Black Friday (1910)

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson with Emmeline Pankhurst on 18 November 1910

Black Friday was a women's suffrage event that occurred in the United Kingdom on 18 November 1910.

The protests came in response to parliamentary proceedings regarding the Conciliation Bill, which would have extended the right of women to vote in Britain and Ireland to around 1,000,000 wealthy, property-owning women. The bill made it to a second reading, but British Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith indicated that there would be no more Parliamentary time for the reading in the current session.

In response, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) sent a delegation of around 300 women to protest, and 200 were assaulted when they attempted to run past the police. Many of the arrested suffragettes reported being assaulted and manhandled by the police. It was the first documented use of police force against suffragettes. In the aftermath, Asquith's car was vandalized, and the event caused some embarrassment to Winston Churchill who was Home Secretary at the time.

119 were arrested, men and women.[1]

The aftermath of Black Friday

A woman, presumed to be Ada Wright is on the ground with her gloved hands over her face. A man in a top hat appears to be shoulder barging a policeman behind her, while another policeman has removed his gloves and is stooping over her. In the background are several more police officers and a number of men and women, beyond them the walls and doorway to the Parliament buildings.

The events of Black Friday were a public relations disaster for the government; the press took the side of the Suffragettes, printing pictures of police assaulting unarmed female protesters. The actions of the police were greatly criticised.[2] After Black Friday, Asquith stated that if the Liberals were elected at the next general election, they would include a Suffrage Bill that could be amended to allow women to vote. The WSPU rejected this, believing that it was an attempt to delay reform; the events of Black Friday were damaging to the suffrage campaign as well, as they caused MPs to distance themselves from the issue.

A photograph of Ada Wright on the ground was published by the Daily Mirror under the headline "Black Friday". The true cost of Black Friday would only be known some time after the event. At least two women died as a result of their injuries that day. Another woman who had been badly treated by the police and was arrested for stone throwing a few days later died after being released from prison on Christmas Day 1910 - she was Emmeline Pankhurst’s sister, Mary Clarke.[3]

References

  1. ↑ The Times, 19 November 1910, page 10
  2. ↑ The National Archives Learning Curve | Power, Politics and Protest | Suffragettes
  3. ↑

See also