Suffrage Trial 1909: The Curtis Bennett Papers

Women's Suffrage

A collection of 57 letters and postcards to Sir Henry Curtis Bennett from family, friends and members of the public; 4to and 8vo. The correspondence congratulates him on his imminent knighthood and his promotion to Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, showing support after the "...recent dastardly & diabolic attempt on your life..." and concerns for his safety ("...do be careful of all letters, parcels & visitors to your house..."), all speaking in the strongest terms against the "vile" and devilish suffragettes ("evil... hysterical maniacs... Let all militants 'starve' themselves..."), supporting his strong stance ("...more power to your elbow...") and suggesting ways he can deal with them ("...the glory of a woman is her hair, if she won't keep quiet cut it off. You would soon put a stop to all this violence..."), several from women ("... I am heartily ashamed of my own sex... if I thought that my little girl (aged 9 months) would grow up like one of these, I would rather lay her to rest, at once... I grant that women should have the vote but they are hindering the good of the Cause..."), one letter from a maid giving the names of suffragettes hiding from the police ("...they are hiding Miss Lillian Linton... I will come forward for the Truth if necessary...") Also included is a copy of the order of service for Curtis Bennett's burial service on 6 June 1913. On 21 October 1908, at Bow Street Magistrates Court Sir Henry Curtis Bennett (1846-1913) tried Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and Flora Drummond for inciting a breach of the peace by circulating a handbill during a demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 13 October urging their WSPU supporters to "rush" the House of Commons. After a four-day trial, all three were found guilty and sentenced to three months imprisonment. After that he was a marked man. As well as a failed parcel-bomb attempt, he survived another assassination attempt when two suffragettes attempted to push him over the cliffs at Margate after he convicted several suffragettes following a window-smashing raid on the West End, necessitating constant protection from officers of Scotland Yard. The issue of female suffrage was part of a much wider debate on the equality of the sexes at this time and serves to demonstrate the widespread public feeling against suffragism in general. What is particularly evident here, however, is their distaste for the militant tactics of the suffragette wing of the movement, whose extreme behaviour certainly isolated many supporters of female suffrage, such as the suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett, who believed that votes for women would and should be achieved by peaceful means. To them, these women are "savages", "horrible female miscreants", "misguided" and "villainous", displaying "very un-English" uncivilised behaviour. They are diabolical "female fiends" and clearly mad ("militancy is another word for insanity"). One correspondent, the architect of Buckingham Palace, Sir Aston Webb, writes of "...the evil machinations of these disgraceful suffragists...". The women correspondents write just as vociferously as the men. There are several letters from women who are ashamed of their sex - one self-proclaimed "septuagenarian spinster" suggests flogging, another "peaceable quiet woman" suggests deportation to the remote island of Staffa in the north of Scotland.

Four autograph letters signed on his hopes for averting the Second World War

HENDERSON, Sir Nevile

Four autograph letters signed written whilst British Ambassador to Germany, to Lord Noel-Buxton, February to October 1938, 8 pages, quarto and octavo, annotated in pencil by the recipient. On 13 February 1938 Henderson puts forward his hopes for averting war ("...the Great War was fought not to increase British territory overseas but to preserve what we already had & to end wars in future. The Versailles Conference missed the point, but it is not too late to uproot the seeds of future war which Versailles sowed..."), on 7 April, giving a detailed exposition of a possible solution to the Czechoslovakian crisis, and, in October, registering his reaction to Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland ("...It has all made me feel rather sick. it c'ld have been so easily avoided. But perhaps Providence preferred the clean cut: & certainly it sh'ld save further crises in the future. Czechoslovakia was as a house built upon the sands & it c'ld never have stood ag'st the rising tide of Germany...")."...I w'ld not, if I had the arranging of it, begin by a plebiscite. I w'ld first persuade Benes, with French help if possible but without if unattainable, that he must accord at least cultural autonomy & self administration to those areas in which the Sudeten are in the majority. Once the country is to that extent federalised as a state of nationalities, instead of as now being governed as a centralised national state, I w'ld provide for the right of those self-administrating areas to hold a plebiscite. But I w'ld defer the date of exercising such right for a period of years. Only then can those areas really & calmly make up their minds whether they wish to remain in the E:Slovak state or go over to Germany..." Sir Nevile Henderson (1882-1942) held the unenviable post of Britain's ambassador to Germany in the lead-up to World War II. He supported Chamberlain's efforts to avoid war over Czechoslovakia and genuinely believed that the Germans had rightful grievances over the Versailles settlement, but he was swiftly disillusioned by German bullying tactics and the cynical carve-up of Czechoslovakia after the Munich agreement . Noel Edward Noel-Buxton, 1st Baron Noel-Buxton, PC (1869 – 1948) was a British Liberal and later Labour politician. He served as Minister under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and between 1929 and 1930.

The Trial of the Suffragette Leaders

Women's Suffrage

First edition; 8vo; original illustrated printed wrappers with photographic illustration depicting "Inspector Jarvis reading the Warrant"; 48pp; portrait of Emmeline Pankhurst. Together with a sheet of draft notes by the magistrate, Curtis Bennett, possibly for the summing up in the trial, with deletions and amendments, 2 pages, on embossed 'Police Court Bow Street' paper. A scarce pamphlet containing a full account of the 1908 trial of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, and Flora Drummond, which took place on October 14th to 24th. It includes statements from those involved (beginning with a long speech by Christabel Pankhurst), the evidence of the witnesses, Christabel's cross-examination of David Lloyd George, and the final summing up and sentencing by the Magistrate, Curtis Bennett. His notes indicate he was in no doubt that the handbill published by the Women's Social and Political Union had served to incite large crowds "to assemble in public to commit a "wrongful and illegal act" by 'rushing' the House of Commons, thus causing breach of the peace. Very good some soiling, chip to edge of lower cover and foot of spine.