The amazing cop-evading capers of the early feminists are recounted by our social liberation correspondent Angus Young.
Confronted by two policemen, Charlotte Marsh gathered up her skirt and leapt from an elevated quayside walkway onto a railway track below. Thus began the first of two suffragette protests in Hull during the summer of 1909.
With her target in sight, she ran towards cabinet member and Postmaster General Sydney Buxton. Before she could reach him, her path was blocked by a coal truck. As she climbed back onto the upper deck she was met by the two officers who circled her as a crowd gathered. “By what right do you stop me?” she shouted.
“You are not going to interrupt the proceedings,” the senior officer replied.
“I don’t want to,” said Charlotte. “This is a public place and I have a right to be here.”
“Never mind your rights, you are not going to get near Mr Buxton.”
“I don’t want to get near him. I only want votes for women!”
Charlotte was then escorted to a railway office on Hull’s Riverside Quay where she was held until the VIP party had left Albert Dock. Released without charge, she shook the officers’ hand, said she bore no grudge against the police and suggested their paths were likely to cross again later in the day The regional organiser of the Women’s Social and Political Union kept her promise.
Buxton’s next engagement on his visit to Hull was to officially open the new Head Post Office in Lowgate. Charlotte had already laid the groundwork by staging a series of open-air meetings in Hull ahead of the visit. Addressing crowds of up to 700 people, she spoke for over an hour from a horse-drawn wagonette alongside three other suffragettes. Undaunted by her earlier arrest, Charlotte resumed her pursuit of Buxton as he left the Royal Station Hotel by jumping onto the footplate of the car taking him to the opening ceremony. Again a crowd swarmed around as she clung on before being dragged off the vehicle by the police. In the melee that followed, she broke free and ran after the car only to be swallowed up by the crowd. Charlotte then jumped onto a tram which took her straight to Lowgate where Buxton’s entourage was arriving.
Mounted police were stationed around the building with orders to keep a watch for female protestors but as Buxton approached the main entrance Charlotte ran forward and got within a few feet before being seized by a couple of constables. The ensuing struggle was met by a mix of jeers and sympathetic applause from the crowd before Charlotte was once more placed into police custody. Even so, Buxton’s speech on the steps of the building declaring it officially open was interrupted by cries of ‘Votes for Women’ from a suffragette colleague, Ada Flatman.
Later released once more without charge, her pursuit of Buxton was not quite over. The opening ceremony was followed by a banquet back to the hotel. As guests were served turtle soup complete with specially-engraved turtle shells to commemorate the event, Charlotte and Ada staged another well-attended meeting outside before attempting to gain entry. Police officers refused them admission, stating that instructions had been given not to let any woman into the hotel.
Next morning the pair again followed Buxton as his visit to the city continued with police detectives now attempting to track their every move. As the politician finally headed back to Paragon Station to catch his train, the two women hailed a horse-drawn cab only for one of the detectives to jump onboard next to the driver as he set off towards the station. Charlotte and Ada immediately leapt from the moving cab and flagged down another.
A chase – described in one newspaper report as an “exciting run” – then took place through the city centre with the suffragettes arriving at the station ahead of a presumably embarrassed chief constable, several inspectors and constables. However, officers already posted at the station refused to allow them onto the platform where Buxton’s train was waiting to depart. Despite being turned away, a large crowd of spectators cheered them as they once again took up the cry ‘Votes for Women’.
The following month Charlotte was back in Hull and this time, along with eight other women, she ended up in court. The trigger was another ministerial visit, this time by Chancellor Herbert Samuel who was due to speak at a public meeting in the Assembly Rooms, now better known as Hull New Theatre. Charlotte organised a meeting outside the venue and arranged for activists from across the country to attend and speak. When her colleagues arrived in Albion Street on the back of a horse-drawn wagon, mounted police officers stopped them from going any further. As the women jumped off the wagon and joined the crowd, the officers rode onto the pavement where people were standing and mayhem briefly erupted. Easily identifiable because of their suffragette colours, the women were all arrested and as the crowd shouted “Cowards!” at the police.
In court the next day, Charlotte claimed she alone was responsible for the crowd gathering. The others all denied the same charge of provoking a breach of the peace. They all said the disorder only started once the police rode their horses onto the pavement and into the crowd. The Stipendiary Magistrate found all nine women guilty but discharged them without passing a sentence. He told them: “I am not going to gratify any wish which any of you might have to make martyrs of yourselves by undergoing imprisonment for your cause. This is the first case of the suffragette movement in Hull, so I shall discharge you all. If this sort of thing is repeated by any of you, I will give you something more to your liking.”
Charlotte later became one of the suffragettes to be forcibly fed during a hunger strike protest in prison in 1911. During the First World War she worked as a mechanic and chauffeur for Prime Minister David Lloyd George. After the war, the vote was given to women over 30 who met certain property qualifications. In 1928 all women were given the right to vote at the age of 21.
- There are no known photographs of Charlotte’s adventures in Hull but an artist’s sketch of her arrest outside the Head Post Office was printed in a local newspaper. The original image is relatively crude because of the block engraving process used at the time so we asked Hull-based illustrator Gareth Sleightholme to weave his magic and come up with an improved version to accompany this article.