Over two evenings in March 1912, more than 250 women – old and young, rich and poor, strong and delicate – were arrested and charged with using hammers and stones to smash the windows of shops and offices across London.
The youngest amongst them was 19-year-old teenager glass-breaker and Kent working maid, Ethel Violet Baldock, whilst the eldest was 79-year-old Mrs Hilda Eliza Brackenbury, owner of suffragette safe house, Mouse Castle, in Campden Hill Square.
These two evenings would later become known as the Women’s Social and Political Union’s window smashing Great Militant Protest.
The protest, driven by WSPU leader Emmeline Pankhurst, was against the government and their refusal to include women in their reform bill, which would give women the right to vote.
Secret Missions of the Suffragettes examines these two evenings in great detail, before going on to explore ‘behind the scenes’ of the movement; the safe houses and rest homes used by the history-shaping women involved, together with stories of the women themselves, as well as their self defence training and use of disguises and alias names, all of which were needed to be a part of such a militant campaign.
Secret Missions of the Suffragettes by Jennifer Godfrey is published on 30 March, 2024.
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