‘By what right do you stop me?’: Day of protest when Suffragette Charlotte Marsh gave police the runaround

ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY: Charlotte Marsh becomes the first Suffragette to be arrested in Hull. Image by Gareth Sleightholme

Now & Then, a column by Angus Young

Suffragette city: When the campaign for votes for women arrived in Hull

Confronted by two policemen blocking her way, Charlotte Marsh gathered up her skirt and leapt from an elevated walkway, landing on a quayside track next to the Humber used by coal trucks.

With her target in sight, she ran towards cabinet member and Postmaster General Sydney Buxton as the officers on the promenade above kept pace with her.

Before she could reach him, her path was blocked by a truck. As she climbed back onto the upper deck she was met by the two officers who circled her as a crowd gathered.

“By what right do you stop me?” she shouted.

“You are not going to interrupt the proceedings,” came the reply from the senior officer, a superintendent.

“I don’t want to,” said Charlotte. “This is a public place and I have a right to be here.”

“Never mind your rights, you are not going to get near Mr Buxton.”

“I don’t want to get near him. I only want votes for women!”

HEROINE: Suffragette Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Marsh

Charlotte tried to break free but was grabbed by the officers before being escorted to a railway office on Hull’s Riverside Quay where she was held until the VIP party had left Albert Dock.

Released without charge, she shook the superintendent’s hand, said she bore no grudge against the police and suggested with a smile that their paths were likely to cross again later in the day.

The regional organiser of the Women’s Social and Political Union would keep her promise as Hull witnessed its first ever episode of Suffragette militancy. In the summer of 1909 the movement was challenging the government like never before, taking its cause directly to ministers whenever they left London on official visits to other parts of the country. Buxton’s trip to Hull to officially open the new Head Post Office in Lowgate was one such occasion.

Activists led by Charlotte had already laid the groundwork by staging a series of open-air meetings in Hull ahead of the visit. Addressing crowds of up to 700 people in Holderness Road, Hessle Road and in Paragon Square in the city centre, she spoke for over an hour from a horse-drawn wagonette carrying three other Suffragettes.

Undaunted by her arrest at Riverside Quay, Charlotte resumed her pursuit of the Postmaster General later that day as he left the Station Hotel by jumping onto the step of a car taking him to the Head Post Office for the opening ceremony.

Again a crowd swarmed around as she clung on before being dragged off the vehicle by police. In the melee that followed, she managed to break free and ran after the procession only to be swallowed up by the crowd.

With some onlookers becoming openly hostile, Charlotte escaped by jumping on a tram which took her straight to Lowgate where Buxton’s entourage was arriving.

Mounted police had been deployed to form a physical barrier around the Post Office with orders to keep a watch for female protestors, but as Buxton approached the main entrance Charlotte ran forward and got within a few feet of the cabinet minister before being seized by a couple of constables.

The ensuing struggle was met by a mix of jeers and sympathetic applause from the crowd before Charlotte was once more placed into police custody at the nearby Parliament Street station.

Even so, Buxton’s speech on the steps of the building declaring it officially open was interrupted by cries of “Votes for Women” from a Suffragette colleague, Ada Flatman, who had accompanied Charlotte to Hull for the visit.

Later released once more without charge, her pursuit of Buxton was not quite over.

Having attended the opening ceremony where it was noted no women were present, the Postmaster General was guest of honour at a banquet held in the Station Hotel.

While guests were served turtle soup complete with specially-engraved turtle shells to commemorate the event, Charlotte and Ada held another well-attended open-air meeting directly opposite before attempting to get inside the hotel.  Police officers on the door refused them admission, stating that instructions had been given not to let any woman into the building.

DOCKSIDE DRAMA: Where Charlotte Marsh began her protest

Next morning the pair continued following Buxton as he continued his visit with calls to the Exchange building in Lowgate and Holy Trinity Church. Detectives were now attempting to track their every move as another sizable crowd joined in the spectacle.

As the politician finally headed back to Paragon Station to catch his train, the two women hailed a horse-drawn cab only for one of the detectives to jump onboard next to the driver as he set off towards the station.

Within seconds, Charlotte and Ada leapt from the moving cab and flagged down another. A chase – described in one contemporary newspaper report as an “exciting run” – then took place through the city centre with the suffragettes arriving at the station ahead of a presumably embarrassed chief constable, several inspectors and constables.

However, officers already posted at the station refused to allow the women onto the platform where Buxton’s train was waiting to depart. Despite being turned away, the large crowd of spectators cheered them as they once again took up the cry “Votes for Women”.

The following month Charlotte was back in Hull and this time, along with eight other women, she ended up in court.

The trigger was another ministerial visit to Hull, this time by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Herbert Samuel who was due to speak at a public meeting in the Assembly Rooms, now better known as Hull New Theatre.

Charlotte organised a meeting outside the venue and arranged for activists from across the country to attend and speak. When six of her colleagues arrived in Albion Street on the back of a horse-drawn wagon to applause from an already noisy crowd, mounted police officers intervened by stopping them from going any further.

SCENE: The Post Office in Lowgate, where Charlotte Marsh sought an unscheduled appointment with the Postmaster General

As the women jumped off the wagon and joined the crowd, the officers rode onto the pavement where people were standing and mayhem briefly erupted.

Easily distinguishable because of their suffragette colours, the women were all arrested and taken into custody with the crowd shouting “Cowards!” at the police.

In court the next day, Charlotte attempted to spare her colleagues any punishment by claiming she alone was responsible for the crowd gathering. The others all denied the same charge of provoking a breach of the peace by attracting a crowd with each one pointing out the disorder only started once the police rode their horses onto the pavement and into the crowd.

The Stipendiary Magistrate found all nine women guilty but then discharged them without passing a sentence. He told them: “I am not going to gratify any wish which any of you might have to make martyrs of yourselves by undergoing imprisonment for your cause.

“This is the first case of the Suffragette movement in Hull, so I shall discharge you all. If this sort of thing is repeated by any of you, I will give you something more to your liking.”

As he finished, Charlotte said: “That depends on the Cabinet Minister,” to a burst of laughter from spectators in the courtroom.

Charlotte later became one of the suffragettes to be forcibly fed during a hunger strike protest in prison in 1911. During the First World War she worked as a mechanic and chauffeur for Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

After the war, the vote was given to women over 30 who met certain property qualifications. In 1928 all women were given the right to vote at the age of 21.

• There are no known photographs of Charlotte’s adventures in Hull but an artist’s sketch of her arrest outside the Head Post Office was printed in a local newspaper. The original image is relatively crude because of the block engraving process used at the time so we asked Hull-based illustrator Gareth Sleightholme to weave his magic and come up with an improved version to accompany this article