Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the steadfast Dr Watson and his irritating sidekick Sherlock Holmes, told a mass meeting of the National League For Opposing Women’s Suffrage, held in Tunbridge Wells on this date, that the burning down of the local cricket pavilion was akin to “blowing up a blind man and his dog.”
(He always did have a gift for phrase-making, and for cricket, as it happens: he was a decent bat, and had one First Class wicket – that of WG Grace.)
April 1913 saw a new stage in the struggle for votes for women. Emmeline Pankhurst, autocratic leader of the suffragettes, the pro-terrorism wing of the movement, had been jailed in connection with a bombing campaign. She responded by going on hunger strike, and the authorities applied the notorious “cat-and-mouse” approach to dealing with her: when she became ill from her fast she would be released. Once she had recovered she would be re-arrested, and would begin her hunger strike again. And so on. Her supporters on the outside were determined to step up their terror work. The government had declared war on them, and they would fight back.
And the recently ennobled “Royal” Tunbridge Wells was, according to its mayor, a “hotbed of militants.”
If you’ve ever watched cricket at the Nevill Ground, you’ll probably remember it. One of the best-loved venues on the county circuit, its rhododendron bushes are particularly famous. Since the end of World War Two it’s been owned by the borough council and is the local home of cricket, hockey and tennis.
On the morning of April 11th a passer-by discovered the ground’s rather splendid pavilion in flames. By the time the fire had been extinguished the building was beyond repair. Although no-one ever claimed responsibility for the arson, or was charged with it, a photograph of Pankhurst and some suffragette leaflets were found positioned nearby.
A myth arose that the place was targetted after a club official joked: “It’s not true that women are banned from the pavilion. Who do you think makes the teas?” There’s no evidence of this, and it seems unlikely since in fact the pavilion was open to all. It’s more likely that militants saw an easy target and one which they knew would create national publicity.
The first public meeting in the town to discuss the attack was, rather courageously, held by local suffragettes. They were unapologetic: no target was illegitimate as long as the injustice of a men-only franchise continued.
On the 13th (or the 28th, in some sources), a much bigger rally was organised by the National League For Opposing Women’s Suffrage (of which the best-selling novelist, Mrs Humphry Ward, was a leading member.) Local celebrity Conan Doyle was the guest speaker, and he laid into the “female hooligans” of the suffrage movement without mercy. The extremists in the movement were a “disgrace to their sex,” and it was obvious that outside agencies were financing their “malicious monkey tricks.”
Having destroyed an innocent cricket pavilion, the only way they could sink lower was by blowing up a blind man and his dog. (It’s surely impossible not to admire, from a purely professional point of view, that addition of “and his dog,” which turns what would have been a slightly embarrassing piece of hyperbole into a memorable cartoon). Sir Arthur took consolation from the obvious fact that the public outrage at the Nevill arson was so great that it had ruined the suffragettes’ chances of political success.
Outside the hall three brave suffragettes were heckling the meeting. They were physically attacked and pelted with missiles by the large crowd, their clothing torn, before they were taken to the police station for their own safety. The cop shop, in turn, was besieged by a howling mob for an hour.
A columnist in the local paper suggested that once the arsonists were safely locked up, the prison authorities should deal with their inevitable hunger strike by placing “on one side of the cell a loaf, on the other side a coffin,” and if the prisoners chose to starve “who cares.”
One local bowling club, fearing it might be next to get a Pankhurst makeover, apparently installed an alarm system consisting of some sort of tripwire which “when touched, explodes a large mortar.” Hmm, sounds effective in theory, but when was the last time you saw the police turn out for a car alarm?
The cricket pavilion was quickly rebuilt after a crowdfunding appeal, and was ready for use by July. Sadly, the club’s irreplaceable archive, of immense value to historians, was also destroyed in the fire.
As for the what-happened-nexts, there were some surprises to come. When World War One started the following year, Pankhurst’s terrorists became Empire loyalists, fanatically supporting the war and handing out white feathers to able-bodied young men spotted in public who, they believed, should be busy dying in the trenches.
During the war, Conan Doyle – who had once described women’s suffrage as “against not only the constitution but the very laws of nature” - wrote a widely published propaganda piece concerning a visit to a munitions factory staffed by women. The experience had changed his mind on the suffrage question, he said: “Hats off to the women of Britain! Even all the exertions of the militants shall not in future prevent me from being an advocate for their vote, for those who have helped to save the State should be allowed to help to guide it.”
In 1927 Emmeline Pankhurst was selected as a Tory parliamentary candidate.
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Sources:
http://suffrage.kentlive.news/
https://bluemantles.com/history/history-of-the-nevill-ground/
https://womanandhersphere.com/2013/04/15/suffrage-stories-arson-at-tunbridge-wells-april-1913/
www.britannica.com/biography/Mrs-Humphry-Ward
https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=Speech_at_the_National_League_for_Opposing_Woman_Suffrage
Disgusted ladies by Anne Carwardine (Matador, 2018)