A suffragette march on Parliament in 1910 turned violent when police and bystanders assaulted 300 women, reshaping WSPU tactics and exposing state-sanctioned brutality.
Key Facts
- Date
- 18 November 1910
- Protesters
- 300 women marched to Houses of Parliament
- Arrests
- 115 women and 4 men arrested
- Duration of violence
- Approximately 6 hours
- Statements collected
- 135 demonstrators interviewed; 29 reported sexual assault
- Inquiry outcome
- Public inquiry rejected by Home Secretary Winston Churchill
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Prime Minister H. H. Asquith had promised a Conciliation Bill to extend voting rights to women during the January 1910 election campaign. Despite the bill passing its first and second readings with MP support, Asquith refused further parliamentary time and called a new general election on 18 November 1910, which the Women's Social and Political Union regarded as a deliberate betrayal of his commitment.
Around 300 women, organised by the WSPU, marched from Caxton Hall in Westminster to the Houses of Parliament. They were met by lines of Metropolitan Police and hostile male bystanders who subjected them to six hours of violence, including sexual assault. Police arrested 115 women and 4 men, though all charges were dropped the following day. A conciliation committee collected 135 witness statements, of which 29 detailed sexual assault.
Calls for a public inquiry were rejected by Home Secretary Winston Churchill. The violence may have contributed to the subsequent deaths of two suffragettes. Many WSPU members, unwilling to risk further physical assault, shifted back to property-based direct action such as stone-throwing and window-breaking. Metropolitan Police also revised their crowd-control tactics for future demonstrations to avoid arrests that were either too early or too late.