Quote · Empire: World History
369. The First British Indians: The Suffragette Princess (Ep 1)
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Black Friday: Churchill, the Conciliation Bill, and State Violence
At 43:15 · chapter starts 39:50
The climax of the episode arrives with Black Friday. The government has repeatedly dragged its feet on the Conciliation Bill, which would extend the vote to some women. On 18 November 1910, Asquith announces the bill will not have time to pass — effectively guillotining it. Emmeline Pankhurst has anticipated this: 300 of her most committed suffragettes are assembled at Caxton Hall, and they plan to march to Parliament in groups of 12 to circumvent Churchill's new law banning gatherings larger than that number. Sophia marches shoulder to shoulder with Pankhurst. At St Stephen's Gate they are kettled by police. Churchill's order for the day — 'don't arrest the women, discourage them' — is a deliberate choice not to let suffragettes occupy courtrooms and make speeches. What follows is six hours of police violence: women picked up and thrown against pavements, their breasts punched, kicked between the legs, thrown into crowds of men. Some police officers have covered their badge numbers. MPs hang out of Parliamentary windows to watch. Anand's account does not soften any of it.
On 18 November 1910, Churchill ordered police to 'discourage' suffragettes rather than arrest them — a euphemism for sexual assault and physical violence lasting six hours. Police covered their badge numbers. Women were picked up and thrown into crowds of men. Emmeline Pankhurst and Sophia Duleep Singh stood at St Stephen's Gate watching it happen.
Prime Minister Asquith guillotined the Conciliation Bill on 18 November 1910, which would have given some women the vote, triggering the Black Friday march.
Tiny Sophia — five feet tall — rushed into the melee on Black Friday to body-check a police officer who had repeatedly slammed a woman into the pavement. She then chased the officer through the crowd demanding his badge number, repeating 'V700' until she had it memorised, and escalated the complaint all the way to Winston Churchill's desk.
The violence on Black Friday, 18 November 1910, lasted six hours, during which suffragettes were sexually assaulted by police who had covered their badge numbers.
