true that Churchill was a target for suffragettes from 1906 till 1914, especially during his period as home secretary in 1910-11; in late 1909 Churchill was even attacked by a suffragette with a whip, and a year later a male sympathiser made a similar attack.
To suggest that he ordered troops to fire on suffragettes is grotesque. The worst violence took place on 18 November 1910, when suffragettes held a demonstration in Parliament Square; fighting broke out and lasted for six hours. The police followed the official policy of delaying arrests (in order to deny the women their desired day in court), but then behaved with unusual violence in detaining more than 200 people. Contrary to the suffragettes' belief that the government had begun a more aggressive policy against the militants, the truth is to be found in Churchill's subsequent letter to the head of the Metropolitan Police, in which he wrote:
It was my desire to avoid the [violent confrontation] even at some risk, to arrest large numbers and then subsequently to prosecute only where serious grounds were shown and I am sorry that, no doubt through a misunderstanding, another course has been adopted. In future I must ask for a strict adherence to the policy outlined herein.
Paul Courtenay
Hon. Secretary, International Churchill Society (UK). Andover, Hampshire
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