Mrs Pankhurst's Bodyguard E-Book

Emelyne Godfrey

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 461

Beschreibung

'Beautifully told, this book brings a fascinating and compelling story to a wider public. A "must read" for those interested in women's lives in the past.' - June Purvis, Professor (Emerita) of Women's and Gender History, University of Portsmouth, UK 'This important and absorbing book presents a unique history of Kitty Marshall. This is first-class history and a first-rate thriller.' - Professor Clive Bloom, author of A History of Britain's Fight for a Republic Katherine 'Kitty' Marshall was destined to break with convention. Brought up in a socially active family, her inherent rebellious streak came into play in 1901, when she daringly divorced her husband and joined the newly founded Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), campaigning for women's suffrage. In 1904, she married solicitor Arthur Willoughby Marshall and the couple soon became a powerhouse team in the movement: Arthur defending the suffragettes in court while Kitty, trained in jujitsu and a member of the WSPU's elite team 'the Bodyguard', helped her close friend Mrs Pankhurst evade the clutches of the authorities under the infamous Cat and Mouse Act. All the while, Kitty was under the watchful eye of the Metropolitan Police, and in particular Detective Inspector Ralph Kitchener, who frequently encountered the Marshalls in his work trailing the suffragette 'mice'. Following events as they unfolded on both sides, Mrs Pankhurst's Bodyguard is a gripping account of Kitty and Arthur's incredible work and their fight for political equality.

Leseprobe

Praise for Mrs Pankhurst’s Bodyguard

‘This highly readable book tells the story of the Bodyguard formed to protect the great suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst. Skilfully weaving the personal stories of women such as artist Kitty Marshall, whose unpublished autobiography is threaded throughout this account, this book vividly conveys the commitment, excitement and fear of suffragettes who dared to challenge the Liberal government of the day … The many courageous “mice” mentioned here often evaded the “cats” of the state. Beautifully told, this book brings a fascinating and compelling story to a wider public. A “must read” for those interested in women’s lives in the past.’

~ June Purvis, Professor (Emerita) of Women’s and Gender History, University of Portsmouth, UK

‘This important and absorbing book presents a unique history of one suffragette. This is the tale of Kitty Marshall, martial arts expert and Mrs Pankhurst’s bodyguard; a tale of “cat and mouse” tactics told from the perspective of the detective who hunted her, and Kitty’s own memoirs. This is first-class history and a first-rate thriller.’

~ Professor Clive Bloom, author of A History of Britain’s fight for a Republic

‘A fascinating and brilliantly written account of what Mrs Pankhurst called the “warrior spirit” of the Suffragette movement. Godfrey shows how the measured embrace of violence – including less-lethal weapons – allowed the suffragettes to make their indelible mark upon British history.’

~ Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery, Royal Armouries

‘Drawing substantially from bodyguard Kitty Marshall’s unpublished memoir Suffragette Escapes and Adventures, Emelyne Godfrey skilfully conveys their many escapades of evasion, deception and – when necessary – confrontation with much more powerful opponents.’

~ Tony Wolf, author of Suffrajitsu: Mrs Pankhurst’s Amazons and co-producer/director of No Man Shall Protect Us: The Hidden History of the Suffragette Bodyguards

‘This is a welcome book that delves into the inside story of the Suffragette movement, with fresh insights into the heroic women’s lives and, indeed, some of the police officers who necessarily found themselves having to apply the law against some of their activities.’

~ Alan Moss, author of Scotland Yard’s History of Crime in 100 Objects

Cover images: Shadow of jujitsu suffragette. (Re-enactment photo, courtesy of Jennifer Garside); Detective Ralph Kitchener. (Courtesy of Jan Janet Dennis and family)

First published 2023

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Emelyne Godfrey, 2023

The right of Emelyne Godfrey to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 178 8

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Preface

Some Notes on the Text

Prologue: No Way Out

1.    Married Alive

2.    Mental Equipment

3.    Body Armour

4.    The Winsonosaurus

5.    Winston Churchill’s Fanlight

6.    Charge!

7.    Toothbrushes at Dawn

8.    Into the CID

9.    Infernal Machines

10.    The Month of Flowers

11.    The Rules

12.    Dancers in the Dark

13.    Shadow Play

14.    Under the Fig Tree

15.    The Battle of Glasgow

16.    Their Last Gasp

17.    Broken Hearts and Hammer Toes

18.    Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

19.    Firestarter

20.    The Final Hideout

Epilogue: Enid’s Wrecking Ball

Acknowledgements and Adventures

Notes

Bibliography

For Peter and Martin

I have no idea how to write a book, but there are many interesting stories relating to the struggle for votes for women that it seemed a pity they should not be told by someone who was a great friend of Mrs. Pankhurst.

Kitty Marshall, Suffragette Escapes and Adventures (1947)

Emmeline Pankhurst by Georgina Agnes Brackenbury. Oil on canvas, 1927. (National Portrait Gallery, 2360, London)

Preface

The story ought surely to give more than just the names and dates of the various persons; it should show at least something of how they spoke and acted, and even on occasion how they thought and felt. … If I could but make the different characters come alive the story would truly be an interesting one.

Ralph Frederick Kitchener, The Kitcheners of Olney: A Family Saga

There are two memoirs which form the basis to this book. When looked at together, the eyewitness accounts offered by Kitty Willoughby Marshall and Detective Inspector Ralph Kitchener give us an insight into the campaign for women’s suffrage from both angles. Typed up by Rachel Barrett, who was Kitty’s friend, neighbour and a veteran suffragette, Kitty’s Suffragette Escapes and Adventures is kept in the Suffragette Fellowship Collection at the Museum of London. The collection also features Kitty’s necklace in the form of three medallions inscribed with the dates of her three spates in jail and the various cell numbers on the reverse. ‘Mrs Marshall’ was arrested six times – once for shouting ‘charge!’ – which earned her a WSPU medal, which is also in the collection. During the course of her story, it becomes apparent that Kitty’s role as a soldier within the elite Bodyguard accords her a unique place, not only in the story of the suffrage movement but within the history of martial arts, of women’s empowerment and their emergence into male space. Kitty’s close friendship with Mrs Pankhurst singles her out, too. Not all prominent campaigners could claim this privileged position.

Unlike Kitty’s memoir, Kitchener’s autobiography, Memoirs of an Old Detective, was carefully prepared and neatly presented, bound in a red Brampton Springback Binder. The text within was personally typed up by Kitchener. I first read the similarly titled The Memoirs of an Old Detective in Cambridge University Library, one of the few copies in Britain. This version of the autobiography was edited by Ian Adams who co-wrote, together with Ray Wilson, Special Branch: A History 1883–2006. For a while, the book sat boldly in duck-egg blue, side-by-side with the purple, white and green suffragette volumes on the display tables outside the Museum of London shop, beckoning a historical comparison. A chance introduction to Ray resulted in him offering to put me in touch with Kitchener’s descendants, who very kindly entrusted me with his original manuscript. When comparing the two versions of the manuscript, it was obvious that much material had been cut out of the edited version. Kitchener’s tone had been altered subtly by the replacement of exclamation marks with full stops. Some typos had crept in, too. Even the dedication, which hinted at his personality, was missing. Writing his memoirs was one of his passions, alongside family history. His granddaughter Janet remembered hearing him at work and she used to ask him about his detective days. And so, as the original manuscript reveals, his memoirs are dedicated thus: ‘For JANET, who asked for it. Grandad 1969.’

Kitchener’s autobiography casts light on the perspectives of officers themselves. So frequently in films and in history, the duality of police versus suffragettes persisted, and still does. One strong visual example of the popular boardgames of the Edwardian era was Suffragetto! which consisted of a suffragette team, represented by green pawns, and an opposing side of blue officers and inspectors who attempted to reach the Albert Hall while keeping the suffragettes away from the House of Commons! There was a tendency to represent the police in one of two ways, either as ‘Policeman Plods’, who were always a few breathless strides behind the criminals they pursued, or as a hostile faceless column of regulation moustaches, cudgels and helmets. The film Suffragette (2015) appears to offer a more nuanced depiction of the interaction of the two sides. We see Brendan Gleeson’s Special Branch character Inspector Arthur Steed given voice. However, his reasonable perspective on the dangers of the militant campaign is crowded out by the unsympathetic comments he makes about the women he is trailing. As the police worked for Asquith’s government, it is still hardly ever deemed necessary to look beyond the police reports, but although the police were under instructions from the Home Office, it did not mean that they were all enemies of women’s suffrage. Even the suffragettes themselves made this point. For example, Cicely Hamilton, who wrote the lyrics to the rousing suffragette anthem ‘The March of the Women’, said her relations with the police were amicable; the officers’ work required them to arrest suspects and they just happened to be suffragettes.

What Kitty Marshall and Kitchener have in common is their strong sense of justice and their appreciation of the light-hearted moments in what was an earnest campaign on both sides. As Edwin T. Woodhall recalled:

I always think the Women’s Suffrage Movement when it was at its height was the sharpest thorn the Special Branch has ever had in its side. I am certain that the suffragettes were more troublesome than all the other problems put together. It was so difficult to know who was or who was not in the movement. Titles conveyed nothing at all.1

In exploring new angles on the suffrage campaign, Mrs Pankhurst’s Bodyguard is, on the one hand, the product of the many online resources that are available at the click of a button. On the other hand, the spirit of the book principally stems from my own ‘shoe-leather’ investigations, making local enquiries, speaking to descendants and visiting the places where much of the action of this book occurred, to intriguing effect. In 1982, Noel Burch’s The Year of the Bodyguard offered a docudrama depiction of Edith Garrud’s dojo. When interviewed by martial arts historian Tony Wolf, Burch discussed how his film had been received:

I remember one reaction by a former student of mine at the RCA, at the time a promising independent director but who now does routine work for the BBC. He felt that the scene where the bobby comes down to the gym where the women have just hidden their street-clothes under the tatami (mats) should have been filmed from the point of view of the police; it would have been more suspenseful, he thought. I tried to explain that I was on the side of the women, that the film was on the side of the women, that such a view-point would have been out of the question.2

It seems to me that the story of the suffrage movement becomes more multidimensional when scenarios are related not only from the perspective of the pursued and light-footed suffragette ‘mice’ who feature in Burch’s documentary but also from the perspective of the opposing force waiting outside, looking in. The action intensifies when we can glimpse events as if we were standing beside the officer in the shadows, struggling to extinguish his hot and malodorous oil lamp and negotiating the contents of his new-fangled thermos flask, before he is spotted.

Some Notes on the Text

While Kitty could call her Mrs Pankhurst ‘Dearest’, her friend was intensely private. When Mrs Pankhurst visited Chicago in the winter of 1909, journalists asked how many ‘m’s were in Emmeline and Mrs Pankhurst winced and replied that in England people did not give out their Christian names to the public; this was reserved for the home. So with that in mind, I have called her Mrs Pankhurst. Wherever possible, others have been called by the names by which they used themselves. For example, the Pethick Lawrences hyphenated their surnames and my spelling of their names reflected their omission of the hyphen during the suffragette campaign. The ‘cats’ in the title of this book refers to the slang name for the police who were tasked with following and capturing the militant campaigners, both men and women (the ‘mice’), but the term ‘cats’ also includes the government, those sceptics of militant suffragism who witnessed events in the House, who saw missiles fly through their own windows.

Jujitsu or jujutsu has a variety of spellings. This book has adopted the spelling ‘jujitsu’, as this was the most common spelling I encountered in my research.

Unless otherwise stated, the voices of Kitty Marshall and Ralph Kitchener have been quoted from their respective memoirs: Suffragette Escapes and Adventures (1947) and Memoirs of an Old Detective (1969) by permission of the Museum of London and Janet Dennis and family.

Mrs Pankhurst at the Battle of Glebe Place, 1914. (Museum of London, 50.82/1264)

Prologue

No Way Out

The building is haunted. She is sure of this as she lies on guard in the dark. Over the years, visitors have talked of disembodied singing echoing between the floors. Some have even stalled icily halfway down the stairs, subjected to the caress of a small, unseen hand on the banisters. The house in which the main protagonist of this story finds herself tonight was built in the seventeenth century as a clergyman’s home for a neighbouring Huguenot chapel. At twilight, anyone who happens upon the panelled room tucked away at the top of the house feels that they are interrupting a private conversation. The compulsion to leave immediately and shut the door, flit back to safety and the known world is overwhelming. Near palpable, the atmosphere is said to be so historically charged that the previous owners moved out partly on account of the disturbances. But right now, there is safety in numbers; a brigade of women is grabbing history by the wrist and braving the supernatural together. The room is filled with real, living sounds, the creaking of chairs and whispers and the voices of around a dozen women plotting, directing and anticipating mayhem.

It is part of the plan that Kitty should be here before the big event, to prepare. The women are sheltering indoors from the miserable February night as well as from the armed ‘cats’ prowling around. There is a distant hoot from a barge as it makes its way up the Thames; tonight, this building contains its very own precious smuggled cargo. Kitty thinks back to those ‘cats’ that surround the building. All she has for protection is the Indian club that the famous Madame Garrud has taught her to use. Then at some point during the darkness, the first scintilla of Saturday morning edges its way across the curtains. With the coming of the dawn, Dearest’s great escape mission is put into action.

Dearest. This is what Kitty calls Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst. During the suffrage campaign these two women have become close. Their Lancashire and Manchester connections, not to mention their experience of being married to eminent lawyers, have further cemented the bond they are forging in their fight for social, political and legal justice for women. For decades, campaigners have fought within the law for women’s suffrage, seeking support from sympathetic MPs, presenting petitions to Parliament, raising awareness within political societies, and using the power of the pen and the typewriter. And while some concessions have been gained, the suffragettes remind the public that the parliamentary franchise is still out of reach for all women as well as 40 per cent of the adult male population. In contrast, a sizeable number of women living in, for example, New Zealand, Australia, Finland, certain states of North America and the Isle of Man, where Mrs Pankhurst’s mother was born, have the parliamentary franchise.

Exasperated by the failure of carefully worded petitions to Parliament, Mrs Pankhurst’s team founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Manchester in 1903. As Mrs Pankhurst has learnt, the just cause of votes for women must be fought verbally and physically as much as possible by women themselves. When Mrs Pankhurst’s demands meet with resistance, her followers cause havoc by disturbing political meetings, ruining public performances, wrecking property and tampering with communication systems. And now, Mrs Pankhurst, who is dodging a three-year jail sentence, is further inciting them to disrupt Britain’s infrastructure.

This morning’s papers have announced that Mrs Pankhurst is to make a public appearance at an undisclosed address in Glebe Place, Chelsea. No doubt, there are many onlookers in the gathered crowd in the street, scanning the houses for signs of action, who believe that women would be unsexed and that the domestic order of the home would be destroyed if women could cast their votes. The usual taunts are being primed and are ready to be fired. Go home and darn your husband’s socks. Why aren’t you married? Can’t you get a husband? You’re a disgrace. You should be boiled alive. Go home and mind the baby. Don’t you wish you were a man? But even to these sceptics, the shows the suffragettes put on are still worth watching.

Shortly before Kitty’s arrival, a decoy managed sufficiently to fool the authorities into arresting the wrong woman. As this was happening, Mrs Pankhurst’s friends quickly spirited their leader to this charming three-storey refuge at 63 Glebe Place, Chelsea, near the Thames embankment. Lined with artists’ studios, Glebe Place might be a street of genteelly unconventional goings-on but it is also not exactly London’s typical number one hotspot for a Saturday afternoon confrontation. The home in which Mrs Pankhurst is holed up belongs to the bacteriologist Dr Harry (‘Peter’) Schütze and his new wife, Gladys Henrietta. Gladys gives him a warm, conspiratorial smile, her dark, curling hair bobbing. She is steeling herself for a challenge. She needs a chance to prove herself.

The Schützes look out of the window and begin to wonder about the enormity of the scenario in which they have willingly placed themselves. As the inhabitants of 63 Glebe Place can see, the crowd of men and women below is continuing to grow and is quickly filling up the road. Flat caps, turned-down collars and mackintoshes jostle for space with police officers’ uniforms and substantial ladies’ hats, which are kept in place with fierce-looking hatpins. Without guard tips, these pins, often up to 16 inches long, are lethal, and are causing anxiety as to their use as fashion accessories. One London magistrate has declared them to be as dangerous as guns; hatpins have even been used as stealth murder weapons in fiction and in real life.

Some spectators are taking a professional interest in the events. They are the detectives – ‘tecs’ for short, or ‘shadows’ – who come disguised as loafers and their numbers continue to increase. Among the crowd stands a young man in plain clothes whose appearance is, by his own admission, wholly unremarkable. And yet, from his short stature, he does not look like the average policeman. His story has crossed Kitty’s path before and now he considers the scene with the mischievous, shrewd and piercing gaze which would overawe his grandchildren. Mrs Pankhurst’s organisation presents a threat to public order and he is involved in trailing the women trained by Edith Garrud. As a result of his own hazardous spy work and the extraordinary activities of fellow officers in pursuing wanted suffragettes, the Metropolitan Police know how many men to send to bohemian Chelsea. Indeed, the Schützes find themselves on tenterhooks. What if the police force can also figure out who is concealing Mrs Pankhurst, obtain a warrant for an arrest and raid the premises? In any case, the minute she sets foot outside she is a target.

And so, Mrs Pankhurst is late; her protectors are busily considering their options. The throng of people outside has been kept waiting in the street for fifteen minutes as the clip-clop of horses’ hooves and the rumble of wheels on the wet cobblestones pass by. Inside, there is much shuffling about, changing of clothing and there are also debates about whether to employ a hosepipe to help keep climbing enemies at bay. In an attempt to calm her, Gladys’s illustrious guest gives her a smile and a kiss. Finally, just before 5 p.m., the French doors open and the great lady steps out on to the balcony, a veil over her face. A feather points out proudly from Mrs Pankhurst’s toque. Reporters surmise from her motoring attire that she has only just arrived. In reality, she came last night, preceded by a number of maids and trades people. Suspiciously new faces. The policemen wait below, their helmets almost within touching distance of Mrs Pankhurst and her friends on the balcony. And Mrs Pankhurst is so tempted to reach down for just a second with her dainty gloved hand and to make that connection.

Mrs Pankhurst considers her sizeable audience, her deep violet-blue eyes ranging across the growing crowd. She stands above them, but she is not too important as to be above the ordinary trials and sufferings that campaigners have to undergo to fight for a change in the conditions of women’s lives. The authorities’ inability to feed her during her absurdly frequent spates in prison have repeatedly brought about her early release; the government does not want another martyr to the cause. She wears her physical strain publicly. It is plain to see that the speaker’s numerous hunger and thirst strikes behind bars as well as the cycle of escapes and captures have exhausted her. The police call her a wanted criminal with a ‘sallow’ complexion; her friends describe her as frail and beautiful, even ethereal, with her olive skin, high cheekbones and stately bearing. Mrs Pankhurst, the star of this open-air performance, leans forward on the whiplash-thin railings, eyes the 1,000-strong crowd again and takes a breath.

When she speaks, her weakened voice is imbued with an arresting, otherworldly quality. She wants to put a stop to ‘foul outrages’ and to make the streets safer for women. Foul outrages? At this point, an observer’s gaze might be drawn to Kitty’s face, searching for a note of abstraction in her admiration of her friend. Dearest will not go back to jail to complete her sentence if Kitty, whose heart is beating against her tender ribs, can help it. By the end of the speech, the sky is darkening and the crowd has not completely dispersed as it ought to have done. A number of curious people have hung on to their places in the street, waiting for further events to unfold. They are not disappointed. There are now constables at each end of Glebe Place and down the King’s Road. ‘The game is afoot’, as Sherlock Holmes might say.

As the crowd wait, two cars pull up outside 63 Glebe Place. The front door swings open and Mrs Pankhurst dashes out, Kitty in the lead, accompanied by who whip out their clubs. These accessories are the same batons used in exercise classes to increase strength and aid posture, accoutrements to aid health and beauty. On this occasion, however, the clubs are pressed into a different service. Mrs Pankhurst slips into a car which proceeds to move away. Amid a surging crowd there is a set-to between the police and the women. One of Madame Garrud’s pupils is not adept in her use of the club. She aims at an officer who has one of her comrades in his grasp, but he is too fast for her and ducks as the blow comes; it is the suffragette who is struck on the head and now requires medical attention. ‘Now, now, Miss, be good!’ resonate the voices of the officers in an attempt to reason with the wild women. ‘If you don’t ’urt me, Miss, I won’t ’urt you.’

The veiled woman in the car feels distinctly uneasy as the men’s faces peer in through the windows. At last, a look of disgust hardens their features. ‘That’s not ’er! Drive on, chauffeur!’ It is as Kitty has feared; despite her best efforts to look like Mrs Pankhurst, the decoy fails to outfox the police. As Gladys watches the spectacle, it seems that the police are not sure what to do or whether they have indeed made a terrible mistake in letting the veiled woman in the taxi escape. As if to compensate for this loss, they arrest some of the fighting women. However, there is doubt as to whether Mrs Pankhurst, who has a habit of vanishing in the thick of the action, is still hiding behind the doors of this Chelsea home.

Those inside 63 Glebe Place move gingerly on the blanketed parquet floor, suppressing seasonal coughs and sneezes. Two flights of stairs must be silently negotiated. If the police realise the extent of the suffragette presence in the house, their suspicions will be aroused that Mrs Pankhurst, with all her entourage, is still stranded. There will be no chance of an escape if the house is constantly under surveillance. Gladys attempts to hear what is being said on the other side of the door as detectives exchange thoughts on Mrs Pankhurst’s whereabouts. Then, the sudden opening of the front door causes the occupants to jump. It is the cook’s bibulous husband, a sympathiser to the women’s cause. Thankfully, he shambles in and slams the door behind him before the men outside can see anything incriminating. Nevertheless, police presence is kept up. The organiser attempts to send a rescue party but the number of detectives and constables stationed outside Glebe Place and in the surrounding area is too great; by 1 a.m. all hope of an escape is abandoned. As detectives seat themselves on the doorsteps, Mrs Pankhurst slips into bed with a hot-water bottle and her group of women bodyguards flop into their easy chairs or find spaces on the floor. Some of them sleep in the remains of the Huguenot chapel which is now a drawing room. The branches of a fig tree, which was rooted in the floor, grow around an oval glass dome set in the flat roof above the room, which reaches over their heads. In plain clothes, the sharp-eyed officer who has witnessed events of what would become known as ‘The Battle of Glebe Place’ thinks that the authorities have succeeded in containing Mrs Pankhurst. However, his version is only half the story.

According to the papers, there is no back entrance to 63 Glebe Place. The only way that the leader can escape is out of the front door or through the tradesman’s passage from the basement, either way facing arrest. How will she get out? This is indeed a locked-room mystery of sorts. Her supporters inside the house know that it will take a tremendous effort to execute their task. Early on Sunday morning, an old maid slips out of the Schützes’ house. The officers stationed outside do not notice her. She returns with news that a relief party is on its way, and that evening at home Kitty, who should be resting, receives another phone call with instructions. Her husband Arthur is not pleased. He thinks that she has done enough for the cause. They both have and in doing so have become a powerhouse couple. But she simply cannot let her friends down. And besides, it is her job to lead the rescue mission.

1.

Married Alive

It is not hard to see why Kitty became a suffragette. She was brought up in what appears to have been a loving and supportive, middle-class socially active family. Her background was not only highly respectable, her family members were esteemed local figureheads whose legacy is still very publicly commemorated in the communities in which they lived and worked. Yet, there were elements in her upbringing which betokened a rebellious streak: a need to disturb, interrupt, force a change. When later provoked by events in her own life, it was this intrepid energy that Kitty inherited that would come to her aid when she found herself backed into some tight corners.

Kitty’s hero was her mother’s brother, William Charles Baldwin. His father, Reverend Gardner Baldwin, Vicar of Leyland, was a descendant in a long line of Baldwin vicars who had served St Andrew’s, Leyland, Lancashire all the way back to 1748. Kitty’s mother, Caroline, played cricket, while William, sporting a red jacket, went riding with the squire’s hounds and loved to chase salmon, much to the displeasure of his nanny who ended up chasing him. As an adult, he became a celebrity explorer. His book of 1863, African Hunting, a classic text, was compiled from a journal of his adventures which he penned using ink, pencil and gunpowder. The book is true to its title, and with a typical imperialist’s eye, he describes escaping from an elephant, negotiating with and observing the locals, and shooting buffalo, rhino and giraffes. At the Victoria Falls, he found the island where Dr David Livingstone had carved his name on a tree and added his own as the second European to reach the Falls, and the first to reach them from the East Coast. It was 4 August 1860. William Baldwin sat down with Livingstone that evening and chatted about Livingstone’s discoveries. William Baldwin died on 17 November 1903 and was buried at St Andrew’s Church, Leyland. His grave is marked with the epitaph: ‘A South African pioneer and “like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord”.’ A memorial stone, which sits above the door to the vestry, reads: ‘Resolute, not reckless, he was one who never turned his back, but rode straight forward.’ And below is added: ‘No man shall order me, I will be my own master.’ The carvings would be significant for Kitty.

Caroline was living in Lytham, Lancashire, with her other brother, Thomas Rigbye Baldwin, who had taken over the post of Vicar of Leyland after his father’s death in 1852. A new assistant was needed and in answer to the invitation, Leicestershire-born Kinton Jacques, an Oxford graduate, son of a successful wool merchant, came into Leyland in December of 1860 along with the deep snowdrifts. He soon set about helping parishioners affected by the embargo on slave-grown cotton from the American South with many workers supporting Abraham Lincoln’s blockade. Those mills that could not adapt were forced to shut down or cut back operations. The embargo hit Lancashire hard and money was raised around the country to pay for soup kitchens and clothing. Mrs Pankhurst (née Goulden) grew up in an abolitionist family in Manchester and one of her earliest memories was of helping her family raise money for newly freed slaves in America. Then only 5 years old, she would beam with pride as her little bag filled with coins. Kinton felt that the experience of these intense times and his work in the community helped him develop as a person. He made an instant impression on Caroline. The couple worked hard during the embargo of the early 1860s but in their spare time, they often sang together. Only a matter of months after they had first met, Kinton proposed to Caroline on 7 August 1861. She didn’t hesitate to accept.

The Kintons married in the parish of Lytham on 3 March 1863 and their first children were born in Clayton-le-Woods where Kinton worked as a curate. Kitty had three older brothers and a sister. William Baldwin Jacques was born in 1864; the year of James Kinton Jacques’ birth in 1865 marked the end of the American Civil War and the arrival of the first consignment of cotton in Leyland, when weavers and workers surrounded the cart and sang Praise God, from Whom all Blessings Flow; Francis Augustus Jacques was born in 1867; and Eleanor appeared in the autumn of 1868.

In early 1869, Kinton became the Vicar of Westhoughton where many of the parishioners were silk weavers who worked either in the four mills or on handlooms in their cottages. He presided over the laying of the cornerstone of a new parish church for St Bartholomew’s whose origins could be dated back to before the Reformation. The old brick chapel had been demolished and the stone one was erected in its place. In his speech, Kinton preached equality and reminded the audience that this was a church for all. No seats would be appropriated. Everyone was welcome. The church was consecrated on St Bartholomew’s Day, 24 August 1870, a handful of days after the birth of Emily Katherine, who was called Kitty from a young age. She was the first child born at the Westhoughton vicarage, on 3 August 1870. Kitty was baptised by her father on 27 August that year.

Four more children were born in the eclectically styled vicarage which had seen centuries of renovations. The home even boasted its own lake. Kitty’s mother’s name is a clear influence in the choice of names for the last two girls who were Florence Caroline (1872) and Cecilia Caroline Jacques (1874), who inherited a passion for cricket. Arthur Patrick Jacques followed in 1876 while George Philip Rigbye Jacques appears to have been the last child, born in October 1878. Caroline’s voice does not seem to have survived and it is impossible to know what her feelings were during the fifteen or so years spent in an almost constant state of pregnancy. Large families were considered the norm, most famously depicted in paintings of Queen Victoria and her family. However, many children were not expected to live into adulthood. Over 14 per cent of infants born between 1860 and 1900 in England and Wales died before their first birthday. The Jacques family endured tragedy, too. Caroline had lost her baby brother in 1843, when she was only 9 years old. Her own daughter, Florence Caroline Jacques, born in October 1872, died on 8 January 1874. Florence’s epitaph expresses the heartache of the grief-stricken parents who watched her tiny frame waste away and their daughter slip into the next world. Adapted from Kings 4:26 are the words: ‘Is it well with the child? It is well.’ Born on 17 March 1876, Arthur Patrick Jacques died on 10 May of ‘debility from birth’ and was heartbreakingly buried just over a month after his father baptised him.

Westhoughton had been one of the most impoverished areas in the Manchester diocese and Reverend Jacques, no doubt touched by personal tragedy, was committed to improving the lives and prospects of the people around him. In the wake of Joseph Bazalgette’s architectural feats in London, Kinton Jacques fought, amidst much local opposition from ratepayers, to have a local board to coordinate sewerage and better water supplies, much to the gratitude of his parishioners. Kinton built new churches and missions, set up night schools and reading rooms and organised regular collections for the poor, church charity fêtes and a Church Sick Society. In his work, he was helped by Caroline, who was a much-loved figure in the community. Kinton was deeply socially conscious and it is clear that his and his wife’s activities form the roots of Kitty’s faith and her campaigning spirit. His career influenced his family’s education, too. William Baldwin Jacques, clearly named after his famous explorer uncle, became a Lancashire curate before moving to Northampton. Kinton’s second son, James, also went into the church, becoming a curate of Kirkham, Lancashire in 1888. Kitty would become skilled at fundraising, a respectable pursuit for ladies. Her mother, who was active in the church and among the communities near Manchester where the British women’s suffrage campaign blossomed, was her teacher. Caroline did not live to see the formation of the WSPU but she would likely have known of the foundation that nineteenth-century suffrage campaigners had laid for the battles that were to rage in the Edwardian era; of the questioning spirit that was rising up in the theatre, coming to the boil in tearooms and prompted by experiences in workplaces, bedrooms, divorce courts, railway carriages, and on the street. Religious faith was a galvanising force and while critics railed against outmoded Christian ideals of women, faith also provided a rallying point, prompting many women to look at their role within Christianity. One of Kinton Jacques’ parishioners, who was considered an eccentric for her loose hair and her supposed unconventional life, scandalised society by living with another woman. She gave Kitty pause for thought. When the lady lay dying, Kinton Jacques offered up a prayer and finished with Amen. The parishioner reflected upon his words and responded with ‘Ay, that’s it, Master Jacques, a’ for men and nought for women.’

In 1889, Kinton Jacques moved his family to leafy Brindle in Lancashire. His two older daughters, Eleanor and Kitty, had finished their education at St Elphin’s Clergy Daughters’ College, near Warrington. A former pupil of St Elphin’s was Agnes Smallpeice, one of the earliest students admitted to Newnham Hall, Cambridge, in 1879. In the early 1870s, Millicent Garrett Fawcett had persuaded philosopher Henry Sidgwick to provide accommodation for women who attended lectures at Cambridge. Demand grew and the hall, which later became Newnham College, opened its doors four years before Agnes’s arrival. St Elphin’s School was founded in 1844 as part of a charity formed in 1697, which helped the widows and orphan daughters of qualifying clergy, training pupils of impoverished clergymen to become teachers. By the time Kitty was in attendance, the school’s intake had widened. St Elphin’s had spiral stone steps, an impressive fireplace and an underground passage and it seemed that the expansive windows beckoned a great future to those who gazed out on to the lush countryside beyond.

Kinton and Caroline may now have been turning their minds to making suitable matches for their daughters, but the nation was wondering: were there even enough men to go round? The 1851 census had revealed that there were 100,000 more unmarried women than unmarried men and the anxieties surrounding this disproportionate number had not gone away. George Gissing captured the mood when he described the excess female population as ‘odd’ women, like worn old gloves which could not be matched. Although single women could lead fulfilling lives and pursue successful careers, marriage was thought to be the apex of a woman’s life. But there was another reason why women had to start searching early for a husband: rumour had it that as soon as unmarried females reached middle age, their mental faculties began to disintegrate!

In 1888, the Daily Telegraph invited readers to consider the question: ‘Is Marriage a Failure?’ The volume of responses for both sides of the argument was astonishing: the newspaper’s offices received 27,000 letters. Nor was the reputation of marriage enhanced by the case of R. v. Jackson (also known as the Clitheroe Abduction Case of 1891), brought about after a husband had kidnapped his wife, Emily Jackson, as she was leaving church. A Court of Appeal ruling established that a husband could not take the law into his own hands and kidnap his wife and did not have the right to detain or imprison her in order to obtain conjugal rights. Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, who later appeared in numerous suffragette photographs as the smiling old lady with silvery hair in ringlets, felt that the result of the Clitheroe Abduction Case was a significant step towards women’s emancipation. The court decision helped to chisel away at notions of coverture, namely that a woman’s person and personal belongings were ceded to her husband on marriage. (Legislation including Married Women’s Property Acts sought to claw back power by giving wives power over their own personal property and independent earnings.) Yet, there was a long way to go, not least because of the violent local public demonstrations in support of Mr Jackson.

Despite the negative press surrounding the institution of marriage, Kitty found herself heading down the aisle at St James in Brindle on 7 April 1896. She was 25 years old. But there was no panic yet, as she was not considered too old; in fact, she was of the average age at which women married. The sun shone down on her as she emerged from the vicarage, dressed in a winter-weight white mohair dress, trimmed with silk, carrying a bouquet of white blossoms. Numerous flower girls preceded her and lay petals before her feet as she headed across the path to the church whose windows were decorated with flowers and ivy. Her father led her down the aisle to the tune of the ‘Wedding March’ from Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, a theme which had been popular since 1858, when it was played at the wedding of Victoria the Princess Royal and Prince Frederick William of Prussia. The bridesmaids – Kitty’s sisters and her fiancé’s sister Ethel – were dressed in white and blue blouses and hats, typical of the era when the shirt and skirt ensemble was becoming everyday wear. Encircling their wrists were gold bracelets, gifts from Kitty’s husband-to-be who stood at the altar and cut a slim figure in his wedding suit as he gave her a backward glance.

She was surrounded by well-wishers, whose expectations would have crowded in on her, too. For a start, the Jacques and Finch families were closely involved in the proceedings. Hugh’s own father, Reverend Thomas Ross Finch, an Oxford graduate, presided over the ceremony, assisted by Kitty’s brother James Kinton Jacques and Hugh’s brother Walter, Vicar of Nuneaton. Reverend Finch, now Kitty’s father-in-law, addressed the church on the duties of a husband, who should offer his spouse protection and comfort, while a wife was expected to be a helpmeet, ready to submit to her husband. He reminded them that their marriage was no accident. They had been chosen to be together by God and, with a nod to the marriage sceptics, he told the couple that marriage was not merely an earthly contract that they could just break off at will. But he unwittingly added a loophole. They would be destined to be together forever, he said, provided that their love proved to be true.

We do not know whether Kitty chose Hugh or if she had responded to gentle persuasion from her parents. After all, the marriage appears to have been professionally and socially beneficial to both families. Born in Staffordshire in 1871 (his mother was also called Caroline), the dapper 25-year-old Hugh appeared to have been an excellent catch. As was typical in his social class, he had been sent to boarding school, which in his case was Winchester College. Not only had he been a keen gymnast and rower, cross-country runner and athlete, he played polo whilst studying at Keble College Oxford and was a member of the 1st VIII in Oxford’s Eighth Week, an annual rowing event. He graduated with a BA in Natural Sciences, and would obtain an MB Bac. in Surgery at Oxford in 1898, eventually taking up work at various hospitals in London. Hugh was living in Bloomsbury by the time of his marriage. He seemed to embody the principle of mens sana in corpora sano. His best man, schoolmaster Archer Vassall, was also a member of the university athletics team at Keble College and in 1899 he married Kitty’s younger sister Cecilia. Archer and Cecilia were witnesses at Hugh and Kitty’s wedding, together with Kinton Jacques and Caroline Mary Finch. After the garden party at the rectory, Kitty put on her brown travelling dress and coat and pink silk blouse, affixed her brown chip hat, which was trimmed with roses, and set off with her new husband for a life far from home, at the other end of England.

It is tempting to speculate on the thoughts and anxieties that Kitty may have had about her new life with Hugh. The poetry of Adelaide Procter, a favourite of Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria, is touchingly revealing. In particular, A Woman’s Question (1858), which was written not long before Procter’s death, combines a sense of hope and wariness:

Before I trust my Fate to thee,

Or place my hand in thine,

Before I let thy Future give

Colour and form to mine, —

Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul to-night

for me.

…

Is there within thy heart a need

That mine cannot fulfill?

One chord that any other hand

Could better wake or still?

Speak now, lest at some future day, my whole life

wither and decay.3

Not much is known about Kitty during these early years of her marriage in Essex. But in 1900, there was a change of circumstances for her and the new century ushered in a feeling of sorrow and dread. Hugh was working as an assistant at the Central London Throat and Central London Ophthalmology Hospitals when the couple were recalled up to the Rectory. Caroline Augusta had been suffering from bronchitis, asthma and syncope. Kinton was by her side in her final moments. He registered her sudden death on 7 January. Her funeral took place on 11 January at Brindle St James, attended by her family and many friends from Westhoughton and Leyland. Kinton and his children organised a tribute to his wife in the form of a prominent mural and a set of three stained-glass windows, known as The Three Ladies Window. The mural tablet, which sits just below three images of women, entitled ‘Wisdom’, ‘Charity’ and ‘Good Works’, reads: ‘Caroline Augusta younger daughter of the Rev: Gardnor [sic] Baldwin Vicar of Leyland. For thirty seven years the beloved wife of Kinton Jacques Rector of this Parish. At rest January 7th 1900.’ Running along the bottom of all the stained-glass panels is the message: ‘To the glory of God and in loving memory of Caroline Augusta Jacques.’ The first panel on the viewer’s left shows The Capable Wife, her wedding ring prominent. We are invited to consider Proverbs 31 of the Old Testament which describes such a wife who works hard for her family, organises her servants and helps her husband who is a prominent local figure. The panel on the right, refers to Acts 9 from the New Testament and depicts Dorcas (whose name is Tabitha in Aramaic), the Good Lady of Joppa, who cared for widows and the poor. When she died, her grief-stricken community appealed to St Peter who successfully raised her from the dead. The middle window shows the Virgin Mary, holding Christ in yellow robes, watched by two young, adoring children. The scene refers to sections of 1 Corinthians: 13 of the New Testament:

Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud … When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child; now that I am a man, I have no more use for childish ways. What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete – as complete as God’s knowledge of me. Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.

The three children represented in the glass panel are symbolic of the three qualities at the end of this passage. Perhaps too, though, given the way that the scenes from the Bible interconnect with Caroline Augusta’s own good works and her love of her family, the boy and the slightly older girl who kneel at the Virgin Mary’s feet may have been reminiscent of Patrick and his sister Florence, whose tiny lives had been cut so short. Here they are face-to-face with us, their memories preserved in glass above the congregation.

The Jacques’ home as represented in these stained-glass memorials and in the tablet was a reflection of godliness on Earth, harmonious and safe, with Kinton’s and Caroline’s companionate marriage transmitting the Lord’s message, even after death. As Reverend Finch had told the guests at Kitty’s wedding:

And so, my dear son and daughter, when all the outer excitement and show and glitter of your happy wedding have passed away, may there still remain sounding in your heart the solemn undertones of God’s Word, reminding you of the holy duties towards each other, which you undertake to-day. … When they leave their old homes, and set up a separate home and household of their own, the master of the family should remember that he is also the priest, and the mistress, that she is the deaconess, of the Church which is in their house.4

But when Kitty attended her mother’s funeral in the very church in which she and the man standing beside her had been wed, she knew by that point that her own marriage was failing. Something went wrong very early on in the marriage and for whatever reason, Hugh had begun to distance himself from her. It did not help matters that women were so often kept in the dark about sex. As a child, suffragette and arsonist Kitty Marion was told that sex was ‘a closed book’. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), had decried the state of innocence in which women had been kept, their minds kept ignorant and their bodies bound by the principle of ‘coverture’. Her work struck a chord with late-Victorian readers, particularly suffrage campaigners like Emmeline Pethick Lawrence. On a practical level, ignorance of what to expect could augur badly for the marriage. For Gladys Schütze, who married grain merchant Louis Mendl in 1904, it was the wedding night, that mysterious event for which Victorian women were so typically ill-prepared, which caused the first rift. The event left her shaken and she felt that the experience forced her to grow up very quickly, while her husband seemed unaffected. The two were unable to surmount their differences and eventually filed for divorce. H.G. Wells married his cousin Isabel in 1891, but it was their disastrous wedding night which put a division up between them and made Wells feel rejected and resentful. Wells would continue to find Isabel attractive but his attention also drew towards his student, Amy Catherine Robbins, and soon he and Isabel would find themselves faced with the prospect of ending their marriage.

The Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 set up divorce courts in London which made divorce easier to obtain for many, albeit with stigma attached, more so if the parties came from backgrounds as close-knit as Kitty’s. Although divorce was more widely available, there was a catch. Whereas a husband seeking a divorce only needed to prove a wife’s infidelity, a wife would have to prove adultery and other fault such as desertion, bigamy or cruelty. It was only under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1923 that both men and women could divorce on grounds of adultery alone. Louis Mendl obtained his divorce from Gladys by proving that Gladys had been unfaithful; he named Peter Schütze. Peter and Gladys were married a matter of days after the divorce came through. Isabel Wells was required to show that her husband had been unfaithful – the co-respondent in his case was Amy Catherine (‘Jane’) who would become his long-term wife and would run his household while he engaged in his many affairs. But Isabel also had to show that he had been guilty of an act of cruelty which in Wells’ case was desertion; he had failed to return to the marital home.

Under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1884, Wells could no longer be imprisoned but this act of desertion meant that he could be threatened with divorce. A copy of Isabel’s letter to Wells imploring him to return was duly enclosed in her affidavit, and a statement of his failure to do so contained the necessary wording that a court would have been looking for in order to prove heartbreak, desertion and that her ‘conjugal rights’ had been infringed when he continued to ignore her court order to return to him; grounds on which to start the divorce proceedings. She got her divorce and Wells was ordered to pay her alimony.

In April 1899, Hugh had an affair. Kitty was determined not to begin the new century married to him and she marked the New Year of 1901 with a divorce petition. It was an age of endings. Kitty’s divorce proceedings were set in motion just as Queen Victoria’s diminutive coffin was drawn by black-plumed horses through the streets of London to the strain of Chopin’s Funeral March. The death of the then longest-reigning British monarch left the general public with a sense of being unmoored, left to drift into a new century, just as Kitty’s decision to unhook herself from her marriage would result in a battle which would at best confer on her the insecure social status of divorcee. The case of Finch v. Finch was heard before the Right Honourable Sir Francis Henry Jeune KCB, who had worked for the plaintiff in the Tichborne v. Lushington case of the early 1870s in which corpulent Australian Arthur Orton claimed to be the slim and dashing long-lost heir to the Tichborne baronetcy. When Jeune, who had presided over the Wells v. Wells case, eyed Kitty’s divorce petition, he decided in her favour. Hugh was staying in London hotels with Alice Carr, who had divorced her own husband in 1895 on grounds of cruelty and adultery. It was not uncommon for the husband, with the wife’s full knowledge, to be conveniently seen with another woman in a hotel to fulfil the adultery requirement. This tactic was the subject of A.P. Herbert’s 1934 novel Holy Deadlock in which one character announces that those who are unhappily married and cannot divorce are ‘joined together in unholy matrimony’ and are ‘married alive!’

As far as the court was concerned, Hugh had treated Kitty with cruelty. In April 1899, Hugh had contracted a venereal disease, which he then ‘wilfully and recklessly’ communicated to Kitty and ‘was thereby guilty of cruelty towards her’. Both adverbs were important. In fact, two previous cases gave rise to a vocabulary which framed Hugh’s treatment of Kitty as an act of cruelty and ultimately helped Kitty obtain a divorce. The first of these was the 1865 case of Brown v. Brown. It was not the numerous examples of her husband’s drunkenness, his repeated desertion of her, his threatening presence at home or his shabby treatment of her father, whom he threatened with a pistol duel in 1863, that convinced the judge of the husband’s cruelty. Rather, the judge felt that Brown had committed an act of cruelty by ‘wilfully’ communicating a disease to his wife. To sufficiently establish wilfulness, Judge James Wilde argued, one must look to the circumstances around the husband’s behaviour and assume that his health was ‘within his own knowledge’. The Liverpool divorce case Boardman v. Boardman of 1866 importantly broadened the definition of cruelty from an intentional action to a reckless deed. Effectively, the case extended the grounds on which a woman could obtain a divorce. In 1860, 18-year-old Martha married commission agent James Boardman; after five years, Martha fell ill. Serial adulterer James Boardman knew he had had a disease prior to marriage. The doctor’s conclusion was that only James could have given Martha syphilis. James gaslighted his wife and tried to darken her reputation, but a court decided that it was James and not his wife who was guilty of adultery, with James also considered guilty of cruelty. But, looking back on these cases with modern eyes, it is clear that the medical profession was also committing its own act of cruelty in withholding the truth. The doctors who had treated Margaretta and Martha told their husbands what was wrong with them but the women, their patients, were kept in the dark about the true nature of their physical complaints. They were indeed victims of a common doctor-led conspiracy of silence.