Kitty Marion: Actor and activist 9781526138057

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Kitty Marion

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WOMEN, THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE Series editors Maggie B. Gale and Kate Dorney

Already published: Treading the bawds: actresses and playwrights on the late Stuart stage Gilli Bush-Bailey Performing herself: AutoBiography & Fanny Kelly’s Dramatic Recollections Gilli Bush-Bailey Plays and performance texts by women 1880–1930: An anthology of plays by British and American women from the Modernist period eds Maggie B. Gale and Gilli Bush-Bailey Auto/biography and identity: women, theatre and performance eds Maggie B. Gale and Viv Gardner Women, theatre and performance: new histories, new historiographies eds Maggie B. Gale and Viv Gardner Female performance practice on the fin-de-siècle popular stages of London and Paris: Experiment and advertisement Catherine Hindson Stage rights!: The Actresses’ Franchise League, activism and politics 1908–58 Naomi Paxton

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KITTY MARION Actor and activist Edited by Viv Gardner and Diane Atkinson

Manchester University Press

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Copyright © Manchester University Press 2019 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright for the introduction, epilogue and notes sections resides with the authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. The main autobiography text for Kitty Marion: Actor and activist is reproduced by kind permission of the Museum of London and Viv Gardner. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN  978 1 5261 3804 0 hardback First published 2019 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in 10/12 Minion Pro by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

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This book is dedicated to our mothers: Peggy Atkinson (1926–99) and Patricia Mary Gardner (1924–present) And to all our foremothers and sisters – past, present and future – ‘Enough has not been made of such traces as history preserves of significant lives lived by women. … women [should] take possession of this field themselves.’ (Elizabeth Robins, Speech to the Women Writers’ Suffrage League, 1910)

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Contents List of illustrations page viii Acknowledgements ix The editors x Series editors’ foreword xi List of abbreviations xii Introduction 1 11 The Autobiography  Germany 15  England 35   Militant suffrage 124  War 199   Hail Columbia! 207   Birth control 212  Peace 264 Epilogue: New York 267 Appendix I: Extracts from Kitty Marion’s prison records 272 Appendix II: Letters from Holloway Prison (1914) 275 Appendix III: Extracts from reports on Kitty Marion’s citizenship status etc. 277 Select bibliography 280

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Illustrations Frontispiece:  Kitty Marion at the Wrexham Eisteddfod, 5 September 1912. Unidentified cutting, probably the Daily Sketch. Museum of London. page 12   1 Playbill for La Toledad, Theatre Royal, Sheffield, 4 May 1903. Museum 103 of London.  2 The Ladies of Ostend in La Toledad, Palace Theatre, London. The 105 Tatler, 18 November 1903. Editor’s own collection.   3 Playbill, Regent Theatre of Varieties, Salford, 3 October 1904. Museum of London. 111  4 Miss Kitty Marion, Comedienne. The Umpire, 17 February 1907. 121 Museum of London.   5 Actresses’ Franchise League, 17 June 1911. Museum of London. 133   6 ‘Music Hall Artiste, No. 54: Miss Kitty Marion at the Chelsea Palace’, 1906 or 1909. Unidentified cutting. Museum of London. 134  7 ‘Levetleigh’, Edward Du Cros’s house, St Leonard’s, following suffragette arson attack, 15 April 1913. Museum of London. 171  8 Hurst Park Race Course grandstand, following the arson attack by Clara Giveen and Kitty Marion, 8 June 1913. Postcard. Editor’s own collection.172   9 Postcard picture of Kitty Marion, used for police surveillance, c. 1913. National Portrait Gallery. 185 10 Kitty Marion recuperating following her release on ‘Cat and Mouse’ licence, c. 1914. Museum of London. 194 11 Kitty Marion in The Sphinx, Court Theatre, October 1914. National 200 Portrait Gallery. 12 The office of the American Birth Control League; Margaret Sanger, seated centre, Kitty Marion standing on her right, c. 1925. New York 214 Public Library. 13 Kitty Marion selling Birth Control Review, n.d. New York Public Library.218 14 ‘Urchin: Aw! Look the Statya of Liberty!’ Cartoon of Kitty Marion, unknown source. New York Public Library. 220

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Acknowledgements This publication could not have happened without the help of the staff of the Museum of London, especially Beverley Cook, who has supported the project throughout with not only enthusiasm and commitment, but unfailing patience and good humour. We have also been helped enormously by the curatorial work in women’s history, and the assistance given, by The Women’s Library, now housed at the London School of Economics Library, and the staff at the Kitty Marion Collection in the New York Public Library. Over the years we have drawn on the work of a network of suffrage scholars and enthusiasts, all of whom have been happy to share their expertise when approached. We want to single out Elizabeth Crawford for particular thanks for her generosity in placing her encyclopaedic knowledge of the women’s suffrage movement at our disposal, and for searching out women and men whom we had struggled to identify. Professor Nick Crossley and Ellie Harries from the University of Manchester introduced us to new perspectives, sharing research on covert terrorist networks which compared the strategies of Women’s Social and Political Union with those of the Provisional IRA. Performance scholars, including Peter Bailey, Jacky Bratton, Victor Emeljenov, Trevor R. Griffiths, David Wilmore and Peter Charlton of the British Music Hall Society, have also helped in our search to locate elusive performers and papers, as have staff in Theatre and Performance collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Newspaper division of the British Library. Anna Churcher-Clarke and Kate Fox provided meticulous and priceless editorial work in the early stages of the project. Thanks too to all our friends and family who have shared/tolerated our enthusiasm over the years, in particular Karen Clarke and John Churcher, and, most of all, our respective partners, Jan Needle and Patrick Hughes. Finally, our thanks to our series editors, Kate Dorney and Maggie Gale, commissioning editor, Matthew Frost, and all the editorial staff who have worked on the book at Manchester University Press, who shared our commitment to the project and were willing to undertake the publication of Kitty Marion’s untold story in its entirety.

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The editors Viv Gardner, Emeritus Professor at the University of Manchester, is a theatre and performance historian, focusing on gender and sexuality. She has edited several volumes of plays and essays on the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century women’s movement, Sketches from the Actresses’ Franchise League (Nottingham Drama Texts, 1985), New Woman Plays (with Linda Fitzsimmons, Methuen, 1991) and The New Woman and Her Sisters: feminism and theatre 1850–1914 (with Susan Rutherford, Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1992), and has written about Kitty Marion’s memoir in ‘The Three Nobodies: autobiographical strategies in the work of Alma Ellerslie, Kitty Marion and Ina Rozant’ in Auto/biography and Identity: women, theatre and performance (Manchester University Press, 2005). Diane Atkinson is a historian and biographer, specialising in the suffragette movement and nineteenth- and early twentieth-century women’s stories. In 1992–93 she curated the exhibition Purple, White and Green: suffragettes in London 1906–1914 at the Museum of London. Works on suffrage include two illustrated books, Suffragettes in Pictures  (The History Press, 1992/2010) and  Funny Girls: cartooning for equality (Penguin, 1997), and, most recently, Rise Up, Women! The remarkable lives of the suffragettes (Bloomsbury, 2018). She has appeared on many radio programmes, and consulted on television documentaries, as well as on the film Suffragette (2015).

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Series editors’ foreword The Women, Theatre and Performance series was born out of a desire to bring together research on the many aspects of women’s contributions to theatre and performance histories. Historically the ‘Second Wave’ women’s movement in the 1980s produced research on women in the theatre industry, and their work as playwrights, performers, designers, theatre makers and consumers of theatre and performance. Feminist performance analysis and women’s theatre history has now become an established part of performance practice and theatre studies at both a university and a more popular level, although work made by women frequently remains marginal to many educational curricula and within the mainstream repertoire. In the 1990s, the journal Women and Theatre Occasional Papers, from which this series arose, placed an emphasis on history and historiography. Founding series editors Maggie B. Gale and Viv Gardner were concerned to open out women’s theatre histories beyond those considered within feminist praxis. Work made by women seen as more mainstream or more commercial was explored alongside more innovative and politically oriented practices. This came from a desire to find a consistent outlet for the retrieval project of women’s theatre and performance histories. The emphasis on history does not preclude engagement with contemporary practice, as our edited volumes evidence. Women, Theatre and Performance seeks to make research and debate on women’s performance practices available on a more than ‘occasional’ basis and has so far included edited volumes and single themed monographs as well as reprints of performance texts by women, all of which share in common the consideration of women’s theatre and performance as part of a wider nexus of theatre histories and of social and cultural practices. Maggie B. Gale and Kate Dorney, The University of Manchester Editorial Board: Gilli Bush-Bailey, Emeritus Professor of Women’s Theatre History at the Royal Central School for Speech and Drama, London; Viv Gardner, Emeritus Professor of Drama, the University of Manchester.

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Abbreviations AA ABCL AFL AP BCIIC KM KMA KMP

Actors’ Association American Birth Control League Actresses’ Franchise League Alice Park Birth Control International Information Centre Kitty Marion Kitty Marion Autobiography Kitty Marion Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library LCC London County Council MLSC Museum of London Suffragette Collections n.d. no date NUWSS National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies TNA The National Archives TWL The Women’s Library at the LSE Library VAF Variety Artist[e]s’ Federation WPA Works Progress Association WSPU Women’s Social and Political Union

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Introduction I believe that at the very end of your life, the remembrance of the part that you have played in this struggle will add a new value and a new significance to your life. … nothing that other people can feel or say is to be compared with the consciousness in one’s own heart of having done well. (Emmeline Pethick Lawrence to Kitty Marion, 11 November 1909)

An ‘unsung Amazon’ ‘Kitty Marion’ was born Katherine Marie Schäfer (sometimes Schafer) on 12 March 1871 in Rietberg, Westphalia, in Germany, some two months after the creation of the German Empire. Her family were part of an established, educated middle class. When she was 15, she travelled to England to escape from her engineer father, ‘a strict disciplinarian with a fierce, violent, evidently uncontrollable temper’ (Kitty Marion Autobiography, KMA: 17). She appears not to have seen him again. For a number of years she lived in an ‘Eastern suburb of London on the way to Epping Forest’ with her paternal aunt, Dora, and her five cousins (KMA: 35), before embarking on the theatrical career she had always wanted to pursue but which her father had vehemently opposed. Katherine Marie became ‘Mlle Kitty’ when she first appeared on the music hall stage in 1889, presumably playing up her ‘foreignness’ (KMA: 42); then she seems to have lived and performed as ‘Kitty Raynor’ between 1891 and March/April 1892, before settling on the name ‘Kitty Marion’ (KMA: 51).1 During her extreme militant period with the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), and into the war years, she appeared under yet another pseudonym, ‘Kathleen Meredith’ (KMA: 202). Her assumption of British identity was, however, total. She lost her German citizenship in 1901 (KMA: 85–6) because she hadn’t returned to her homeland after 1886. Even a suspicious Scotland Yard and Home Office conceded that ‘Miss Marion is to all intents and purposes an Englishwoman [and] does not maintain any connection with Germany’. They reported that her ‘sentiments appear to be pro-British’, the proof being that she had ‘been singing patriotic songs at recruiting meetings’ (The National Archives, TNA: HO144/1721/221874) after the cessation of suffragette activities at the beginning of the First World War. In 1915 she left England for the United States to avoid the limitations imposed on her by the Aliens Restriction Act (1914) and threatened deportation to Germany. It was as Kitty Marion that she became a US citizen in 1922.2 There is some confusion over the date when she changed to ‘Kitty Marion’. See KMA: 51, footnotes 26–7.  2 For details of issues arising from KM’s citizenship status, see Appendix III.  1

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Although born into a middle-class family, from the age of 17 Marion earned her own living and throughout her life she remained an independent, working woman. Her theatre work brought her into contact with other economically vulnerable women and families – fellow performers, landladies and ‘ordinary’ women across the country. She spent some twenty-four years working in theatre and music hall. Never a star, she achieved a measure of success and regular employment in provincial musical comedy and pantomime before falling foul of the gendered hierarchies in the theatre, after which she was forced into much less stable employment on the music hall stage.3 She became a feminist campaigner within the theatre industry, and then in the militant suffrage movements in Britain and the United States. For over ten years she sold the Birth Control Review on ‘every street corner from Macy’s to the Grand Central Station’ in New York (Sanger, 1938/2004: 257). In the 1930s she had a number of jobs, including with the Women’s Peace Society, the Works Progress Association and Federal Theatre Project. She built and sustained an international network of women friends – mostly fellow activists in different branches of the women’s movement – throughout her life. She died, a US citizen, in the Margaret Sanger Nursing Home just off Central Park, New York, on 9 October 1944. She was described in the press as a ‘delightful’ and ‘charming’ comedienne and ‘vivacious vocalist’; by Scotland Yard as the ‘well-known dangerous suffragette’; and as ‘a perfect brute – of a woman’, and possible spy, by the fellow actress who ‘shopped’ her to the Home Office.4 For those at her memorial celebration in New York she was a heroic ‘Amazon unsung’. Yet her remarkable life story, like those of many other feminist activists and modestly successful theatre performers of this era, is now largely unknown.5

‘Why don’t you write the story of your life?’ Kitty Marion’s autobiography falls broadly into four parts: her early family life in Germany, her move to England and theatrical career, her involvement in the suffrage movement and, finally, her work in the women’s suffrage and birth control movements in America. She began writing her memoir in the 1930s – at the suggestion of friends, according to her opening chapter; however, she may have had other reasons. In 1930 she lost her income from selling the Birth Control Review in New York and thereafter she struggled financially, despite help from friends. By 1936 she was ‘living alone in a single furnished room on the second floor of an old brownstone’ in the Flat Iron district of Manhattan. She appears to have started the autobiography as early as 1930, on her return to the United States from a visit to England for the unveiling of the memorial to Mrs Pankhurst, when See Gardner (2005). See Appendix III.  5 Kitty Marion has merited a short Dictionary of National Biography entry, entries in most major suffrage reference books and in some studies of women in the theatre of the time, but, until 2018, no full-length study. See Select bibliography.  3  4

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‘[l]onesome for a cause to fight for … [and having] worn out her shoes looking for a job to no avail, she paid rent for a week and set about writing down her stormy … memoirs’ (Unidentified cutting, Kitty Marion Papers, KMP: III/2). Another motive was almost certainly more personal. By the 1920s the theatre memoir was a commonplace, but it was rarely that of a performer who was not a West End or Broadway name, nor were there accounts of the battles women had fought within the industry for better conditions. By 1930 the suffrage memoir was also familiar. Many of the key suffragette players had already published their stories – Emmeline Pankhurst and Constance Lytton as early as 1914, Annie Kenney in 1924, Sylvia Pankhurst in 1931 – and suffragist Ray Strachey’s history of the women’s movement, The Cause, had appeared in 1928. Kitty Marion may have wanted to reclaim the place she had held between 1912 and 1914 as a suffrage ‘celebrity’. All the accounts of Marion testify to her gregariousness and how she ‘would often regale [her friends] with yarns of her experience in England’ (Kitty Marion’s memorial, 1944, KMP: III/2); but the main sources for the autobiography seems to have been not only her prodigious memory but a collection of scrapbooks, which she kept from around 1900, containing theatrical playbills, cuttings (latterly using a cuttings service), speeches, articles and other memorabilia. She told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ‘I’m going to write the story of my life … It won’t take long because I’ve got most of the newspaper clippings that cover the high spots. They’re filed away in … my “scrap” book’ (11 February 1930: 3, KMP: III/2). Marion was also an enthusiastic and tireless correspondent, both personal – in some cases maintaining contacts throughout her life – and public. She wrote letters to the newspapers from her early days of campaigning against abuses in the theatre until shortly before her death. Further evidence of the sources for her memoir comes from the autobiography itself, when she tells how, in New York in 1918, she ‘filled a cabin trunk with old copies of “Votes for Women”, and “The Suffragette”, theatrical and other clippings and letters, old and up to date’ for perusal by ‘Mr Finch of the U.S. Department of Investigation’, who was looking into charges that Marion was a German spy (KMA: Ch. 64–5). There have been rumours of diaries, but none has been found at the time of writing. When she was working for the Birth Control International Information Centre office (BCIIC) in London in 1930, she reports that she started keeping a diary ‘in which daily activities were recorded’, copying the BCIIC office practice (KMA: 259). This is possibly the diary mentioned, along with her ‘many books, photographs and papers’, in the report of her ‘Farewell Gathering’ held on 8 November 1944, where ‘“Kitty spoke” from her interesting Diary kept over a period of years6 – recalling days in England, hunger strike, forced feeding – and Days in American – jails – cold winter nights on Fifth Ave and 42nd St. selling the Birth Control Review – suffrage days in America – choice remarks from passersbye [sic] Policemen Clergy – Catholic Jew and Protestant – Atheist WPA [Works Progress Association] days of teaching The ‘diary’ was obviously read at KM’s memorial. The use of ‘Kitty spoke’ suggests that a sense of ‘presence’ was evoked by the reading.

 6

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speech etc. etc.’ (Kitty Marion’s memorial, 1944, KMP: III/2). However, apart from the reference to the WPA work, all of this is in the autobiography, so it is difficult to know whether it was the post-1930 diary or the autobiography itself. There is also an earlier reference to a ‘diary’ in The Suffragette on Marion’s release from Holloway Prison in 1914. The WSPU paper reproduced passages (24 April 1914: 33) but these are, on closer examination, verbatim extracts from letters which Marion had exchanged with her fellow WSPU prisoner and hunger-striker ‘RP’, written on prison toilet paper. Marion asked RP to send the letters on to another prisoner, ‘MR’,7 but to make sure that they were returned to her (Museum of London Suffragette Collections, MLSC: 2003.46/5). She later appears to have used this account of her prison experience in the autobiography (KMA: Ch. LIII). Clearly, Kitty Marion ‘carried her life with her’, and it is these papers which she used in writing her memoir. There are interesting omissions in her narrative, some of which are suggested by the remaining scrapbooks or can be found in contemporary newspapers. She was an active member of the Actors’ Association, the Actors’ Union and the Variety Artist[e]s’ Federation, campaigning not only for better treatment of all performers, challenging restrictions on women’s and children’s work in theatre, but also for an end to theatre censorship. Only a little of this makes itself into the autobiography, shaped as it is by the feminist agenda which dominated her life. Most notable is the absence of detailed reference to all but one of her acts of arson. She tells how, when the militants’ tactic changed from ‘protests with the intention of being arrested and sent to prison’ and Christabel Pankhurst issued an edict to ‘do all damage without being caught’, she undertook ‘four successful fires and escapes [before] something went wrong’ with her fifth, Hurst Park Race Course grandstand (8 June 1913, KMA: 170). Cuttings in one of the Museum of London scrapbooks relate to arson attacks on Saunderton and Croxley Green railway stations (both 10 March 1913), Shepton Mallet station (14 March 1913), a fire on a train at Teddington (26 April 1913) and ‘Levetleigh’, a vacant house belonging to Edward Du Cros, MP at St Leonards (15 April 1913). This suggests that she and her co-arsonist, Clara Giveen, were responsible for at least some of these attacks. Papers relating to ‘Levetleigh’ were also found in their belongings when the two women were arrested following the Hurst Park fire. After her subsequent imprisonment and then release under the ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act, Marion ‘visited friends in Bristol whom [she] helped to “communicate with the Government”,8 after which [she] went to Liverpool … having the most interesting, busy time’, almost certainly undertaking the destruction of an abandoned asylum, Seafield House in West Derby, Liverpool (23 September 1913), and Sefton Park Palm House (15 November 1913), about which she also kept cuttings. There are letters from known WSPU members, part of her support network in Bristol RP was ‘Rachel Peace’, the alias used by Florence Jane Short (1881–?); MR was Mary Richardson (1883?–1961).  8 Possibly a reference to the destruction of the university boat house on the night of 22 October, or the municipal boathouse on 24 November.  7

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and Liverpool, addressed to ‘Auntie Maggie’, congratulating her on her release from Holloway in 1914 (MLSC: 50.82/1122). Marion also ‘paid short visits to Manchester’ (KMA: 184), where the cactus house at Alexandra Park was bombed on the night of 11 November 1913,9 and Leeds to leave a message for Asquith in the form of a smashed window (23 December 1913). Kitty Marion recounts the Hurst Park attack in the autobiography with great verve, but in 1934 she chose to not to write about these other activities, although she did not preclude the possibility of leaving ‘written details to posterity’ at some time in the future (KMA: 184). This was almost certainly not squeamishness about past misdemeanours, nor misplaced self-censorship, but pragmatism. In 1930, fellow WSPU member Edith Mansell-Moullin, in a letter to Edith How-Martyn, also expressed her reservations about mentioning bombs in her tribute to Emily Wilding Davison (18 March 1930, MLSC: 61.218/2/B), and How-Martyn herself wrote in answer to a question from Marion, presumably about the inclusion of detail about militant activity in the autobiography, that, ‘As far as I am concerned the Suffragette Fellowship records will be kept for posterity and nothing eliminated but anything published while people are alive may have to be notified,’ suggesting that they were all exercising some caution about putting things into the public domain (29 January 1936, KMP: II/1). As late as March 1960, militant Lilian Lenton, in an interview for the BBC, declined to mention her first arson attack because she hadn’t been caught for it (MLSC: 61.218/2/B). Since there had been no amnesty for criminal activity by the suffragettes10 – indeed residual hostility to the militants began to re-emerge in the 1930s, and there is no statute of limitation in United Kingdom law for criminal offences – the arsonists were still liable to prosecution. In 1915 Scotland Yard wrote to the Home Office that there were ‘two years and 256 days of [Marion’s] sentence unexpired’ (30 August 1915, TNA: HO144/1721/221874), and this was still true in 1930. (Marion was allowed back into England on a temporary visa in 1922 and 1925, although by 1925 she was an American citizen. Her last visit to England was in 1930 for the unveiling of Mrs Pankhurst’s statue.11) Another consideration was that other WSPU members would have been implicated in any ‘confession’ of bombings and arson attacks, so the women’s caution was both judicious and sisterly. On a personal level, Marion Further ‘evidence’ comes in the poem read at KM’s memorial in 1944: ‘Sometimes you’d set out with baby’s carriage/Containing no after effects of marriage/Reposing there, unblessed by judge or parson, /Were little things for some big well-placed arson/Paper and rags, some sticks and oil were there/To blaze a pathway with its wondrous glare/Through empty mansion, grandstand, or pier/Straight to the ballot box. O Pioneer!’ (KMP: III/2). The pier may have been Great Yarmouth Pier, destroyed on 17 April 1914, although this attack was attributed to Hilda Burkett and Florence Tunks (see KMA: 195). 10 At the outbreak of war, there was a suggestion that the WSPU should march on the Home Office demanding an amnesty for ‘the mice’, and KM was one of those who was ‘quite willing to go if there had been the slightest chance of gaining anything, but there wasn’t’ (MLSC: KM to Claire Callendar, 14 August 1914). See Cowman (2007): 180–1. 11 See Appendix III.  9

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may have intended another visit to England, even returning to live there, and certainly had hopes of publishing her autobiography there, all of which would have been jeopardised by any revelation of unpunished criminal activity.

‘Nobody here seems to want to publish …’ In writing the story of her life in the 1930s, Marion records events and her experience. She does not write about, for example, the relationships she formed in prison,12 nor, in any detail, about her two ‘disappearances’ from New York, in 1916 and 1920, both of which were reported in the newspapers as possible suicides, and about other periods of depression which she alludes to in her first chapter and in letters to friends in the 1930s. Although she had kept in touch with many theatrical and suffrage friends after her move to America, the leaders seem to have dropped her. She had been something of a star at the height of suffragette militancy for her imprisonments and heroic struggles for the cause. When she was released from prison she was showered with letters praising her actions, and was described by Josephine Gonne as ‘a splendid card to play!!’ at WSPU drawingroom meetings, and she was asked to share her experience of force feeding by a lady ‘of sufficient importance’ who turned out to be Mollie, Countess Russell (MLSC: 50.82/1122). However, Mrs Pankhurst and Nurse Pine ‘cut’ her when they visited New York in 1919 (KMA: 255); Mrs Pankhurst and Christabel had become virulently anti-German with the advent of war and, according to a fellow militant, Mrs Pankhurst would have betrayed ‘poor Kitty Marion’ as a German spy to the American authorities, had she known her whereabouts (KMA: 255). Marion may also have felt ‘betrayed’ by Margaret Sanger, who she felt had had a chance in 1928 ‘to fight the [Roman Catholic] church and her reactionary board but she caved in to power and money’; as a result, the Birth Control Board ‘voted the B.C.R. off the streets’ (KM to Alice Park,13 AP, 17 July 1942, The Women’s Library, TWL: 6.1 Box 2), and Marion lost not just her source of income but her ‘work-home’ and regular contact with friends. The failure of all her efforts to get the finished autobiography published undoubtedly contributed to her ‘low spirits’ in the 1930s, in addition to losing her ‘family’ in the birth control movement and her increasingly poor health and financial problems. In 1940, Marion wrote to Alice Park that she ‘“could a tale unfold.” Of writing my life story which nobody here seems to want to publish. I don’t know the right people. … Ever so many publishers have turned it down, as not in their line or something. I am afraid it is too much of a fight against “male domination” over women in the labor market in general and the theatrical profession in particular, in England’ (5 December 1940, TWL: 6.1 Box 2). Marion had finished the autobiography sometime in 1933 (adding the final chapter later), according to letters

See Appendix II Alice Locke Park (1861–1961), noted Californian feminist, suffragist and pacifist.

12 13

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from Olive Johnson and Edith How-Martyn.14 It was probably hand written, although no complete copy is extant, just a few pages. She learned to type only in 1934, and her friend Olive Johnson wrote congratulating her on her ‘two fingered exercise’ and thought she would now ‘find it a boon not to write everything by hand!’ and it is possible that she made a typewritten copy herself at this point (2 February 1934, KMP: II/1). Her friends read sections of the book, and their letters are peppered with enquiries as to its progress throughout 1934. How-Martyn was ‘expecting good news of your book’ and asking ‘what has happened?’ in October (6 October 1934, KMP: II/1). After that there is silence until 1937, when Alice Green of the WSPU put Marion in touch with Austrian feminist Anna Helene Askanasy15 and her circle in Vienna. Marion ‘in the course of correspondence … mentioned [her] script needed typing, when [she] could arrange the necessary cash’. Askanasy then ‘suggested sending a copy for her secretary, who understood English, to do’. In due course, Askanasy sent Marion three copies of the autobiography and a German translation by the German feminist-anarchist journalist Meta Kraus-Fessel,16 who, in Marion’s view, ‘must have seen something worth while in my story to devote that much time to it’. Tragically, when in March 1938 ‘Hitler went to Austria, [Frau Askanasy] escaped with her two young daughters, while her husband was arrested and killed. She fled to London where she knew the old suffrage crowd, and [eventually] settled down in British Columbia’. Marion wrote ironically, ‘This shows some of the kind of luck my “book” is having’ (KM to AP, 5 December 1940, TWL: 6.1 Box 2). In 1942, what appears to be the top copy (now in the Women’s Library in London, recognisable by the ‘faint pencil marks over some words’) was sent to Alice Park so that she could ‘pick out what takes [her] fancy as a story’ (1 August 1942) and in December Marion expressed the wish that ‘you and I could read my manuscript together’, as ‘I need some “understanding” soul to give a helping hand on that’. She fears that, as it is, ‘it is rather crude … just the facts stated, out of which the right editor could make a good story’. At this stage, she seems to have given up hope of getting the complete manuscript published. She planned to ‘bequeath’ the autobiography to the League for Mutual Aid in New York, as ‘they are a fine, helpful group for the “underdogs”’ (9 December 1942), but Park’s copy eventually found its way, with her letters from Marion, to London and the Women’s Service Library. Another two copies of the autobiography, with the German version, ended up in the Schwimmer-Lloyd Collection in New York Public Library. One copy, labelled ‘Kitty’s Book’, also has amendments in Marion’s hand, plus additional paragraphs stuck in, and is probably the original version. The fourth copy, now in the Museum of London, had been sent by

Olive Johnson (née Oliven Malmberg, 1872–1952); Edith How-Martyn (née How, 1875–1954). See KMA: 258. How-Martyn established the Suffragette Fellowship in 1926. 15 Anna Helene Askanasy (1893–1970), see Epilogue. Alice Green (n.d.), see KMA: 174 16 Meta Kraus-Fessel (1884–1940). 14

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Marion in 1938 to a ‘Miss Turner’17 in London, to read and then pass on to Alice Green so that her old suffrage friends might ‘consider if it could be published over there, and if among [them they] could find a “ghost” for it to rewrite, or do some thing with it’. Marion suggested that when How-Martyn got hold of ‘that script’ she should keep it for her museum (10 December 1938, MLSC: 50.82/1122), the archive established in the 1920s as part of the Suffragette Fellowship.

The autobiography of Kitty Marion: actor and activist In 1942 Kitty Marion expressed the belief that her story would probably ‘be done some day’. It has taken over 75 years. Diane Atkinson and I met over the Kitty Marion papers. Diane was then Education Officer at the Museum of London, curating its 1992–93 suffragette exhibition, ‘The Purple, White and Green: Suffragettes in London 1906–1914’; I was a feminist theatre academic working on the Actresses’ Franchise League. It has long been our desire to make Kitty Marion’s autobiography more widely available, and thereby to make her career as a successful, if not stellar, performer and early campaigner on behalf of women in theatre better known, as well as her contribution to the militant suffrage and birth control movements. Marion’s autobiography offers rich and rare insights into life as a provincial performer, and into the late nineteenth- and twentieth-century women’s movements. She writes from ‘within’ and from ‘below’, as an activist, not an observer; one who was eventually willing to undertake acts of ‘terrorism’ and risk her own life through hunger striking and force feeding for the causes she believed in. In the year in which we are celebrating the centenary of the partial enfranchisement of women in Great Britain, Manchester University Press has made it possible to publish the autobiography in its entirety. The Autobiography of Kitty Marion in the following pages is as precise a reproduction of the original typescript as is possible, taken from the copy in the Museum of London. Every effort has been made to remain faithful to Marion’s text and to replicate the spelling, stylistic and typographical inconsistencies and errors. Marion uses both British and American English, and the manuscript was typed up by an Austrian, but never edited for publication. We have prepared the text with a minimum of interference, and have provided footnotes to enable the reader to place people,18 places and events without the distraction of having to find things themselves while reading. We have provided a brief epilogue covering Marion’s life after she finished the autobiography, and several additional documents to which she would not Probably Minnie Turner (1867?–1948), WSPU member, who kept a suffrage lending library at her boarding-house in Brighton. 18 Theatre people are particularly difficult to identify as, like KM, they often used stage names. Where we have been unable to find any information about an individual we have not footnoted them; where there is information but no dates, we have used (n.d.). 17

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have had access and which throw a different light on her story or fill in omissions, deliberate or otherwise, in her account. It is a regret that we cannot include some of Marion’s correspondence, which gives a real sense of the woman – passionate, indefatigable, dedicated to her causes and, perhaps unexpectedly, humorous – but there isn’t the space to do this. We may have missed things, even got things wrong, and new insights will no doubt come to light in the future, especially as more information comes online, but it gives us enormous delight to see Kitty Marion’s story, in her own words, in print for the first time – something which she, and many of her friends, fought long and hard to achieve. Viv Gardner Manchester, February 2018

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The Autobiography

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Frontispiece  ‘Undaunted by the jeers of the onlookers’, Kitty Marion at the Wrexham Eisteddfod, 5 September 1912. After heckling David Lloyd George, Kitty Marion and two other protesters were attacked by the crowd and escorted to safety by the police. Unidentified cutting, probably from the Daily Sketch (see KMA: 165–6).

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KITTY MARION Chel. 3 – 6969                  230 W. 22 St.

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N.Y.C.

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“What am I? What has my will done to make me that I am? Nothing!” Emerson “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will!” Shakespeare “O, that estates, degrees and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer! How many then should cover that stand bare! How many be commanded that command! How much low peasantry would then be glean’d From the true seed of honour! and how much honour Pick’d from the chaff and ruin of the times To be new-varnish’d!” Shakespeare Dedicated to the Political, Economic, Religious and Sex Freedom of Women

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GERMANY

Chapter I “Why don’t you write your experiences?” – “Why don’t you write the story of your life?” – “Why don’t you write a book?” Such and similar are the suggestive questions put to me whenever I reminisce on my stage, suffrage, birth control or ordinary life experiences. Though writing, especially the mechanical part, is a great effort to me, to justify the faith my numerous friends in England and America have expressed in my ability to do it, I will do my best. Some of my earliest recollections are of home with father and mother – stepmother – in Dortmund, Westphalia, and a visit at Christmas to my father’s parents in Central Germany, to present his second wife. From what father has told me, my own mother suffered from Schwindsucht, tuberculosis, and died when I was two years old. Her life was despaired of at my birth1 and father, who was away at the time, received a telegram of congratulations on the birth of a daughter in the morning and another at night asking him to hurry home if he wanted to see his wife alive.2 The priest – my mother’s family were Catholic – came to perform the last rites of the Church for the dying and baptize me, Katherine Marie. On father’s timely arrival mother rallied and recovered, only to pass on two years later. Theirs had been a love-at-first-sight marriage, after an acquaintance of only six weeks, and to satisfy both mother’s and father’s families, the latter being Protestant, they went through the services of both Churches as well as the Civil. A Protestant pastor who called on father soon after to remonstrate against his marriage with a Catholic was requested to leave the house and never darken its doors again. “The happiest years of my life”, father used to call the all too few with my mother. After her death I was left in her mother’s care until about two years later, father married again, this time a Protestant, and she is the only “mother” I remember. To the oft repeated question was she “kind to me”, I can best prove it by saying that she used to scald the milk and when cold, skim off the thick, rich cream for me, which I loved. She also saw to it that I regularly took my “Lebertran” and “Stiefmütterchentee”.3 Unlike most children I loved the Cod Liver Oil, but not the bitter tea. My stepmother also was tubercular and every precaution was taken against my becoming so. She delighted in dressing me daintily and, on special Katherine Marie Schäfer (sometimes Schafer), ‘Kitty Marion’, was born on 12 March 1871, in Rietberg, north-east of Dortmund and the Ruhr, in what is now the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.  2 KM’s application for a US pension in 1937 gives her parents’ names as Gustav and Lena Schafer.  3 Lebertran – cod-liver oil; Stiefmütterchentee – pansy tea.  1

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occasions, curling my hair, though father objected as it might make me conceited. He preferred it combed straight back in one plait. It being “red” was bad enough without making it more conspicuous. The visit to my father’s home was a great event in my young life of five years. My adoring grand-parents (father’s step mother), two young aunts, Lisette and Mariechen and uncle Heinrich vied with each other in spoiling me. The wonderful Christmas tree and the harmonized singing of Christmas hymns, which in due time I also learned, driving in a Schlitten,4 with jingling bells on the horses, through lovely, snow covered country. Grandfather told me that it was sugar over everything to make it sweet for his “kleine Käthchen.”5 My aunts and uncle took me out on their small sledge which they navigated down steep inclines, sending my heart through my head, and round curves in a perfectly wonderful way, a thing I never learned to do. And they made a snowman and pelted me with snowballs, a game in which I could hold my own with great gusto. There was another Aunt, Dora, the oldest next to my father, who was already married and settled down in England and who came into my life some years later. We lived on the outskirts of Dortmund in a house the front of which faced the street and the back towards gardens, fields and open country in which mother and I used to ramble to our hearts content. For neighbours and friends we had a rich Jewish family with one boy of my own age. They lived in a beautiful large house in its own garden full of lovely flowers, vegetables and fruits, at the back of which joined a chicken yard. One day their boy and I chased a young chicken which ran into a small pond and was drowned. Of course our crime was discovered and mother took me back to confess and apologize. Although there was much rejoicing and showering the two repentant little sinners with kisses, candy and fruit, I felt I never wanted to face such a situation again. I was deeply impressed and sorry for the chicken but I made up my child mind to be careful never again to do anything I might have to confess and apologize for. I was somewhat puzzled over our friends being “Jews” and wondered if they were Catholic or Protestant Jews, for I reasoned that there must be both since there were Catholic and Protestant Christians. My enquiry led to all sorts of religious explanations and enlightenment which puzzled me still more. Another great event was the visit of some theatrical friends of mother’s. I entered a new, strange and magnificent world, – hinter den Kulissen6 – of gorgeously dressed, lovely, kind people, who took my heart and soul by storm. There were flowers, bon-bons, perfumes, the like I had never seen before, and to which I was invited to “help myself”. The one thing that stood out was a huge swan, the rope attached to which I was warned not to step on or fall over, drawing a boat in Schlitten – sledge. kleine Käthchen – little Käthe (diminutive for Katherine.) This may also be an affectionate play on ‘Kätzchen’ or ‘little cat’.  6 hinter den Kulissen – behind the scenes.  4  5

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which “Der Schwanritter”7 arrived. The impression all this made on me is better imagined than described. Father was an engineer with a very mathematical mind which he thoroughly brought to bear upon my training and upbringing, a strict disciplinarian with a fierce, violent, evidently uncontrollable temper, the full force of which I often bore the brunt. Before I went to school at the age of six he had taught me to write and repeat the alphabet and count up to one hundred, taught me several songs including “Als die Romer frech geworden”,8 a favorite with me, also my name and address in case I were ever lost and the date of my birth, March – 1871, which latter no doubt prevented my developing that allegedly feminine reluctance of telling one’s correct age. Daily physical drill, which I enjoyed, and “a place for everything and everything in its place”, such as my toys and picture books, etc. were part of my training. I have happy memories of trips to the country, of farms with all their different animals and fowls which I loved, all but the geese who would run after, hiss at and frighten me. Happy memories of being awakened on Christmas morn to see the glittering tree, dolls, always favorite toys with me, and other presents which the Christkind and St Nicholas had brought during the night. The shrieks of delight with which I found the varicolored eggs laid by the Osterhase9 in all sorts of hidden nooks and corners at Easter! I also have memories of angry scenes between father and mother, one raging, the other weeping, myself hiding in a corner, afraid to move. Early in 1877 I went to school, though my recollections are rather hazy, many other things happening about that time. One day a friend of mothers took me to play with her own two little girls and stay over night. On returning home next afternoon imagine my joyful surprise when I found mother with what to me was a live doll, a baby brother. Such excitement, wonder and questions, which were promptly hushed. With bated breath I asked “where did you get it?” “The stork brought it.” I had seen pictures of that bird and tried to imagine it flying with that “Wickelkind”10 through the window. Why hadn’t I been there to see it? Why should this have happened just when I wasn’t at home. Suddenly it struck me as strange that mother should be in bed so early in the afternoon. I wanted to know why and was told that the stork had bitten her leg when he brought the baby. I couldn’t understand him doing such a thing or anyone letting him. Then I wanted to see the wound, but that was bound up to heal and no one could see it, not even I. Full of indignation I blurted out “I won’t let him bite my leg when me brings me a baby.” When it came to my bedtime, father undressing me, a strand of long, “red” hair fell from my plait as he combed it. The questions father plied me with! It must Der Schwanritter – the Swan Knight or Lohengrin; probably a reference to Richard Wagner’s 1850 popular romantic opera, Lohengrin.  8 ‘Als die Romer frech geworden’ is a nineteenth-century German folk song celebrating the Germanic tribes’ victory over the Romans in the Teutoburg forest.  9 Osterhase – Easter hare. 10 Wickelkind – baby.  7

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have been cut, who had done it, how had it happened? I couldn’t account for it and he thought I was lying. He threatened to beat me to death if I lied to him. He would teach me not to lie. Then he promised me some of my favorite pastry if I would tell him the truth. Even for that I didn’t know. I tried so hard to remember and two or three days later it came to me. Father seemed in a good temper and I was telling him of the games my little friends and I had been playing and of cutting out pictures from a paper, when suddenly it flashed across my mind how I had lifted the scissors and given a snick in my hair, with a vague idea of cutting a fringe (bang) like my friends wore. It was the honest to God truth but he was sure it was the pastry had tempted me to confess and he all but did beat me to death. A favorite way with him was to strike me full in the face with the back of his hand. See stars? Yes the whole firmament in one flash, many a time! The following day when I looked in the mirror I saw my nose, which was very painful, had a slight bump where it had been straight before. Father noticed it too and jeeringly remarked that it improved my beauty and would always remind me not to tell lies. I got my pastry too – father always kept his promises. But all the joy had gone out of it. Having plenty of bad temper myself, I wanted to throw it at him, but didn’t dare. At times I gave vent to it by screaming and stamping my feet, but never when father was about. I learned to exercise wonderful control in his presence. I cried very easily; a disapproving, reproachful look from anyone I cared for was enough to make me weep as if my heart would break. Father would stand over me, threatening to give me cause to cry if I didn’t stop immediately. My step-mother was rather that way inclined too. I remember once she was singing “Es ist ein’ Ros’ ensprungen aus einer Wurzel zart”.11 I was crying quietly to myself. I don’t know why -- I couldn’t help it. When she noticed it, instead of leaving me alone or giving me a sympathetic caress, she adopted father’s tactics. How often have I heard her say, “Sie ist doch so verkehrt” – “So contrary” – when speaking of me. Was I to blame for the unfathomable sense of depression from which I suffered at times any more than for periods of high spirited joy and happiness? But to return to the baby. A few days after his arrival mother and he were removed to the hospital, where next father took me to see mother in her coffin, later to see that coffin lowered into the earth, later still to see the baby follow her. It was all so strange and incomprehensible to me, so desolate and empty without them. I wished then and have wished it many times since, that they had taken me with them. They nearly did, for one day at dinner a tiny sharp splinter of bone in the soup lodged in my throat, causing me to choke. Father was alarmed seeing me turn black in the face but guessing the cause. and having presence of mind to push a finger down my throat, making me vomit and bring back the cause of the trouble. Poor father, I was too young to understand and sympathize with him then. While disposing of our home, etc. father left me in the care of my own moth Es ist ein’ Ros’ ensprungen [entsprungen] aus einer Wurzel zart. – ‘A Rose has sprung from a tender root.’ German hymn.

11

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er’s brother, who lived with his wife and two little children near Cologne. They of course were Catholics and I was sent to a Catholic school and church, which, never having been to church before was a new and strange experience. Especially having to kneel before a huge Crucifix outside the church and pray for the souls of both my mothers and brother. I had no idea what their souls were, or why they needed praying for, though I religiously did it, since it was supposed to be for their good. I was not happy with my maternal uncle’s family and glad when father came to take me to his own people, a previous visit to whom I have already mentioned. With them I spent the two happiest years of my childhood. My grandfather owned property in and about the village and was one of its leading Bürger. The whole village, with an exception of a few Jewish families, the church and school which I attended, were Protestant. Child as I was I preferred them. They had not quite so many “sins” to beware of committing. On my first night when grandmother put me to bed I noticed a picture over the bed and on asking her what it was she told me “Johannes der Täufer”.12 “Der Teufel”13 I cried with horror. “I don’t want him over my bed.” I had heard enough of him. Then grandmother explained the difference between “John the Baptist” and the devil, and assured me that good little girls like me need not be afraid of the latter. Rather different to my being threatened with his getting me all the time if I didn’t do this and that, say this, that and the other prayer, at my Catholic uncle’s. I never saw any of my mother’s family again.

[Chapter II]

14

Life now took on a steadily happier aspect. The village was an old-world, romantic spot, surrounded by ideally beautiful, hilly, wooded country. Once a fortress, parts of the old walls, wide enough to drive a carriage on, still remained, some quite close behind grandfather’s house, with steps leading up, which I often climbed to be alone, drink in the surrounding beauty of nature and, “dream”. If adults could or would but remember their own childish day dreams of the wonders they intended to achieve when they grow up, how much better fitted they would be to bring up children. The church and school stood close together at one end of the village, not far from the old Schloss, surrounded by shady trees, including mulberry, the fruits of which we children were permitted to gather when ripe. The Herr Lehrer15 and some of the boys would climb up and shake them down into the grass below. It was always an event to look forward to and, back upon with joy. The church, I found, had its crucifix too, in an old lumber room, thrown there with other discarded Catholic church paraphernalia, after the Reformation. Sic Johannes der Täufer – John the Baptist. Der Teufel – the Devil. 14 There is no heading for Chapter II. 15 Herr Lehrer – schoolmaster. 12 13

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transit! – The Jewish children attended our school, except for religious instructions which they received from their own Rabbi at the synagogue, situated at the extreme other end of the village. I pondered a great deal at the differences in religion, what “God” could be like and why there was so much antipathy among some members of one creed against those of another. I am thankful I never developed any. It would have deprived me of the friendship and comradeship of many otherwise splendid, charming individuals of different denominations, whom I met later. To my new school fellows I seemed like a being from another world, for I had come by Eisenbahn.16 None of them had ever been on a train, few had seen one and they were never tired of listening to all I could tell them about it. Meta Oppenheim, an only child, whose father represented a big Frankfurt-am-Main Bank in the village, was a favorite playmate of mine. She was only five years old and to my mind “wunderschon”17 with her dark curly hair and large brown eyes, more like a beautiful doll than a little girl, who aroused in me the “protective” instinct for younger and smaller children than myself. The railway station was several miles away and reached by post chaise driven by a “Postillion”. The inhabitants all knew each other and seemed like a happy family. The seasonable activities of the country were an interesting revelation, especially hay making and riding home on the top of a wagon-ful of hay. To the chopping down of trees though, I was very much opposed – and protested vigorously to grandfather to stop the men from doing it, for as I saw it, there would eventually be no trees, no forest left, which gave him the opportunity of explaining to me that coal was practically unknown in the vicinity, that everybody burnt wood, of which he had plenty to cut and sell and that other trees were continually growing, replacing the old, cut ones. Quite a lesson on the continuity of creation. It was a great relief not to have father storming and throwing things, and to be corrected in a kindly way when naughty and disobedient as, childlike I often was. I would play marbles in the market place with other children, even boys, when sent on errands, and told to hurry back. One of my aunts would come after me, scold and drag me away. My progress at school was satisfactory except at writing, mental arithmetic and reading. With the latter I would start all right, then the letters became blurred, I stuttered and broke down, often crying, feeling utterly disgraced at being such a Dummkopf.18 At singing and reciting I excelled, simply because it came easy to me and I loved it. My aunts and uncle belonged to the local Gesangverein.19 I developed quite a voice by learning and singing all their songs, which I harmonized. Singing “seconds” came quite natural to me. They thought it was clever of me, but it really was a gift and no effort. We used to ramble through the nearby Eisenbahn – railway. Wunderschon – beautiful. 18 Dummkopf – fool. 19 Gesangverein – choral society. 16 17

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forest, singing with might and main, with heart and soul, awakening the echoes with songs, extolling war, victory, heroism, liberty, “Deutschland über Alles”,20 as well as volk songs of gentler German sentiments. I indulged in vision and dreams of the day when I would go on the stage and dress and sing like my step-mother’s friends at the theatre in Dortmund, for talk of the “Buhne”21 was always discreetly discouraged. All sorts of wild flowers grew in great profusion in the fields along the stream and in the forest, including the finest lilies of the valley in the latter, that I have ever seen. It was a great joy to gather them unrestrictedly and fill every vase in the house. And the berries, wild strawberries, raspberries, blackberries all such fine ones we gathered for preserves, the making of which grandmother supervised and the like of which I have never tasted since. That goes for many other tasty German dishes. In the large airy attic all sorts of fruits were stored, some being dried, others preserved, apples, pears, plums, walnuts, all from grandfather’s own orchards. And what fun it was to help gather them, and eat when so inclined. In the cool cellar were beer, wine, home-made Sauerkraut, pickled beans, port, Gurken22 and every thing else preservable for household use. In the attic were also old skin-covered trunks containing among other things, old dresses, some of which grandmother had worn when a young girl. How happy I was rummaging among them and “dressing up” in them. There were some old, discarded dollies too, which I added to my own family of dolls. What a good mother I was to them! I used to make dresses for them by pinning pieces of paper to their bodies, cutting them to their figure, then cut the material from those patterns and sew them up. The foundations were pretty well all the same but the trimmings of different designs. It did not seem to strike anyone that I really was learning dressmaking which I found most useful in later years. I also washed, ironed and cooked for my dolls. At times I heard my relatives and friends discuss my father’s misfortune of losing two wives, and both tubercular. They expressed fear that I might contract the disease or, if it skipped me as it did sometimes skip a generation, my children might have it. So I made up my mind, and told them, that I would not have Schwindsucht, I would be well and strong and so that my children shouldn’t have it I wouldn’t have any children. Under the tuition of my grandmother and aunts I learned to knit, sew, crochet, embroider and all sorts of household duties, for some day, they told me, I would have a home of my own, so I must learn housekeeping. I have never fathomed the mystery of the antipathy to “red” hair in my family. Both my aunts had beautiful long hair, Aunt Lisette’s red, a little darker than ‘Deutschland über Alles’ ­– ‘Germany above all else’ was originally ‘The Song of the Germans’ (1841), a revolutionary anthem calling for German unification. It became the German national anthem in 1922. 21 Buhne – stage. 22 Gurken – gerkins. 20

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mine. “Rote Canaille”23 was a favorite insult hurled at us. She felt it so keenly that she darkened her hair with black cosmetique. My hair was long too, down to my waist and they used to practice on it, dress it in all the latest styles to see which they preferred for themselves. The process was very soothing to my nerves, but the finished result often provoked loud protests from me at being made to look old and ugly, to which they retaliated with, they couldn’t make me ugly as I was that already and I needed some of my conceit taken out of me. These stormy scenes, which soon blew over, were mild compared to the quarrels between themselves when one or the other received a letter from their older sister, Dora, in England, repeating what each had written about the other to her. Lisette would often finish in hysterics and a faint, which appeared very undignified to me. The idea of being helpless and having to depend upon the ministrations of others was always repugnant to me. Being of a peaceful disposition I felt thankful that I had no sisters to quarrel with, not realizing then that there were plenty of other people to answer that purpose. Unconsciously I did a terrible thing. or so it seemed at the time. There was a Kirmess, the annual fair, which I visited with some school chums. There was a great display of Pfefferkuchen, Lebkuchen,24 etc., on one of the stalls, and one of the children, mischievously issued the general challenge “I bet none of you could snatch one without being caught”. As a matter of dexterity it had to be done, and. I did it. For the moment I was the little hero, but when the cake had been divided and eaten the very challenger turned on me, accused me of “stealing” and threatened to tell. Though I denied stealing, I was too overcome by my chum’s volte-face and the enormity of my crime to know what to do. I went home full of misgivings. They put people in the Gefängnis25 for stealing. The village had a jail, though always empty except to offer hospitality for the night to some “Handwerksbursche”26 passing through in search of work, to be sent on his way with something in his pocket as well as encouraging words, after giving a satisfactory account of himself. Were they going to put me in jail? The shame of it! This was worse than drowning a chicken. I would never be able to hold up my head again and look people in the face. The dreadful things I anticipated to happen to me left their mark on me and in the morning grandmother noticed it and wondered what was wrong? Had I eaten something at the fair to upset me? To make a long story short, with much weeping I confessed and told all. She was very shocked and stern, insisted that one of my aunts take me to apologise and pay for the cake. Then she asked me to invite all the children concerned to a party. After our fill of good things grandmother gave us a lecture on honesty, honour, integrity, loyalty, friendship and hoped none of us would ever be involved in such a thing again. Rote Canaille – literally ‘red duck’ meaning ‘red riffraff’ or proletarian. Pfefferkuchen – gingerbread; Lebkuchen – ginger biscuits. 25 Gefängnis – prison. 26 Handwerksbursche – journeyman. 23 24

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I have told this incident out of sympathy for so called juvenile delinquents aged 8 years, who have no wise, intelligent grandmother or anyone else to handle similar situations in a similar manner for them but are sent to reformatories and through lack of sympathy and understanding are crushed into all forms of’ criminality, preconceived by those in authority over them. Even as humanity’s “sins” have been preconceived for it by its theologians, arrogating to themselves the power of forgiveness in the name of Almighty God. Early in 1880 Aunt Mariechen, then 20 years of age, married. She was my favorite aunt whom I always looked up to as an example to emulate so I decided I would marry when I was 20. To my bitter disappointment I could not attend the wedding, being kept in a darkened room with eye trouble, which gave me plenty of time to think and dream of the glorious future in which prototypes of the heroes, heroines and martyrs of German history, legends and sagas as far as I had learned of them in song and story, at school and at home, played leading parts. Soon after the wedding the inevitable shadow of death fell across my young life once more. Grandmother became ill, but one morning the doctor gave us hope of her recovery. Early in the evening as I approached the house, returning from delivering a message to Aunt Mariechen, blood-curdling howls from Uncle Heinrich’s great Dane, Pluto, met my ears. Later that night Grandmother passed away. Dear old grandmother who had been a regular “Guardian Angel’” to me, who had helped me with my home lessons and had rescued me in squabbles with my aunts, who sometimes tried to “boss” me, giving me contradictory instructions as to what little girls ought or ought not to say or do; who had instilled into me the principles of love, honour, honesty, justice, etc., had taught me the Lord’s Prayer and a simple little prayer to say on going to bed, who had shown me the Milky Way, the Great Bear, Little Bear and so forth and told me God dwelled there among the stars, watching over all His children on earth. Such heart to heart talks always impressed me deeply and made me feel I wanted to be good and do good, to be right and do right to please God and Grandmother. The whole village mourned her. She had always been so kind, sympathetic and helpful to all who came to her with their problems, financial and otherwise. In cases of sickness among the less-well-to-do in the village (there were no poor) she would send one of my aunts or me with good strong bouillon or specially prepared invalid food, call herself on the sick and do all she could to cheer and help them to recovery. To me her loss was greater than I could realize, to say nothing of losing my child faith in doctors, which perhaps has been a blessing in disguise, for again I determined to be well and strong, never to need a doctor and my unconscious “mind over matter” propensities have certainly had the desired effect. It was no longer convenient to Grandfather’s household to have me there. Aunt Lisette was going to visit friends in Berlin and there would be no woman left except old Gretchen, the faithful Dienstmädchen.27 Though Grandfather, uncle Dienstmädchen – servant girl.

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and I were great chums, they decided it would be best to let my father undertake the responsibility of my future upbringing. And so father came to take me away. In the dusk of the last evening in my happy home Aunt Lisette took me to the cemetery to bid Grandmother farewell and promise over her grave always to remember the love and care she had bestowed upon me and to grow up a good, proud, worthy member of the family. It was a sad, tearful, impressive, memorable little scene. Early next morning with very mixed feelings on my part of reluctantly parting with all I loved and joyful anticipations of new adventures with father, we drove off in the old postchaise amid the farewell cheers and good wishes of relatives, friends and school chums.

Chapter III Not having seen the railroad for two years I enjoyed my trip on it with father towards Witten on the Ruhr until we reached Hagen where we had to wait for another train. I was tired, sleepy, homesick and relieved my feeling in tears, sobbing myself to sleep in my father’s arms. He was very sympathetic, trying to soothe his Töchterchen28 with all kinds of endearing terms. Witten, a mining and iron town, was a great change from the peaceful village. We stayed at a small boarding house, where I soon became a favorite, father evidently being delighted with the compliments he received on having such a charming little daughter who sang and recited so well, and I was never tired of going through my repertory including the songs and little poems father had taught me, my remembering of which pleased him very much. But gradually I felt an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with me in father. He thought I had too much freedom and needed curbing. He gave me all sorts of instructions on my conduct. I was not to be so free with others in the house and act like a “verfluchte Schauspielerin”.29 I was not to play with other children in the street. I was to come straight home from school, do my home lessons and knitting. I knitted my own stockings and some of my new school chums knew all sorts of fancy patterns which they taught me and we had friendly competitions among ourselves as to who did them best. That was much more incentive to me than fasther insisting that I knit so many rows each day, and make me put a mark from which to count the rows. I soon learned to move the mark so many rows down when my stocking was a certain length and partly rolled up. I always made up for lost time when I felt like it. Lucky for me he never saw through it. Some times father was the acme of good nature and happiness, at others just the unbearable opposite. Some Sundays he would call me early, at 5 o’clock, for a ramble in the country. Those were happy, heavenly, as well as educational experiences, for father never lost an opportunity in that direction and his knowledge of Töchterchen – little daughter. verfluchte Schauspielerin – damned actress.

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natural history, horticulture, botany etc., proved instructive and entertaining to me. We collected all sorts of beautiful specimens of butterflies and beetles, including big stag-beetles, to say nothing of flowers, father impressed on me to be careful of the poisonous, such as foxglove, bella donna, etc., though I already knew. Being naturally high spirited, happy-go-lucky, in spite of my occasional fits of depression and melancholy, and longing for children’s companionship, I was drawn into playing and romping with others, father’s admonitions and threats being temporarily forgotten. There was a piece of waste land with a small pond opposite our boarding house which made an excellent playground. We made a raft on which Wilhelm Tell escaped and, so many as it would hold, sailed for America. (Father often spoke of going to America to join his uncle, Grandfather’s brother.) Even if our ship was wrecked it didn’t matter since our “ocean” was not deep enough to drown anyone and we could always effect heroic rescues, to say nothing of the heroic facing of consequences on arriving home wet and dirty. The pond was also the Rhine which we defended against the French who, of course, were always defeated. Circus was a favorite game in which I played the prancing horse, resting my hands on my knees, giving the smaller children a gallop round the ring; failing my being able to play the beautiful riders which I had seen dancing on the horse’s back and which I admired, worshipped and envied with all my being. Imitating the acrobatic tricks of the circus as far as I was able was also more interesting and difficult than our physical drill on the horizontal bars in the school playground and gymnasium. Being allowed to wheel a neighbour’s baby in its perambulator was supreme joy, much better than a doll. Father was fiercely angry at being disobeyed when he was caught me playing. He would not object so much, he said, if I played with girls of my own age, but I was either romping with boys or playing nursemaid to the whole neighborhood. Since he was apt to stop any “back answers” with the back of his hand on my face, it was difficult to explain that girls of my own age usually quareled among themselves as to who should be leader, teacher, principal or whatever it was they wanted to be, do, or play, instead of getting on with the game. I left them to fight it out among themselves and joined the boys who played “soldiers”, fighting and beating the French. As for the babies, they reminded me of my own baby brother and since I couldn’t have him why shouldn’t I play with the others? It was quite a grief to me not to be a boy, to be a soldier and fight for my country, repulse foreign invasions, for that, in my way of thinking then, was the only thing left to fight for, according to history lessons. We had religious, political and every other kind of “Freiheit”30 through the union of the German States under the Kaiser, Wilhelm I. I was thrilled by stories of persecution and martyrdom for causes all down the ages and wished I had lived in any of those days. Could I only have been one of the “Deutschen Frauen”31 Freiheit – freedom. Deutschen Frauen – German women

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who helped their men repulse and conquer the Romans, or one of the Christians to be thrown to the lions, or like the “Jungfrau von Orléans”,32 Luther and others defying the church, or any other brave defiant spirit fighting for right and freedom, against injustice and oppression. But now I thought “all is right with the world” although I had not then heard the expression. Returning to the girls of my own age, when I was twelve years old I won an argument I had with another, and one of the listening group said she was glad I had won, she liked me best as I had three rows of plisée on my dress while my opponent had only two. That struck home! Lieber Gott,33 I thought, is one to be judged by the frills on one’s dress? Since I did not always wear three. Father always examined and corrected my home work, mostly with much lecturing on my stupidity, carelessness, uselessness and so forth, but seldom praised and encouraged me for doing things right. Writing a fine hand himself he wanted me to also, and tried to teach me, as they did at school, to hold the pen with straightened fingers but my index finger would crook up and father beat me on it with a ruler. He smoked a long pipe which had a flexible piece with a knob in the center, between the stem and mouthpiece and sometimes when finding a mistake he drew my attention to it with “Was nennst du das?”,34 accompanied by a blow on my head with the knob of his pipe, raising one there, according to how much force he used. Naturally I would scream with pain, fear and confusion and he would stand over me compelling me to control my emotions and not utter a sound, but sob inwardly, wishing I could drop dead. After such scenes I would be very quiet and subdued, not making any childish, affectionate advances to him, as I did under happier conditions, when he would call me his “Schmeichelkätzchen”.35 Then he complained at my being an unnatural child, caring more for strangers than him. I protested that I loved him best, but I could not explain to him that I liked strangers and acquaintances, his friends, when they were kind to me, and how I lacked the fear of them that I felt for him. When in an outburst of childish affection, trying to tell of some success at school, or other news which I thought might please him, I put my arms around his neck and kissed him, instead of reciprocating and appreciating, he pushed me aside and “crushed” me with “H’m, what is it you want now?”. I remember an occasion of my having a new dress made which I was so anxious to wear that I wanted to help the dressmaker get it done, and to encourage my enthusiasm she showed me how to “overcast” the seams, a thing I had never done on my doll’s dresses. The dressmaker was pleased with, and encouraged me in my eagerness to help and learn. But when I told my father, hoping he too would be pleased with me, all he said was “H’m, no doubt you think you have done wonders, it’s time you did something useful”. Jungfrau von Orleans – Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. Lieber Gott – Dear God. 34 Was nennst du das? – What do you call that? 35 Schmeichelkätzchen – little flatterer. 32 33

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That I was “willing and easily lead” was the kindest thing he ever said about me (as he always did when introducing me to the headmaster at a new school) yet, when suggesting or telling ­me something I should do, he would, insinuating that I was unwilling, invariably quote the “Erlkönig”36 one of my recitations, “Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt”.37 It was so unnecessary apart from preferring himself as the evil sprite, using “force”, to the loving, anxious father he had proved himself to be at Hagen station and on other occasions. Father used to quote “Ich kenne meine Pappenheimer”,38 with a very knowing air. Pappenheim may have known and understood his men, but father only knew his entirely wrong idea, false concept of me, of children in general, as most adults have. Since reaching years of discretion, I have given much thought to the subject. To me a child is like a tender plant which should be permitted natural growth from its birth under loving, watchful eyes. It should learn from “example” what is right for it to do, not have its attention drawn to what adults consider “wrong” and told “thou shalt not”, for that seems to me to be equivalent to placing a stone upon a young plant, thereby retarding its growth, yet expecting it to grow up fine and straight. I have seen many tender, young plants by the wayside, in fields and woods, trying to struggle from under obstructions, and have removed the latter to give the former a chance to freedom of growth. By the same token since reaching years of discretion, I want to see the removal of all obstructions in the shape of unjust statutes, laws, rules, regulations, ordnances, theologies, dogmas, and endless petty tyrannies which dominate, oppress, irritate, obstruct and curse the spiritual and mental growth of humanity and, see our leaders, elected and otherwise, living examples of what they want the rest of us to be.

Chapter IV The schools which I attended in other towns as well as Witten gave excellent instructions on religious history and, being with one exception Protestant, they of course emphasized that as being the best. Religion was always one of my favorite studies and I could recite whole chapters from the Bible. Though I have no knowledge of father ever attending church, except later at my Confirmation, he approved of my doing so, since it “kept me out of mischief”, and when not going out with him on Sundays I was only too glad to take refuge there morning and afternoon in preference to staying home with him. Besides, I enjoyed the singing, Erlkönig – a dramatic ballad by Goethe in which an infant boy is assailed by the Elfking while riding at night with his father. When they arrive home, the father finds his son dead in his arms. 37 Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt – ‘And if you are not willing, then I must use force’ – is a line from the ballad, said by the Elfking to the boy. 38 Ich kenne meine Pappenheimer – a well-known saying, meaning ‘How well I know that man/ thing’. Pappenheim was a Germanic hero of the Thirty Years’ War. 36

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and during my later schoolyears it was part of our homework to write an essay on the morning sermon. Father, instead of sending me to a Pension-boarding school, as friends suggested he ought if only for his own convenience, preferred to have me with him wherever business took him for any length of time and send me to the local school. Boarding school, he said, would just suit me, to be free to do as I liked. No, he would have me under his own supervision, train me his way, bend or break me to his will. Which reminds me of his “trying that on the dog”. While we were living in Dortmund he brought home a puppy for me which he tried to train to follow him. I used to go to the corner with father, taking the puppy too while mother waited at the door for my return. The puppy instead of following father would scamper after me which infuriated him so that he beat and kicked it each time “to teach the dog who was master”. Mother tried to protect it and I begged him not to beat it, but to no avail. After a few days the puppy died. Lucky dog! Father used to give me regular lectures on discipline, obedience, honour, integrity, independence, courtesy, etc., all the qualities that go to build character, much as grandmother, with the difference that she did it in a gentle guiding affirmative way, while father was forceful, doubtful if he wasn’t wasting his breath on me, and sarcastic. Still, he did his best. Always impressed on me the preference of quality to quantity. Always to be polite and helpful, especially to old people. Always trust everyone until you find him or her unworthy, and always keep your own word. Yet he never seemed to trust me. He always took other people’s word against mine. I blushed at the slightest suggestion of some child having thrown stones and broken a window or done some other mendable mischief children were not supposed to do. My blushing was always taken as a sure sign of guilt though I was as innocent as you, my reader, and my protestations were taken as lying and the punishment doubled. When knowingly guilty, conscience-stricken and fearing punishment I simply stuttered my confession and apology, if found out and accused. Since reaching years of discretion I have come to the conclusion that most adults in authority over children make entirely too much of their misconduct. They credit, or rather discredit, them with an innate, inborn vice of which they are perfectly unconscious, and which exists only in the mind of the accuser, as beauty or ugliness, in the eye of the beholder. The only time I remember father taking me to a fair, though he took me to concerts which he enjoyed himself, was to see a diving demonstration in a huge glass tank with full explanation of the details of dress, boots, helmet, breathing apparatus, etc. Father was delighted with my giving a description of it to some friends of his later, as always when he was the immediate medium of my prowess. Anything on my own initiative or anyone else’s he usually decried and minimized. On a visit to Düsseldorf he pointed out and explained the first electric arc­-lights at the railway station, thereby augmenting my school study of the subject with bottles, carbons, wires, etc. It was all very interesting and I was eager to learn. In Düsseldorf also I remember visiting a friend of my mother’s who lived in Dortmund when we did. She was a widow with two little girls younger than I. There was some talk of marriage between her and my father, but her family,

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all Catholics like herself, objected. Father seemed very popular with his friends of both sexes and once I overheard a conversation in which he called a certain young lady of our acquaintance “ein süsses kind”. I was astonished at him calling a “grown up” woman a sweet child when he never called me that. In the privacy of our room women were no good nowadays. I would never be any good. Then he would compare me to my mother and enumerate her wonderful womanly accomplishments, which I lacked; forgetting that she had had the advantage of being raised and trained in a home by a mother, in all sorts of artistic fancy work, music, in addition to the “echt deutsche”39 domestic training. He showed me some of her work which he said he was saving for me till I grew up, also her Prayer book with a lock of my hair which she had cut. Of course I would never be like her; what would I grow up to be? When I ventured to declare that I would go on the stage and be a great actress he was furious. He would rather see me dead than on the stage. I disgraced him enough already without that. “Die sin alle schlecht auf der Bühne”40 he said, in fact that seemed to be the popular opinion and so I was all the more determined to go on the stage and prove that one could be as good there as in other walks of life. My idea of badness in those days was murder, stealing, lying and I was sure one could be on the stage without being “so bad”. “Verfluchte Schauspielerin” and “rote Canaille” were some of father’s favorite taunts for me and I was becoming almost as sensitive over my red hair as aunt Lisette over hers, when someone told me that Jesus had red hair. That reconciled me to anything I had to bear in its behalf and I told children and adults who teased or insulted me about it, that they were jealous because I had red hair like Jesus and they hadn’t. Whatever impression that made on others it seemed to make none on father.

Chapter V While boarding with a Catholic family in Langendreer I had fierce religious arguments with their children who of course attended a Catholic school while I went to a Protestant. We were friendly enough otherwise and I have pleasant recollections of our catching leeches, tadpoles and stickelbacks in the nearby brook together and helping them in their own little garden patch. However, my stay there was short and father, though he remained there himself, boarded me with a Protestant family who had two sons, one at the University at Bonn, sent there by a wealthy bachelor uncle and godfather, and one, a couple of years older than myself attending the local “Gymnasium”. Ewald and I were not the best of friends. he looked on me as an interloper, though his parents were darlings, taking me to their hearts as if I were their own. I was eleven then and probably filled the place of a daughter to Mama Busch echt deutsche – genuine German. Die sin alle schlecht auf der Bühne – They are all wicked on the stage.

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as I affectionately called my adopted mother. She was an active Church worker and very busy with others, making all sorts of garments and knitting stockings to be distributed at the approaching Christmas celebrations among “the poor”. The group met at each others houses for a “Kaffeklatsch”41 and work, in which I often joined and did whatever was given me to sew or knit. The lesson in “overcasting” the dressmaker had given me stood me in good stead now. Christmas was wonderful. Hermann came home from Bonn and proved to be a “richtiger Herr”,42 so different from his younger brother with whom I quarrelled and fought, not over religion, but as to which of us could throw stones further and higher, which was the better runner, climber or wrestler, for the possession of a toy, book or whatever the object of contention was. (Though there were other boys with whom I had similar tussles.) We all took part in the Church festivities and distribution of parcels to “the poor”. I gloried in everything but the latter part. The singing of “Hoch tut euch auf, ihr Tore der Welt”,43 and all the other Christmas hymns was thrilling and inspiring, but I could not understand the poorly dressed men, women and children, though the joy and enthusiasm of the smaller children seemed spontaneous. They made an unpleasant, painful impression on me, something seemed wrong which I couldn’t fathom. I asked Mama Busch who they were and why they were “poor”, but she gave me no satisfactory answer. They were just poor and “gute Christen” had to help them. I had read and heard of the poor but failed, as in other things, to put two and two together and grasp the meaning. Vague suspicions were aroused in me too in another direction. Papa Busch was an engineer like father, both were connected with big steel works and at times they and others would examine all sorts of drawings and charts and discuss new inventions, new machines that would “do the work of several men”. I thought that was wonderful but wondered what the men would do, who would be no longer needed. I never dared ask questions for I was not allowed to speak unless spoken to, so I just pondered and wondered. I had seen the men at work at several big steel mills. Father had taken me over and shown me how all the big machines worked and explained a great deal of detail to me. Later he would ask me questions to see if I remembered and he was usually satisfied. Had I been a boy no doubt I would have become an engineer, but as I have often said to myself since, “If father had had any sense he would have trained me to become the first woman engineer.” I never thought that was “woman’s work” myself in those days, although we learned at school how pumps and steam engines were constructed and worked. With all his enthusiasm for new labor-saving machinery, father said he would rather break my legs than see me use a sewing machine, when I became acquainted

Kaffeeklatsch – literally ‘coffee-gossip’. richtiger Herr – real gentleman. 43 Hoch tut euch auf, ihr Tore der Welt – Psalm 24, usually translated as ‘Lift up your heads, oh ye gates [of the world].’ 41 42

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with a “Singer”44 at a friend’s house, learned to manipulate it and cheerfully asked him to buy me one. Sewing machine indeed, women were becoming too lazy, they should sew by hand.

Chapter VI In due time father and I moved on again, this time to Gelsenkirchen, where I saw the process of making gas, coke and tar, of which I had learned at school. The most thrilling thing that happened here was the manoeuvre in the district. One morning from the schoolroom window, away on the horizon we saw a glittering line in the sunshine moving to the strains of martial music. What joy! What excitement! School was suspended for the day and we all, boys and girls, ran helter-skelter to meet the soldiers. From a safe distance we watched them marching, wheeling, running, galloping to the command of their officers. Infantry, cavalry, hussars, dragoons, unlans45 with their lances topped by tiny flags, cuirassiers in their white uniforms and glittering cuirasses,46 artillery with the cannons. So many of them, it must have been the whole German army. War gods from Walhalla at play. How my heart beat with patriotism and love for my country! How I longed to be a boy, a soldier, an officer of course, dashing at the head of my regiment to victory! What dreams, what visions. “Man traumt von Siegeskränzen.”47 And then you wake up! But what memories to feast on. Next we moved to Rheydt, near Gladbach. “Sodom and Gomorrah”, father called them, though they seemed all right to me. Here we met the above mentioned “sweet child” with whom I went shopping one day and among other items, bought a lovely green felt hat with a wreath of peacock feathers, in which even father said I looked well. “Who was the handsome man I saw you with yesterday?” schoolmates would inquire sometimes and I proudly told them that was “mein Papa”, as I always called him. He was handsome to look at, the image of the Kronprins48 whose pictures I used to admire in shop windows, though not quite so tall. I was very proud of the likeness. All I remember of a wonderful school excursion from here is going by train to some station whence we walked to the accompaniment of our own harmonized singing to a ruined castle, Schloss Liedberg, once occupied by Charlemagne. From the top of the hill on which it stood, we had a magnificent view of the beautiful, surrounding country in the valley of which two rivers, the Maas and Hiers, glittering like molten silver in the sun, met and flowed on together. Always combining education with pleasure, we had history, geography, geology and botany essays American sewing machine, invented in 1857. Unlans – Uhlans. Cavalrymen or lancers. 46 Cuirasse – breastplate. 47 Man traumt von Siegeskränzen – One dreams of victory wreaths. From German folksong. 48 Kronprins – Crown Prince. The future Frederick III. 44 45

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to write on this outing in addition to a general outline. And some of the boys received a lesson in obedience and discipline as well. They had gone into the forest down the hill in spite of the Headmaster having forbidden it, for fear some might get lost. On their return, he was waiting for them with a switch he had cut, and put each across his knee. His own son first with an extra reprimand, since as the Headmaster’s son, he should have set a better example. Would that maxim were always lived up to. The following Christmas when I was nearly 13, a friend gave me a pair of skates but father dared me to go on the ice. Didn’t I cost him enough without my running the risk of accident, of breaking an arm, or leg, or perhaps my neck, or the ice might break and I get drowned. Who was going to pay doctors and funeral expenses? “Wenn ich dich nicht hätte, könnte ich wie ein Baron leben”49 was father’s favorite taunt when telling me I was a burden and expense and he wished I had never been born. In addition to the stork being responsible I had learnt that God sent children as a blessing to parents and thought it very unjust of Him to send them to people who did not want them. I had no inkling then that a father is himself responsible for creating the “burden”. With all our school teaching in anatomy, physiology, reproduction of vegetables, birds, butterflies, etc. and Säugetiere50 including human beings, bringing living young into the world, there never was any explanation of how and why. Marriage and God’s blessing were always stressed regarding human beings, leading us to believe that thus in some mysterious, spiritual way the human embryo developed. When I questioned father on the subject he told me I was too young to understand, I must wait till I grew up and little girls shouldn’t ask such questions. I often wondered why the animals did not go through a “marriage ceremony” to have their young and concluded that was the distinction between them and “God’s image and likeness”. My head ached many a time trying to fathom the mystery, but being very religious, trusting, and believing in the superior knowledge of God, the clergy, school teachers, father and other adults, I gave it up in the hope of understanding when I was old enough. Never having any “sworn lifelong friendship” with other girls, as some had, the question never arose and I took it for granted that they knew no more than I did. The effect of all this upon me was that I determined never to marry. No man should ever again tell me that I was a burden and expense to him. And suppose I married, died and left a baby, as mother had, and its father told it that it was a burden and expense, etc., etc.! I loved babies too well to run the risk of condemning any to a fate like mine.

Wenn ich dich nicht hatte, könnte ich wie ein Baron leben – If I didn’t have you, I could live like a baron. 50 Säugetiere – mammals. 49

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Chapter VII At Grefenbroich, we stayed at an old fashioned hotel where the coaches stopped before the railway touched there. The landlady, a widow, a dear, kindly soul, took quite a fancy to me in spite of the difference in our religions, she being Catholic as were most people in the little town. She had a lovely big garden, and allowed me to cut flowers to my heart’s content for the house, for her married daughter who lived nearby, for my teacher’s desk and to decorate the windows as everybody did when the Church had a procession round the town. From an artistic angle, I enjoyed arranging the statuettes of Saints and flowers, though I thought the processions theatrical display, my own idea, not hearsay, and not religious because Jesus never had anything like that. He never walked under a canopy and had boys swinging censers with incense and all that “Unsinn”.51 I attended the Catholic school, the only one in the town and went to the Protestant church on Sunday and twice a week for religious instruction to a village about two miles away. Father must have confided his troubles to the pastor and his wife, who always welcomed me to their house, for they wanted to adopt me, not having any children of their own. I was perfectly agreeable but father was most indignant. The idea! He had supported me so far and would continue to do so until I married. I was just thirteen then. He was furious with me for being willing to leave him for strangers. Yet, what could he expect from a child, judging between his attitude and theirs towards it? Here, I experienced another manoevre, but this time the soldiers were quartered in the town and we had some of the officers, which was a great honour to the house and all its inmates, who vied with each other in paying homage to these grand, charming, handsome, gracious, commanding, noble representatives of Prussian military glory. The usually quiet old court yard, surrounded by stables and barns became all life and bustle. The stables which had been mostly empty since the end of the coaching days were now full of splendid, high-spirited chargers, some bred in England. I loved horses and could ride, but was warned not to go too near these alone, as they were not accustomed to ladies. But I got near them when they came home after a grand field day and, was waiting for them with lumps of sugar, and escorted from one horse to another by a charming tall, slender, elderly officer to whom everybody was very deferential and who, they told me, was Freiherr von Fürstenberg.52 Those were wonderful days, full of life, excitement, admiration and hero worship. Oh to be a man and wear such gorgeous uniforms and ride such proud horses! Sleepy-headed as I was ordinarily, “reveille” did not have to sound twice for Unsinn – nonsense. Head of an ancient noble family from Westphalia.

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me those mornings. Which reminds me, father used to pride himself on being able to wake at any time he wished, and thought I was very lazy and irresponsible not being able to do likewise. He often drew comparisons between us, accentuating his own superiority in everything, evidently forgetting that I was only a child and he twenty-eight years ahead of me in learning and general experience. By the time I was forty-one I had learnt to wake at any time I set my mind on. Such is a mild picture of five stormy years with father until I left school and visited uncle Heinrich who was now married and had two little girls. And I had a new aunt, Emilie. Aunt Mariechen had two little boys and I had the happiest, busiest time playing with and entertaining my young cousins. Grandfather had died just before I arrived. Uncle had tried to persuade him to make some provision for me out of what inheritance was due to father, but he thought that would be unfair, besides “I might marry a man who would spend it”. At Whitsuntide 1886 I was confirmed into the Protestant church and received my first (and only) Holy Communion. Father arrived for the occasion and we had a great family gathering. When father left he wanted to take me with him but I naturally preferred the harmonious home life at Uncle’s, helping Aunt Emilie with sewing, mending, looking after the children, and so forth, to merely continuing my studies under father’s domination, as a butt for his spleen and temper, until he could marry me to the first man he approved of. There was a violent parting and much abuse for the unnatural daughter who deserted her father. Though I have never seen my father the worse for drink, he drank within reason, like other men, but instead of it having a cheering effect upon him it seemed to make him morose and disagreeable towards me. During that happy summer I received an invitation from Aunt Dora in London and one from Aunt Lisette who had married and settled down in Berlin to visit them. Here was my chance to relieve father of his “burden” forever. I accepted Aunt Dora’s invitation and put the seas between us. To avoid further “scenes” it was decided I should go without consulting father. Uncle made all arrangements, explained the journey to me, told me which hotel to stay at in Deutz the first night, the second I would be aboard the boat en route for England. I felt very “grown up” in my first long dresses, travelling alone such a long way. Some fellow travellers, women with whom I got in conversation asked if I was not afraid to travel alone at my age, fifteen. Of course I wasn’t, what was there to be afraid of? They exchanged glances, cast their eyes heavenwards and called upon “Jesus, Maria, Joseph” to protect me. Years later on several occasions I read their meaning in English newspapers. Glad as I was, speeding along to freedom away from father, my heart ached at conditions being as they were between us, of which I seemed to be the innocent cause. I derived great comfort and justification in the step I was taking from two verses in the Bible which had deeply impressed me when first I learnt them. “Get thee out of Thy country, and from Thy kinship and from Thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show Thee,” Genesis 12–1 and “Call no man your father for only one is your father, even God.”

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ENGLAND

Chapter VIII On a fine, sunny, autumn morning in 1886, I arrived at Harwich, England. The language I heard around me sounded like one long word which, I felt, I could never learn to understand, much less speak. An interpreter put me on the train for Liverpool St., London in the corner of a compartment, three of which were already occupied. My vis-a-vis was an Englishman who spoke excellent German, and made a favourable impression upon me. He knew the route well and I received quite a lesson in geography on villages and hamlets we passed which had not appeared on our school maps. New and interesting as it all was I envied the children on their way to school, who waved to the train as it rushed past them. Though I had escaped unhappy conditions with father, I felt a dread and premonition of facing new ones. Liverpool St. station was noisy, dirty, smoky, smelly, unlike any I had seen before. Aunt Dora and I knew each other at once from the description of our general appearance and dress. She too had red hair but had outgrown the sensitiveness she had once shared with her sister Lisette and when we reached her home in an Eastern suburb of London, on the way to Epping Forest, I found two more red heads among my five new cousins, all younger than I, from eleven years down. I fell quite naturally into transferring my “mothering” propensities from my dollies to them, to the relief of my aunt, not to mention the one little domestic help. It evidently had never occurred to father, from the way he used to jeer and sneer at my “playing with dolls” that I was developing useful qualities. The endless making, mending, washing, ironing, etc., to keep clean and tidy three boys and two girls, one a baby under a year old, was no easy matter, though making pretty, little garments for the latter was more interesting than mending for the others. Except that I was heartily thankful to be away from father, I did not consider my circumstances an improvement. General conditions in my aunt’s home were on a lower scale than I had been accustomed to in Germany, and I wondered why God had blessed her with five children, while families with three and less I had known at home were much better off in every way. Not knowing the language and having no one to talk to but my aunt, her husband and the two older boys who had visited Germany with their mother and spoke sufficient German for us to understand each other, my world felt very small and restricted. I gave up all hope of the stage and tried to reconcile myself to living with my aunt’s family for ever, unless by some lucky, unforeseen circumstances, I returned to Germany. I often felt terribly homesick, especially at Christmas time, when the “waits” played carols at midnight during the week preceding Christmas. I hid my

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head under the bedclothes to shut out their sound and smother my own sobs. What had I ever done to be so unhappy, so utterly, deadly miserable? Christmas here was a “chilly” affair in more ways than temperature. No tree, no merry gathering, no songs, only few presents. Aunt told me they didn’t make so much of Christmas in England. With spring came an attack of “Wanderlust”, and one day, having reminisced to aunt about my rambles in the woods with father I said, “if it is fine next Sunday morning I am going to get up at 5 o’clock and walk to Epping Forest.” “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said aunt. “Why not?” I asked. “Why, people will think you have been out all night and are not respectable,” replied aunt. This was something quite new to me and I wanted to know what being out all night had to do with being respectable, which she could not explain except that in England respectable people did not stay out all night. I thought it a very strange country. Nobody seemed to think anything about it in Germany when father and I had gone out so early. Well, father being with me was different, according to my aunt, which I couldn’t see at all, anyhow it was nobody’s business if I stayed out all night, or went out early in the morning and I would do both if I wanted to. “Not while you are in my house,” aunt insisted. “You’ll go out during decent hours of the day. You can go to the forest on Sunday afternoon and take the children.” Which I did, all but the baby, and they enjoyed the new experience so much that we repeated it whenever convenient. I missed going to church as I had done regularly with Aunt Emilie while staying with her and uncle Heinrich. Aunt Dora used to attend a chapel in the evening. I accompanied her once but the gesticulations of the preacher to a language I did not understand and the interjections of “Amen” and “Hallelujah” on the part of members of the congregation, a thing I had never heard before, were too much for me. I nearly choked myself with my handkerchief to prevent my going off into hilarious hysterics. A firm believer in “Deutschland über Alles”, I drew many comparisons between Germany and England, some decidedly to the credit and advantage of the latter when I became better acquainted. To my surprise, I found I was gradually learning English. The children and I told each other the names of things in English and German with the result that I learned to understand words and snatches of conversation. So I tried to learn reading from any printed matter I got hold of, including the children’s school books and the Bible, in the latter following the chapters I had memorized in German, and with the necessary perseverance I learned to read and write before I could speak, finding pronunciation more difficult. I would repeat difficult words mentally to myself until I was satisfied they sounded correct, before speaking them. As a child I had been complimented on my correct speech and as I seemed, after all, able to learn English, I wanted to speak that just as correctly. Strange how one learns the “bad” parts of a language most easily. I came home one day, having taken the baby for an airing, and cheerfully hailed my aunt with

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“you bloody bugger!” She was shocked and horrified. Where had I heard such dreadful, etc., etc., language? I didn’t know it was bad. I had passed two men in the street and one slapped the other on the shoulder, laughing, and using that expression. I thought it was something nice and friendly and as it was easy to remember I thought aunt would be pleased with my progress in English. The “strike”1 which at some time during my stay with Aunt Dora filled the press and was widely discussed, was something new to me. I had never heard of “strike”, what was it? Aunt explained it to me, sympathising with the strikers, who I thought were very foolish not to be satisfied with “half a loaf” if they couldn’t get a whole, to leave their work because the employers couldn’t pay them higher wages. They would if they could, of course; it was their duty to do their best for their employees. According to the ideas of noblesse oblige instilled into me at grandfather’s it was, but from aunt’s explanation and later experiences I found they were not carried out in the world at large and the worker’s existence in general was one long fight for justice, better conditions, higher standards, “a square deal” all round. My two eldest boy cousins assisted my reading by often taking away whatever they found me poring over, with, “don’t read that trash, read this” and put a “Deadwood Dick”2 in my hands. It all helped. They also took me to the Tower of London where for the first time I saw British Soldiers, Grenadier Guards and Yeomen of the Guard. When I expressed my admiration for their smart uniforms and appearance my aunt “hushed” me. In England soldiers were of no account. They were lazy and only enlisted because they were good for nothing else. “Nice people” never took any notice of them. Nobody respected them and no “nice girl” would be seen in their company. I thought aunt, being German, was merely prejudiced, while a soldier “ready to lay down his life for his country” was the same to me, whether German or English. Then aunt explained to me the difference between conscription in Germany and the volunteer system in England and I thought they ought to have conscription in England and teach the people to respect their soldiers, though surely a volunteer was worthy of greater honour than a conscript. In later years, I had the same, even more heated arguments with English people when I heard and read of soldiers in uniform being refused admittance to theatres, restaurants and even public houses. When the Kronprinz attended Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887, I wanted to see the procession but aunt would not let me go alone because of my lack of the English language and she certainly was not going to risk the boys’ lives in the crowds that would be there. So life dragged on monotonously. I had no companionship except aunt’s family. I had the queerest longing to This could be one of a number of significant strikes in the late 1880s: the Railway Strike (1887), the Matchgirls’ Strike (1888) or the London Dock Strike (1889).  2 Deadwood Dick (1877–97) – a series of popular American ‘dime novels’ by Edward Lytton Wheeler.  1

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talk to my own mother, to discuss things and emotions I could not understand nor ask my aunt to explain. More and more I felt caged by invisible barriers which I wanted to break, not knowing how. But one day a gypsy came to the door and her words, which I actually understood, became burnt into my memory. “You have a lucky face, you will travel far and wide and make friends wherever you go.” My aunt of course laughed at such nonsense but I was thrilled although at that time my “travelling far and wide” was a financial impossibility. Still it gave me new hope, new visions, which were intensified when the boys, one or the other of whom always accompanied me if I went out any distance, took me to the Mile End Theatre3 where the then popular Drury Lane Drama “A Run of Luck”,4 was being played. What heavenly joy and ecstasy! I could understand and felt sure I could do as well as any in the play if only I were able to speak the language. Here was a new theme I never tired of discussing though my aunt discouraged any idea of my going on the stage since I would never speak well enough. Besides, as in Germany, “they were all bad on the stage”. That did not deter me from hoping, dreaming, concentrating. After all, the “badness” on the stage was only play, pretence, it wasn’t real. During a Christmas Pantomime season, I was taken to see “Babes in the Wood” at Drury Lane Theatre. The wonder, grandeur, magnificence, beauty, music, singing, dancing, comedy swept me right off my feet. The lovely dancing, flying fairies, led by “Aenea”, the “Babes” such big ones, played by two men, Herbert Campbell and Harry Nickolls, the old woman, Dan Leno, they were so comical, and best of all “Robin Hood”, played by Harriet Vernon,5 whose pictures on the program I still treasure. Here was the part I wanted to play. The ease and grace with which she moved in her scanty costumes fascinated me. My disappointment with life, my hopes, longings, yearnings can better be imagined than described. No prisoner in irons ever felt more shakled than I did. But, “everything comes to him who waits”. Towards the autumn in 1889, I saw an advertisement in the Daily News6 for ladies to learn stage dancing, pantomime engagement guaranteed. Here was my chance! Imperfect speech would not handicap dancing.

Probably the Paragon Theatre, built by Frank Matcham following a fire in 1884 which destroyed Lusby’s Palace music hall. Opening in 1885, the Paragon seated c. 3,000 people.  4 A spectacular 1886 racing drama by Henry Pettit and Augustus Harris which included real horses in the staging of the final race.  5 The Drury Lane pantomime became the most famous and lavish in the country, particularly under the management, from 1879, of Augustus Harris. Babes in the Wood (1888) was Dan Leno’s first appearance in a Drury Lane pantomime, which was dominated by the comedians Harry Nichols and Herbert Campbell. Harriet Vernon (1852–1923) was a singer, burlesque performer and well-known principal boy.  6 The Daily News was a reforming national newspaper founded by Charles Dickens in 1846.  3

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Chapter IX After much argument, persuasion, coaxing, my aunt let me go the next day with written directions of reaching the address at which to apply in Waterloo Road and earnest warnings not to answer if any strange man spoke to me, but to walk straight on. Such warnings meant nothing to me since I saw no reason why a strange man should speak to me except to be directed if he were uncertain of his vicinity in which case I would help him if I could, if not, I would refer him to a policeman. I reached my destination safely and after repeating an easy step and some poses shown me by the dancing mistress, I was accepted as a pupil and told to call at a future date when actual training would commence. I was the happiest thing on earth! Aunt Dora advanced the necessary two Guineas for tuition fee which I repaid later. What soul-satisfying exhilaration and excitement, meeting my fellow pupils who were so kind and friendly to me, a foreigner and thought I spoke quite good English for such a short time, three years in England, though I was shy as always, when meeting strangers and had little to say beyond answering their questions. There were about 50 of us, all young beginners, learning the fundamental ballet steps, the Sailors Hornpipe. Highland Fling and Irish Jig and drafted to different theatres in the country, where they always had eight to twelve London dancers in addition to the local girls for the Christmas Pantomime Ballet. I was sent to the Theatre Royal, Glasgow7 for eight weeks certain, at a salary of £1–10 for seven performances, half salary for two weeks rehearsals, all extra performances and, fare paid one way. What a merry gathering at St Pancras station for the midnight express to Glasgow, with reserved carriages for “theatricals” of which I was one, think of it, though I seemed more of a quiet observer than a participant. There were a few other dancers, “old stagers” joining us, the new ones, and the chorus-show girls, usually called the big six or eight according to their number, who “dressed the stage” garbed in gorgeous costumes, and some of whom, I learned later, looked down upon the ballet, on anyone not in their own exalted sphere.8 In spite of the fundamental esprit de corps among theatrical people, some were great sticklers for class distinction rather than merit. Most of my fellow travellers had friends to see them off. I had none, distance and lateness of the hour made it inconvenient. But I was perfectly content to enjoy my new experience of liberty alone, and as the express dashed through the night I wished it might do so forever without a stop. The problem Theatre Royal, Glasgow (1867–present) presented plays, opera, music theatre and summer revues; from 1888, under the management of James B. Howard and Frederick Wyndham, it became a leading pantomime house.  8 This is an important distinction. The best known example of these chorus-show girls was George Edwardes’s Gaiety Girls.  7

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of finding lodgings which had worried my aunt somewhat, solved itself most satisfactorily. When discussion of “digs” (lodgings) arose in the carriage, one of the old stagers, sitting next to me, suggested I might share hers which she had already engaged. I could easily find others later if not satisfied. It happened that the arrangement proved quite satisfactory to us both. To my surprise, though she was a nimble, graceful dancer, she had a daughter on the stage, married to the proprietor of a musical show touring the Music Halls. Assembling on the stage at 11 o’clock was like entering a sacred edifice and treading holy ground. I took it all very seriously. But what a strange, queer, dreary, mysterious, ghostly, gloomy scene the interior represented. Vast space faintly lit by a T. piece, a gas pipe about six or seven feet high, crossed at the top by one about half that length from which several gas jets sprouted just above the footlights in the centre of the stage. Your eyes becoming accustomed to the dim gloom, you would notice a huge semicircle, the front of the house, draped from gallery to floor including the seats below, in enormous dust sheets. With the exception of a table and a few chairs near the T. piece, the stage was empty, some of the scenery leaning against the wall at the back of the stage, most of it stored in a scene dock. After the producer and stage manager had sorted us all into sections, principals, chorus, ballet, we commenced rehearsing separately in different saloons in front of the house. A few days later, we all rehearsed on the stage going right through the show with much repetition and weary waits between. Two weeks rehearsals dragged all too slowly, and walking home all hours of the night after late rehearsals, I wondered what aunt would say if she knew. Dress rehearsal and donning my first tights, pink tights, was a great delight. I took to them as a duck takes to water and felt perfectly at home and at ease in them. Some of the girls were shy at first and tried to hide behind others. Ballet shoes, pale blue trunks, sailor blouse and hat completed the costume in which we danced the hornpipe on the Good Ship H.M.S. Gundy carrying “Robinson Crusoe” down the Bonny Clyde, out to sea and on to wonderful adventures. In two further scenes I was a scaly fish, swimming in the sea and a “Sappho” in a stately, graceful gavotte in the Palace scene. And wonder of wonders, or were they teasing me, taking a rise out of me? My hair which at home had been red – anathema – was now “beautiful golden”, and “such quantities of it”, very thick and nearly to my knees, regular “Lady Godiva”, which was my first introduction to her. How was it that my own family and these strangers were as opposite as the poles in their attitude towards, and opinions of, me? The opening night was the grand crisis of my life. Although lost in the crowd, I was on the stage, in paradise. Marie Loftus, Cissie’s9 mother, a native of Glasgow Marie Loftus (1858–1940), the ‘Sarah Bernhardt of the Halls’, was an international star, as was her daughter, Cissie Loftus (1876–1943).

 9

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and a tremendous favourite, played “Crusoe” to perfection and was showered with flowers and applause, as were all the “principals” more or less. Within two weeks, I knew the whole show. As fast as they turned me out of one entrance I was in another or up in “flies” drinking in every word, sound and action. I was going to be a “principal” next year or know the reason why. One night I whistled in the dressing room which caused quite a furore. It was “bad luck”, somebody would be dismissed. I must go outside as I was and turn round three times to break the evil spell. As I only wore a chemise, I refused to go and some of the girls threatened to put me out by force, when I stood, my back to the dressing table, and with clenched fists and blazing eyes “dared” them. I told them no one would be dismissed if she did her work properly. There is no telling, what might have happened, had not Mrs. Howard,10 the proprietor’s wife, hearing the ruction in the passage, come in and read “the riot act”. She was an actress of “Lady Macbeth” and similar parts. Home life with my room-mate was very congenial. She knew Glasgow and showed me points of interest from the University to the slums, which latter I thought a disgrace to civilization and ought not to be permitted. I little dreamt then how they and their denizens would affect my later life. An outstanding event socially was a dinner party given by two other girls at their rooms one Sunday, that being the most convenient day, to which we were invited and met some students from the University. They were interested in meeting a German girl on whom to practice their smattering of her native tongue. They all smoked cigarettes and invited me to try “just once to be sociable”. Never having smoked before, some were afraid it might make me sick, but one of the boys, a Chinese, son of a member of the China Legation,11 studying medicine, jocularly said, this would give him an opportunity to practice his profession, lit the cigarette for me and told me to smoke it very slowly, when it would not affect me, which proved correct. The Pantomime was such a success that they extended it for two weeks, ending with a grand last night, the curtain falling to everybody in the theatre singing Auld Lang Syne, which to me was most unexpected and thrilling, and after three months of glorious freedom, I returned to the circumscribed existence at Aunt Dora’s. Lesser lights in the theatres had to study economy, so some of us returned to London by boat from Leith, near Edinburgh which was only half the price of the railway fare. Conny Angus, a young widow, one of our group, gave me her address at Greenwich and invited me to visit her, which later in a case of emergency, I did.

Sara Nathan (c. 1841–?), actress, costume designer and author of several Howard and Wyndham pantomimes. 11 Vivian Ernest Chang (1867–1930), the first Chinese graduate of the University of Glasgow. 10

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Chapter X During my absence, my aunt had made the acquaintance of a song writer and his family who had come to live nearby. He had a daughter on the Music Hall, or Variety Stage and suggested that I should try my luck there, especially as salaries were higher than in the theatre. He would coach me in a couple of his songs, all I needed to start with and, give me an introduction to an agent. I had never been to a Music Hall, so was taken to the old “Cambridge”12 where the great Charles Godfrey and Jenny Hill were appearing.13 I was disappointed in some respects. It was not nearly so “grand” as the theatre and some of the artists in some of their songs were distinctly coarse and vulgar, and I had no wish to associate with such. However, when I felt proficient enough in my songs to face the British public, I sallied forth with a letter of introduction to a firm of agents in York Road near the corner of Waterloo Road which in those days, was called “Poverty Corner” on account of the “out-of-collar pros” hanging around, looking for work. I felt nervously anxious, but on the high road to success. There were other “artistes” waiting in the outer office when I arrived so I took a chair and waited too. Having heard some detail of the senior and junior partners, I recognized the junior, whom I will call Mr. Dreck,14 when he came out, dismissing some and asking others to wait. On presenting my letter and answering his questions. he told me of a benefit performance to be given the week after next at the “Star”, Bermondsey,15 would I volunteer my services? He could do nothing for me until he had seen my “turn”. Should any “ancients” who knew the “Star” some forty years ago, read this, they will appreciate the situation of a quiet, shy, self-conscious, unsophisticated, sedate nineteen-year-old being thrown into that roughest of the rough, hard drinking, hard swearing environment. I was first turn, the house was full in more ways than one, with drink and noise, which latter drowned the overture. The curtain rose, and the chairman announced “the first appearance of Mlle. Kitty”, the “nom de theatre” suggested by the song writer. The stage manager said, “Go on, throw it at ‘em!” My future, fortune, fame, life, everything depended on this moment. Dressed in pale pink, with my hair down I tripped onto the center of the stage and ignorant as I was, I felt the shouts and applause that greeted me were more ironic than genuine. With all the fight and defiance in me I “threw” it at them, “A Glorious Life on the Ocean!” They gradually quieted down and I finished and “took a call” to genuine applause. “Very good” said the stage manager as I rushed past him to The Royal Cambridge Music Hall, Shoreditch (1864–96); seated c. 2000. Charles Godfrey (1851–1900), music hall singer; Jenny Hill (1848–96), the ‘Vital Spark’ and ‘Queen of the Halls’. 14 ‘Dreck’ is German for filth or smut. 15 The Star Music Hall, attached to the Star and Garter Hotel, Bermondsey (1867–1964); seated 400. 12 13

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the dressing room and burst into tears, my one refuge after such a nervous strain, the like, I thought I would never bear again. The beneficiary, an old comedian thanked and encouraged me and asked me to “have a drink, just for luck”, so I had a “small port” which helped to revive life and hope in me. Two neighbours who had come with me and were in the audience were very encouraging. “A bit amateurish, but your voice sounded fine and you stood your ground.” Other “turns” told me not to mind an audience like that. To take a rise out of new comers and beginners was great sport to them, they didn’t mean any harm. A “double turn”, husband and wife, who gave little sketches, offered me a small part in a new sketch they were going to produce the following Saturday at the “Victoria Hall”, Waterloo Road,16 where a variety program was given on Saturday nights, which was a godsend to many turns. The part was only a few lines but it meant “experience” and 5 shillings. Mr. Dreck thought I ought to work some small halls first for practice and offered me an engagement at a small resort on the East Coast not far from London for one week at £1‑10 and board at the hotel of which the hall was part. He asked me to call for the contract on a certain day at 3 o’clock. When I arrived he was alone in the office. I signed the contract and he gave me the counter part. Then to my horror and disgust he threw his arms around me and insisted that I must give him a kiss, that he had fallen desperately in love with me. I was utterly taken by surprise, but being athletic and agile I wrenched myself free and protested furiously against his conduct in all the English I could think of, saying I resented such familiarity. He was between me and the door and refused to let me go unless I forgave him, he meant me no harm. He was sorry, would I forgive him? All I wanted was to get out. How dared he, a married man too, take such an unwarrantable liberty? He was surprised at me, apparently so quiet and demure, having such a temper, but I must give him a kiss before he let me go. I dared not scream for fear of publicity and struggled frantically until my head struck the edge of the desk and with an awful sensation of bells ringing and water rushing through my head, I lost consciousness. When I recovered he said he had never met such a fighter, all over a harmless kiss too. Most girls liked to be made love to and kissed and I would never succeed on the halls if I didn’t. Then I would prefer not to go on the halls. But I must fill the engagement next week. How thankful I was to get out into the fresh air at last. In a daze, I walked across Waterloo Bridge to catch a bus in the Strand to Liverpool Station. My whole being revolted against even the possibility of such an outrage happening in a world in which I had been taught to trust everybody, that as I treated people so they would treat me, as I respected them and myself so they would respect me. A man never kissed a woman outside of his own family unless he became engaged The Royal Victoria Hall and Coffee Tavern (1818–present, now the Old Vic); it was run by social reformer Emma Cons from 1880 as a ‘cheap and decent place for amusement on strict temperance lines’.

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to her and no self-respecting woman would permit any man except her fiancé to kiss her. Like every normal girl I had my dreams of a wonderful ideal, hero, lover in whom all the finest qualities of the Knights of Chivalry were concentrated, but since I was determined to remain single and self-supporting, I had transferred the love I might have given to my hero, to my work. Sex, except as a distinction between boys and girls, was a closed book to me. It was taken for granted as a mixture of something very private, personal, mysterious, sacred and nasty, not to be openly discussed. Innuendoes, insinuations of going to the bad, to the devil and so forth, I never associated with sex. I was too utterly ignorant to realize the full significance of this brute’s conduct until dressing room talk enlightened me later. My aching head was almost a relief compared to my outraged pride and dignity, my revolted heart and soul. I looked over the parapet at the Thames below. Should I go over? No, that would be cowardly and I had always wanted to be brave and courageous like a man. Like a “man”, after the cowardly thing I had just escaped from? No, I would develop the courage of a “woman” and somehow, some time avenge the insult I had experienced. So I clinched17 my teeth, went home and kept my own council on the subject – until this time of writing.

Chapter XI On the following Monday I went to fulfill my first “Music Hall engagement”. The “hall” was a large concert and dance room with a platform and piano at one end, in a small hotel and public house, frequented largely by foreign seamen whose boats touched there. On the first night there were several Germans and Russians, very appreciative of my efforts, my countrymen particularly when I spoke and sang in German to them. The pianist, a young music teacher of the town, continued to play after I had finished, just to keep the boys in good humour until closing time. But suddenly anger seemed to supersede argument. I went back to see “was ist los?”18 and was just in time to see a German and a Russian, each with a knife raised, ready to strike. How I did it I don’t know and can’t remember what I said – in German – but like a flash I was between them, gripping the sleeve of each raised arm, holding them apart. The friends of each disarmed them and the proprietor had the place cleared as quickly as possible, it being near closing time. He and his wife had received me very hospitably, giving me one of the best bedrooms and the “freedom of the house”, but nothing was good enough for me. I had avoided a tragedy, they might have lost their license. I might have been killed, Probably ‘clenched’. Was ist los? – what’s happening?

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how brave of me, and so forth/and so on. I would always be a welcome guest if ever I wanted to spend a holiday with them. The rest of the week was pretty quiet and enjoyable, the “enemy” ships having sailed. One evening two men introduced themselves as Variety agents from London. They thought it a pity I should be wasting my time and talent at this place. They would like to book me better dates. Of course, I would be delighted. Then in the course of conversation regarding new songs, dresses, etc., one asked, “are you married?” I said “no, why do you ask?” And he laughed and “winked” as he replied, “Well, you know, a slice of cut loaf is never missed.” “What has that to do with being married?” I asked. “Oh,” he blurted out “You’re too damned innocent for me”, and both went, leaving me wondering. Two more visitors from London arrived, “looking for talent”. An elderly couple, such nice people. He was a theatrical producer in Paris, brother of a theatre owner in a Yorkshire town, whose name I had heard. If only I would accompany them to Paris when I was finished here they would soon make a star of me. With my appearance, voice and lovely hair, I would be a tremendous success, earn plenty of money, wear beautiful dresses and jewels and meet everybody worth knowing and be a “woman of the world” instead of the child I was now. The proposition took my breath away. It was most kind of them to take such an interest in me, but I would like to think it over and consult my aunt. So we travelled to town together on Sunday and I was to go to tea the next day to let them know my decision. Well, aunt wouldn’t think of advancing the necessary money I would need to go with and, of course, I couldn’t be dependent upon these strangers. On Monday. I called on Mr. Dreck early, when other people were there, hoping he would be able to book me, but he regretted he could do nothing further for me. The report of my work he had received was not satisfactory. My hosts at tea were disappointed, even angry, to think I declined their offer when they would be glad to bear all expenses. It was not easy to decline what seemed such a brilliant opportunity, but somehow, something held me back. Life was utterly bleak, blank, volcanic and unbearable. My aunt who had never been enthusiastic over my stage venture now became cutting and sarcastic at my lack of ability. Even an introduction to Mr. Dreck was wasted on me. I’d better give up all further idea of the stage and stay with her until I found a husband to keep me. Her husband was even worse. We had only “tolerated” each other from the beginning, now he was tired of “keeping me”, but aunt pointed out that it was her money (income from her inheritance from grandfather) that was keeping me, besides I had been very useful to her and the children. None of my relatives at home replied to the news that I had gone on the stage, with the exception of Aunt Lisette in Berlin, who reiterated the old slogan of everybody on the stage being bad. My inner mental anguish was driving me to distraction. The disappointment in conditions in general and, the collapse of my stage castles in the air in particular, was crushing me. So at the end of a stormy scene I packed my few belongings,

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including the New Testament, given me by the Pastor who wanted to adopt me, my copy of Goethe’s poems, printed in 1806 and my song books, and left aunt Dora’s house, never to return.

Chapter XII Conny Angus was surprised the next morning to be awakened by voices on her doorstep, one of which she recognized as mine and hurried to the door to rescue me from an interrogating policeman. I had found my way to the address she had given me on our way back from Glasgow but it was so late when I arrived and, finding the house in darkness, I hated to disturb anyone, so sat down to “think”. The house stand in a garden back from the street, with the door at the side and in the dark was sheltered from view of possible passersby. But with day-break the patrolling “Bobby” saw me and came up to investigate and while explaining my predicament to him, I heard Conny’s voice calling, “Kitty is that you?” It certainly sounded like an “angel’s” voice under the circumstances. She was very kind and sympathetic, inviting me to stay with her until something turned up. “The Stage”19 would be out on Thursday and there might be something in that. There was! “Wanted at once, lady for ‘Britannia’, Theatre, French Exhibition, Earl’s Court”.20 So I started off with instructions to take the tramcar to Westminster Bridge, then the ha’penny bus across, then enquire for the bus to the Exhibition. I had no idea of the distance and what was worse, I had no money, having spent what little I had when I left aunt, on a meal and fare to Conny’s. I hated the idea of borrowing which, Conny told me later, was very foolish of me under the circumstances, so thought I could walk it. I followed the tram lines to Westminster, crossed the Bridge where I had to ask for direction. “Ask a Policeman” of course, and he suggested I should take a bus as it was too far for me to walk. But I told him I was doing it for a wager, so he directed me across St. James’ Park, past Buckingham Palace, through the Green Park which would bring me out at Hyde Park corner, there turn to the left, and follow the Brompton buses to the Exhibition. I wondered what would happen if I arrived there tired, hungry, penniless and the engagement already filled. However, I hoped for the best. I was having quite a new experience and enjoyed “seeing London”, but was thankful when at last I recognized my goal by the Union Jack and Tricolor floating in the distance. On stating my business to the man at the entrance, he passed me through. I easily found the theatre and, imagine my surprise and joy when I reached the stage where, the doorkeeper told me I would find everybody, to meet my dancing The Stage (1880–present), a trade journal for the theatrical profession. The French Exhibition at the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre (1887–present), the fourth of a series of spectacular national exhibitions initiated by John R. Whitley.

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mistress and several of my fellow pupils there. It was the birthday of one of them and they were celebrating it with a tea party after the matinee. I was welcomed with open arms and delight and of course invited to tea, to which I did full justice. They could hardly believe I had walked all that distance, about seven miles. How proud and happy I felt later, walking down to the stage as “Britannia” to the music of “Rule Britannia!” for the final tableau of “The Lily of Trouville”, celebrating the “entente cordiale”. If only Aunt Dora, father and everybody could see me now and hear the applause “Britannia” received. The girls lent me the necessary make up, I wore my long hair down and the verdict was “beautiful”! But oh, the humour and irony of a good, patriotic, loyal German, practically destitute in a foreign and, the richest country on earth, representing it symbolically in an entente cordiale with her own Country’s alleged, sworn enemy! The management advanced me some money and told me the best way back to Greenwich by train. “Divided happiness is doubled”, as Conny and I experienced, discussing my “bit of luck”. The following morning I had a rehearsal to run through the Hornpipe, Fling, Jig and Gavotte, completing the quartet who danced those, in addition to being Britannia. Then I went room hunting and found the very thing in May Street, West Kensington, just across the road from one of the Exhibition entrances. There was a notice in the window, “bedroom for a respectable young man”. I liked the look of the clean little house and said to myself “they’ll have to take a respectable young woman for a change” as I knocked at the door, which was opened by a six foot tall, thin slip of a telegraph boy, the landlady’s son, aged fifteen. Mrs. Hillier, a widow,21 the personification of a staid, steady, superior, trustworthy British matron, admitted that she had never let to a woman before. One couldn’t be too careful you know, they were apt to bring men in and so forth, all of which was “Greek” to me then. On explaining my position, that I didn’t know any men and would not entertain any in a bedroom anyhow and I would only need the room until the end of October when the Exhibition closed, – it was now September, – she thought she would risk it. So after the matinee, I called for my portmanteau which I had left at Liverpool Street station and settled down to a life of temporary peace and quiet. Sunday was the most restful I had known since Glasgow and, reviewing recent events, I was thankful to be alone. I wrote to aunt Dora’s neighbor who had gone to the “Star” Bermondsey with me, to reassure her of my safety. Having broken the shackles of relatives I felt it best to leave them so. Now I was free! Free to live my own life and make the best I could of it. Some say, soon, I thought, when I had Ellen Ann Hillier (1844–1927), widow of Richard Hillier, butler (1881 census). In 1891 she was living with her son, Charles (15), and daughter, Ellen Louise (12), at 18 May Street, giving her occupation as ‘mangling’; by 1901 she and ‘Nellie’ had set up as confectioners and shopkeepers in Greyhound Road, Fulham.

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made a great name on the stage and justified myself, I would hold out the olive branch to them. I would even play in Germany and prove to father that one could be as “good” on the stage as off. Mrs. Hillier proved a veritable tower of refuge. She boarded me on the principle of “one more to feed makes no difference and a little extra money is useful to me”. Instead of leaving her at the end of the Exhibition, I remained until I went to the Prince’s Theatre, Bristol, for Pantomime, early in December. She let my bill run on and even lent me money to go away with, which of course, I repaid while working. Besides her son, Charles, she had one little girl Nellie, with whom I now, forty years on, still correspond. Conny Angus and I visited each other on alternative Sundays and I told Mrs. Hillier if I were not home by 10 o’clock, I would be staying with Conny. Sunday trains were inconvenient and the trip had to be made by bus and tram. Returning on Sunday, I alighted from the tram to go towards and, cross Westminster Bridge when a lady, to all appearance, asked me to direct her to Waterloo Station. Thinking it easier to show her the way than explain it in words, I said I was going that way and if she did not object to my company I would be pleased to conduct her. She was quite agreeable and we talked and exchanged confidences as to names, occupation and so forth. She said she had an appointment with a friend at 9 o’clock but when we reached the station a few minutes late, she looked around saying, “he is not here, I won’t wait.” So we walked across Waterloo Bridge together, I with the intentions of taking my bus to West Kensington. However, my companion told me of the cosy flat she had in Greys Inn Road, and feeling lonely, which apparently I was too, she invited me to stay the night with her, She liked me and we could be good friends. Feeling appreciative and reciprocal, I gladly accepted her invitation. Near Temple Bar and Chancery Lane, along which we were going to Grey’s Inn Road, she slightly collided with one of two men coming in the opposite direction. Mutual apologies opened conversation, the older man talking to her, the younger, who might have been his son, to me. In making some casual, complimentary remarks on meeting me, he edged between the others and me, advancing as I retreated, until we were out of ear-shot when he said very abruptly, “is that woman a friend of yours?” I was surprised and told him how I had met her, and that she had invited me home, where upon he became most concerned, and said “Little girl, she’s no fit companion for you, come along, here’s your bus,” as he hailed one. He helped me up the steps and said “good night, dear”, as if he had known me all my life. It happened so quickly, I seemed in a trance. Years later, when relating the incident to two then very dear women friends, they said, “you must have been a greenhorn to go off with a strange woman like that, you might have known what she wanted you for.” Well, I hadn’t known and I was a greenhorn, although as a child I had been warned never to go anywhere with strangers, though father jokingly added, “if they steal her in the dark they’ll return her in the day-light.”

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I had no idea that women had “evil designs” on others. This one was so “ladylike” too and apparently “respectable”. I discovered it was most essential in England to be both. The young man, I never saw again, though if ever there was a case of “love at first sight” it was so with me. His good looks, charming manner, the courtly, protective “little girl” and “good night dear”, impressed and thrilled me beyond words, like a meteor of love flashing across the firmament of my life, leaving just a beautiful, heavenly memory.

Chapter XIII But on to my next engagement. I liked Bristol and nearby Clifton with its Suspension Bridge and rugged scenery along the river, though Christmas Steps, leading down to the City and St. Michaels Hills, where I shared rooms with Ruby Kerr, were a bit steep to climb. “Aladdin”, the title role was played by Grace Huntley,22 a charming, beautiful girl who spoke German, having been partly educated in Germany. It seemed impossible that she should die within two years, but she did. My stay in Bristol, though happy, was marred by a different kind of unpleasant experience almost at the beginning. After our first matinée the “Chorus and Ballet ladies” were invited to a tea at a hall next door to the theatre. What nice, kind people, I thought. One of our hosts said prayers. which seemed unusual at a theatrical “tea fight”, but the prayer meeting which followed and the unctuous “rubbing in” of sin and repentance was so nauseous, I could have thrown their tea back at them. Our hosts were a religious (Protestant) rescue organisation who seemed to take it for granted that in us they had a fertile field. We all smothered our indignation until we returned to the dressing rooms, when the storm burst in more expressive than polite language, “bloody cheek!” “What the hell do they think we are?” “You’d think they’d picked us up in the gutter.” “Call that religion?” and so forth. “Impertinence” was all I could think of, my dressing room education not yet having reached a “flow of language”. No more teas like that for me. Unfortunately, they had taken our names and addresses and one day an austere, elderly lady, one of their members, called. We received her with cool courtesy and listened to what she said about the temptations girls on the stage were exposed to and men seeking their destruction and the Good Shepherd who was looking for lost sheep. Ruby left me to answer the lady whom I told that girls on the stage were not any more exposed to temptation than in any other ways of trying to earn an honest living, and she questioned if it were honest to earn one’s living wearing tights, as we did, to tempt men. I told her she ought to teach Grace Huntley (née Fanny Taylor, 1859–96), a well-known burlesque actor and singer; she was particularly popular in the provinces.

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men to “resist temptation”, also that a good shepherd did not lose his sheep and how dared she come to us with her insulting insinuations. I had received a good Christian training but if she were a Christian, I did not want to be one and the sooner she relieved us of her presence, the better we should like it. With regrets that we had mistaken her good intentions, she left. What was the matter with people wanting to “save” others? Why didn’t they mind their own business and save themselves? What did she mean by “men seeking their destruction”? I had never heard the expression before. I was shocked at the explanation Ruby gave me. Was it possible? And I had such a high opinion of them. Man. God’s image! Was this the meaning of Mr. Dreck’s conduct towards me, the two music hall agents, the man and woman who asked me to go to Paris, and the woman who invited me home? It was all so new and confusing to me. That must be what Mrs. Hillier meant when she referred to “bringing men home”. When I asked her about it she put me off with, never mind, it isn’t a nice subject, and as long as you don’t do it, it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t broach the subject to anyone else, not feeling on safe enough ground in my English besides being shy at anything “not nice”, nor did I want to display my ignorance. Ruby came from the northern town where my “Paris producer” claimed to have a brother owning a theatre. She knew the owner very well and he had no brother. It was lucky for me, she said, I had not gone to Paris. There certainly seemed something wrong somewhere. The house next door to our “digs” was a “lock” hospital.23 Ruby explained to me that in it were women suffering from loathsome diseases they had contracted through intercourse with men, they were incurable and gradually rotting away. “No intercourse with men for me”, though at the time I did not understand the meaning of the term. When disease, including “itch” were discussed in the dressing room and I some days later experienced a slight irritation from tiny blisters between my fingers, I promptly consulted the theatre doctor. He roared with laughter at my fears of having the itch. Only a little run down, needing an iron tonic. At the end of the Pantomime, I returned to London but Mrs. Hillier’s room being occupied, I stayed with her sister Mrs. Corfield, across the street. Mr. Corfield had a steady job as a guard on the Underground railway.24 There were three little children, the baby, Florrie, being just able to lisp “I don’t like you”, which she outgrew in time.

Under the 1864, 1866 and 1869 Contagious Diseases Acts, women in certain naval or army towns suspected of being prostitutes infected with venereal disease could be confined in a ‘lock’ hospital until they were ‘cured’. A vigorous campaign by social reformers, led by Josephine Butler, brought about the repeal of the Acts in 1886. KM’s encounter with ‘lock’ hospitals happened in 1891, and must therefore refer to one of the ‘voluntary’ treatment places which existed well into the twentieth century. 24 Maria and Richard Corfield lived at 9 May Street, Fulham. In the 1891 census his occupation is given as ‘ticket collector on the railway’. 23

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Chapter XIV My next engagement was practically waiting for me. It was the German Exhibition this time, with an enormous spectacular entertainment “Germania” in the Arena,25 depicting four Epochs of German history. When going on the stage, I adopted an English name in addition to “Kitty”,26 which I now thought it advisable to drop, since it was known to my relatives so I changed my second name, Marie, to Marion. There were other Marions on the stage and no one would ever look for me among them, so I applied for the “Germania” engagement as “Kitty Marion”.27 Riding was one of the qualifications to obtain an engagement so I had no difficulty. In the first epoch, Wittekind, Duke of the Saxons and his followers of whom I was one, came on horseback across the mountains, a huge rostrum built at the back of an enormous stage, slanting down to the arena. On the center of the stage were two pieces of scenery, moving on swivels, one side representing trees in the first, second and third epochs and a huge gateway and fortification in the third. The “wings”, some representing forests, others houses, were built on railway trucks and moved on railway lines. Among other events in the first scene, Boniface brought Christianity to the Saxons, and Charlemagne with his warriors came to fight them and finished their conversion. In the second epoch, the age of chivalry, I was the consort of Kaiser Ludwig, taking up the part when the original left, soon after the production, entering on horseback in grand procession and after a tournament by knights in armour, crowning the winner with a laurel wreath. In the third, I fired a shot to arouse the garrison to the presence of a Swedish spy who was captured, tried and shot. In the fourth, in the midst of much modern military display, I helped to supply the “comic relief” as a nursemaid with a perambulator and two babies, flirting with a sentry, who was arrested and marched off under guard. I took a childish delight in spite of my twenty years, in re-enacting events in history I had learned and loved at school. There were many, many English and German ex-soldiers employed in “Germania” and in spite of aunt Dora’s version of the former, I found no difference between them. They nicknamed me “Queenie” and treated me accordingly. They also admired me for the way I had “stuck” to the first horse I rode there. “Lady Dunlo”,28 the mare I was to ride in the show had not yet arrived and The German Exhibition at Earl’s Court, 1891. On the night of the census, 5 April 1891, a Kitty Raynor, aged 20, was boarding with the Corfield family at 9 May Street. Her birthplace is given as ‘Reedbery Westfailer Salop’, which seems to be an inadequate transcription of Rietberg, Westphalia. No occupation is given. 27 There is no cast list for Germania (1891) in KM’s programme in the MLSC, but ‘Kitty Raynor’ was still performing into 1892/93 in J. Pitt-Hardacre’s Mother Goose in Manchester and York (see Chapter XV). The name ‘Kitty Marion’ does not appear until mid-1893 in the Era and The Stage. 28 ‘Lady Dunlo’ – named after the music hall star Belle Bilton (1867–1906), who had notoriously 25 26

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I was anxious to become re-acquainted with a saddle, not having been in one since my childhood days at Grandfather’s. As there were no side-saddles either, I mounted a horse with an ordinary cavalry saddle using the saddle bag as a pommel. After a canter round the arena, the two boys who had come with me wanted to return to the stables, thinking I was quite safe to continue alone. My horse wanted to follow theirs and instead of turning, reared and cavorted, doing his best to throw me, but gripping the saddle bag under my right knee and straining my left leg against the stirrup, I balanced myself until he quieted down and a man grabbed his bridle. It had been a tense moment, especially for the onlookers who had visions of the horse falling backwards and crushing me. We were a happy, democratic little community. And free entrée to the rest of the Exhibition, as in the French Exposition; dear, old familiar music as well as new, played by German Military Band and others, hearing so much of my native tongue and speaking it, made life very pleasant. Here was something of the legitimate joy of life that my own people would have deprived me of. Why? Of course, I became chummy with some of my fellow actresses in “Germania” and brought them home to “high” tea very often. Mrs. Corfield let me have the use of her kitchen and everything as long as I “cleaned up and left things tidy,” which I did. Mrs. Corfield, Mrs. Hillier and their mother, Mrs. Woods, who occupied the best room in the former’s house often, told me I was a “very silly girl, wasting my money like that on others instead of saving it. They would never do the same for me.” “Well,” I would say, “if they won’t, somebody else will.” And that is how it has generally worked out. I lived most conveniently near my work while others lived at home, all over London and could not go there between the shows. Tea with me was most acceptable to them. They were “nice” girls and I enjoyed their company which helped to improve my English communal and social education, to say nothing of enlarging my worldly knowledge, which had been woefully retarded by three years at aunt Dora’s. From one of them, two years younger than myself and engaged to be married, I learned the most important fact of life. The fact that parents, Father and Mother, not God, were the most immediately responsible for the creation of children. Their physical act, not merely the prayerful magic of the marriage service was the preliminary to human conception as well as among the “lower” animals. Her brother was a doctor and she had studied his book, so she knew. And this was the relationship that should be the most sacred and beautiful between men and women which was referred to by our sanctimonious visitor in Bristol as “seeking their destruction”. If “destruction” was wrong in itself how could a “marriage” license make it right? If natural and physiologically right, what married Viscount Dunlo in 1889. Dunlo’s father forced him to sue Bilton for divorce. The action failed and Lady Dunlo became Lady Clancarty on the death of her father-in-law in 1901.

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need of the “license”? Instead of theological sex mysteries, which are the doctrines of men, children should be taught physiological sex facts, the doctrines of the Creator, in the same un-blushing, clean, above board manner as the alphabet, science and ethics, and to be as careful and particular in their choice of a mate as in other essentials in life. I was thankful father was not within my reach, for what I was now prepared to say to him would probably have led to a tragedy. How dared he, how dared my father reproach his child for being a burden and expense? It was adding insult to the injury of being thrust into this life which at best, to the great majority, is but a cruel, unfair struggle for existence. I had heard, seen and experienced enough to know that. Here, at the age of twenty when I had intended to emulate aunt Mariechen by getting married, I gave up the last vestige of my childish intentions.

Chapter XV Like all happy days, the Exhibition came to an end and my next venture was with Lester Collingwood’s travelling Pantomime, “The Forty Thieves”. One of the girls in “Germania” had been with Lester Collingwood29 before and through her introduction, I procured an engagement for ballet, chorus and “small part” which latter meant that I might have a line or two to speak. We rehearsed and played two weeks in historic old Chester. Lester Collingwood was a very handsome man, tall, blond, with a reputation of being very fond of the ladies. He was also, which interested me more, a very good producer and stage manager for making the most he could with his material. “Dress the stage, don’t cuddle up to each other, spread out and make yourselves look a lot,” was one of his admonitions, before ringing up the curtain. The musical director’s wife who was in the show, complained of her trunks being too scanty. Mr. Collingwood walked round her inspecting them, saying, “what’s the matter with them, they’re the same as the rest, perfectly decent; you know, you’re too damned particular my darling.” To the “Fairy Queen”, a large, thick-set youngster, blessed with a well trained concert voice, he said, “My God, you look like a baby elephant from the front.” It was her first time on the stage, and her last, she declared. After Chester, we visited Birkenhead, Wigan, Burnley, Bradford, Blackburn, Oldham, Manchester, Halifax Huddersfield and other towns, playing two weeks in some. Touring, seeing and studying new places and people appealed to me immensely and the Lancashire and Yorkshire dialects, like the Scottish, sounded so strange, different and fascinating. The landladies we stayed with answered to the pet-name of “Ma” and were mostly kind, good souls, doing their best to make Lester Collinwood (né Edward Henry Parker, 1855–1910), flamboyant theatre manager, entrepreneur and ‘ladies’ man’.

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you comfortable, though some were only interested in what rent and “extras” they could squeeze out of you. Arriving in a town without having booked lodgings in advance, we would make straight for the vicinity of the theatre, where most of the theatrical “digs” were situated. Sometimes we found what we needed, sitting room and bedroom or two bedrooms, according to how many were sharing to keep expenses down, quite easily. At others, it took an hour and more, tramping from house to house and then often separating, even to living singly in a bed-sitting room, combined room or combined “palace”, whatever one felt like calling it. For such the average rent, including fire, light and attendance, which latter meant cooking and general service, was eight shillings. Sitting room and bedroom ten shillings for one, twelve for two. If there was a piano or bath, or both, it would be two or three shillings more, which a bath was always worth in preference to a jug of hot water and bathing in “penny numbers” in a basin, or two basins, hot water in one, cold in the other. Some landladies thought theatricals “very dirty, needing a bath every day, the idea!” Usually the first thing I did on engaging rooms was to put the top windows down to let out the congestion of foul air. Some landladies did ventilate to the extent of an inch or two at the top as well as at the bottom of the window, while others, who were afraid of their curtains getting dirty would keep their windows tightly closed. I had to impress upon them that fresh air and good health were of more importance than all the clean curtains on earth, and that it was easier to wash curtains or buy new ones than to regain health lost through living in bad air. Landladies and their rooms, of course, varied like everything else. Some you were sorry to leave, others glad to get away from. They pride themselves on their visitors books and “testimonials” from important and other actors and actresses who have stayed with them. I remember a certain landlady in Birmingham, which I visited later, proudly showing a certain actor’s recommendation; surely if he was satisfied what could any one else complain of? All he had written above his signature was “Quoth the Raven”.30 Many landladies did their own baking, usually on Thursday when the appetite, whetted by the aroma of fresh baked bread and cakes would be satisfied by hot, buttered scones, with “Ma’s” compliments. Interesting and enjoyable as touring was in many respects, it had its heartaches for me. Nearing our destination on Sunday evening, listening to the church bells of villages past which the train crawled, made me feel very lonely and homesick. The atmosphere of the new “digs” would always be disturbed by either someone in the house, or next door, both ways, thumping out hymns, all out of tune, on a piano, or grinding them out on an American organ, mostly the latter, and all going at once. Meeting the Lord with a most dismal, dreadful noise. I felt there was more true religion in the friendly “Gemütlichkeit”31 of supper and cheerful This is obviously a pointed joke. The complete line from Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem, ‘The Raven’, is ‘Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore”’. 31 Gemütlichkeit – informality. 30

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music in a German “Biergarten”.32 Yet there were things I found better done in England, and allowing people to travel, move and live where they liked without police regulation and reporting, seemed a more concrete ethical and Christian “Freiheit”33 than the German with its invisible police chains. At Blackburn we “caught a tartar”. Six of us were sharing a sitting room and three bedrooms. One afternoon two of the girls went out shopping and invited one of our chorus boys, whom they met and who carried their parcels for them, to join us at tea which was just ready. I, being sort of “head of the family” called out to the landlady to please bring another cup and saucer. When she saw that our guest was a man she fairly exploded. “I don’t allow men in my house. Mine is a respectable house and he’s got to go at once or I’ll call a policeman.” We were “flabbergasted”. Here was one of our own boys whom we looked upon as a brother, innocently causing such a commotion. We insisted he should stay, and she went in search of a policeman. “Girls, this isn’t good enough, I’m off,” said the boy and went. The landlady returned almost immediately with a “bobby” who lived only a few doors away and had just come off duty. After listening to the evidence and deciding no crime had been committed, I suggested that he should remain to tea, thinking it would be as well to give him some idea what kind of girls the “Forty Thieves” were. The landlady was more furious than ever and threatened to report him if he stayed, to which he replied, “Well, Misses, I’m off duty and free to do as I like.” He stayed. Didn’t she “stick it” in our bill though? Evidently that was quite “respectable” with her. Monday mornings there was always a rush to the theatre for the best dressing place, looking glass and hooks to hang dresses on. First come, first served. Hooks often being very scarce I invested in a hammer and nails which were welcomed by all who were in the habit of hanging their clothes up instead of throwing them on a chair or on the floor, as some did. Oldham, where we played two weeks, became fixed in my memory by the great Memorial Service in honour of the Duke of Clarence who had just died,34 and the silent, surging black-clad masses filling the street in sympathy with the Royal Family and each other at the loss of the heir to the Throne.

Chapter XVI At the Comedy Theatre, Manchester, where the local management usually produced their own Pantomime, some of us, including myself, applied for an engagement for the following Christmas35 and were successful in getting it. Biergarten – beer garden. Freiheit – freedom. 34 Prince Albert Victor, Prince ‘Eddy’, son of the Prince of Wales. He died aged 28 of pneumonia, on 14 January 1892, during the influenza pandemic. 35 Mother Goose was the 1892–93 pantomime at the Comedy Theatre, Manchester. The lessee, 32 33

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I congratulated myself on having quite “a run of luck” in finding work without going to any agents. After a four months tour with Lester Collingwood, which had been quite interesting and instructive in many ways, I returned to London and Mrs. Corfield, wondering what I should do during the summer. At the Exhibition they had “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West”36 and at Olympia, about a mile away was Imre Kiralfy’s “Venice”.37 I saw the Wild West and rather hankered after joining, and going to America with it. They needed a lady for a hurdle race but having had several accidents with applicants, were afraid to run any more risks. I still have Col. Cody’s letter making an appointment. “Venice” at Olympia was easy. There were hundreds of people employed, some always leaving for better engagements. It suited me perfectly to stay until I was due to go to Manchester. “Venice” was a magnificent production, full of beautiful music, singing and dancing. Of course, I made new friends and brought some home to tea again between the shows and visited them at their homes on Sunday. Conny Angus moved away from Greenwich and I lost trace of her, as one unfortunately does of friends in this world. Sometimes, I dropped in for tea with Mrs. Woods, Mrs. Corfield’s mother. who was getting on in years and enjoyed listening to my stories of the stage and life in Germany. My not speaking English when I arrived at the age of fifteen was beyond her. I must have been stupid! Why, any baby could speak English. German? How could I speak such “gibberish”, no one could understand that. Talking of speaking “English”, Mrs. Hillier had a charwoman, one of whose three children, Florrie, about ten years old, was mentally defective. One day she brought Florrie to see Mrs. Hillier while I happened to be there. “Well, Florrie, how are you?” said Mrs. Hillier. “Wot?” answered Florrie. Whereupon her mother “corrected” her with “don’t s’y ‘wot’ like that, s’y ‘wot s’y?’”. Florrie was later taken to the Asylum, Colney Hatch, where, during a fire, she lost her life.38 Her mother returning from visiting her one day told us of “a lidy, a real lidy”, talking to Florrie and saying ‘wot’ just as Florrie did. “Wouldn’t ye think she’d ‘a’ knowed better an’ said ‘wot s’y’?”. That “correction” became a “standing joke” among us. To me it seems typical and symbolic of our moral masters and pastors trying J[ohn] Pitt Hardacre (1855–1933), became embroiled in a notorious defamation case in 1901 when the Watch Committee tried to close the theatre for infringements of its alcohol licence. See Chapter XVII. 36 Colonel William F. Cody (1846–1917) toured the British Isles with his Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in 1887, 1891–92 and 1902–4. 37 Hungarian-born Imray Kiralfy (1845–1919), with his brother Bolossy (1848–1932), pioneered spectacular shows across Europe and America. Venice: The Bride of the Sea was one of Imre Kiralfy’s greatest successes at the Olympia Exhibition Hall (1886–present). 38 Fifty-two female ‘pauper insane’ inmates died in the Colney Hatch Asylum fire on 27 January 1903.

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to correct the rest of us and, just as effectively. The blind leading the blind; often the leaders being worse than the led. In Manchester, I met and shared rooms with Bessie Graves who had three brothers, Jack, Tom and George in the profession, two of whom I subsequently met in other companies. I also met their mother, who visited Bessie while we were together.39 I was a fairy in one of the scenes, wearing my hair down, over which, the manager told me, men used to bet as to whether it was real or a wig, he being called upon to referee. I had the narrowest escape from a broken neck here. One night during a change of scene in the dark, waiting for my entrance, I heard a strange, scraping noise above in the flies, under the edge of which I was standing. I suppose the instinct of self preservation prompted me to take step forward, for simultaneously the lights went up and a piece of wood about two feet long and half a foot thick, fell with a terrible crash just where I had stood. The men up above were severely reprimanded for their carelessness by the stage manager and the proprietor, Mr. J. Pitt Hardacre, who came round from the front of the house to know what that crash was, in regular backstage, angry men’s language. Come to think of it, how much more do the men “up above” deserve reprimand, not only for their carelessness but their utter incompetence and mismanagement of affairs the world over! The pantomime “Mother Goose” ran until Easter when it was transferred to York for four weeks, rewritten into a burlesque and taken back to the Comedy, Manchester, for Whitsuntide. York was indeed a joy with its antiquity, Minster, Garrison, river and beautiful surrounding country. I shared rooms with three other girls and our landlady was a gem. Her “respectability” bore the strain of unlimited men guests to tea, not only of the company but of the city, boys whom she had seen grow up and in whose good conduct she had every confidence. The Honourable Eric Lascelles, son of the Earl of Harewood, and considered the “black sheep” of the family, dropped in sometimes. Some years later he travelled about the country in a caravan in which he died.40 The theatre, we were told, had been a convent once upon a time and the underground cells, now our dressing rooms, were haunted by a nun. On our way to the dressing rooms, we had to pass the door leading to the orchestra and running past after the first act for change of dress, as the musicians were coming out I remarked, “this must be where the nun comes through”, which was greeted with laughter and groans. It seems I had unconsciously perpetrated an awful pun. The 1891 census gives Bessie’s age as 14. Her mother, Alice, was a widow. Jack performed as John C. Graves; Tom had a successful career in America and George (1876–1949) became perhaps the best-known comic actor in Edwardian musical comedy. 40 The Hon. Eric Lascelles (1873–1901), youngest son of the 4th Earl of Harewood, took to the road as a travelling showman under the name Eric Leith. His death was attributed to epilepsy exacerbated by ‘intemperance’. 39

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The musicians were “non-coms”, non-commissioned officers from the Military Bands stationed in York. Soldier again! They turned out to be quite decent boys, some often joining our river parties. One of them, Corporal Billie White, of the Royal Dragoons, a year younger than myself, and so tall that I promptly dubbed him “Little Boy”, taught me to row and steer. For up till now my knowledge of navigation was only technical except pushing our raft at Witten by pole. Billie came of a good Northampton family, was well educated, but ran away from home to enlist under an assumed name. We kept up a spasmodic, friendly correspondence until he married a school teacher. He gained continual promotion up to sergeant major. Most members of our company took full advantage of the river, the boats and fine weather, rowing to Bishopsthorpe, where the Archbishop of York resides, and in the opposite direction to friendly wayside inns, similar to many others all over the country, where we found home-­made bread, cheese and home-brewed beer after a country walk. Those were the happy irresponsible days. There was a special military service at the Cathedral one Sunday to which our “non-com” friends procured tickets for us. It was a most magnificent display, all the regiments represented, massed bands playing, one hymn played on the bagpipes. It was really most beautiful and inspiring. Even the Archbishop, who officiated, was good. I had never heard an Archbishop before, and having tried on previous occasions to accustom myself to the Church of England service, but not caring for the droning, drooling, moaning, groaning execution of the sermon, nor the, to me, nerve-cracking, monotonous intoning of the Psalms, I was quite pleased with the Archbishop’s fine delivery. Being passionately fond of horses, Billie invited me to visit the Dragoon’s stables one day when he was on duty. I could not help remarking how well housed and cared for the horses were compared to the poor people in the slums, some of which I had seen in my travels. And as if to emphasise the extreme conditions between the upper and lower grades of humanity, a very handsome officer appeared on the scene. With an apology Billie left me to attend on Prince Francis of Teck, who walked through the stables by way of inspection. It seems he inquired who the lady was and Billie said “my cousin”. A few nights later at the non-coms’ ball, which the Prince and other officers honoured with their presence, we, from the theatre, arriving late, were presented to the Prince just before he left. “Dressing-room speculations” came to naught. In July I saw him in the wedding procession when his sister, Princess May was married to the Duke of York and I was one of the cheering crowd, having gained a splendid point of vantage between the heads of two horses of the Royal Horse Guards lining parts of Piccadilly. Jetsam and flotsam, meeting and parting, floating down the river of life.

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Chapter XVII Back to Manchester with “Madcap Mavis”,41 in which for the first time my name appeared in the cast. I was “Captain Rivington Ruffe”, one of three “smart, young men about town”, wearing very becoming Norfolk suits. I certainly felt like a “rising young actress”, but my triumph was short lived. During the first week, Mr. Hardacre gave me occasion to snub him and on Saturday I found two weeks notice in the letter rack. Some years later when in Manchester with another company I visited the Court where this handsome, white-haired, old man lost an action for slander he brought against the Deputy Chairman of the Watch Committee of the City Council for saying at a meeting of the City Council on the 4th September 1901 that “in spite of repeated warnings from the police he had continuously and for a long time permitted bad characters to frequent, and drink, and disorderly scenes to take place at his theatre, that he was an unfit person to hold a dramatic licence with an Excise licence attached thereto.” With all the evidence brought against him (to which I could have added) “the jury answered in the affirmative.” The one thing I regretted was that Mr. Hardacre stood there alone. There were plenty more or less like him. After playing two weeks in Manchester, we went to Bristol where I left the company and returned to London. Everybody said it was a “damned shame” and some of the girls gave me the address of Arthur Hart, a theatrical agent who, they said, could book me. Be sure to take a song. I did, sang, and was asked to return on a certain date with song. When I arrived there was quite a bevy waiting for a “voice trial”. At last it was my turn to be called in and introduced to Mr. H. Cecil Beryl,42 of the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, who was choosing the chorus for his forthcoming production of “The Lady Slavey”,43 a go-as-you-please musical piece, to open at the Opera House, Northampton on September 4th, ten weeks certain, thirty shilling per week, half salaries for matinees and two weeks rehearsals for which we went to Nottingham on August 20th. My first visit and the worst “room hunt” ever. “Charlie’s Aunt” was playing there and all the best rooms were taken by members of that company and our own who had been there before and engaged them in advance. I traipsed round for a good couple of hours before settling in a “combined room” near the theatre. It was one of the first I had looked at but not fancying it at all, had tried others, which seemed worse. The window, of course, was closed and the combination odour of paraffin from the lamp, of cooking in general and “dead” cabbage in particular was unspeakable. I opened the window and while This was the Mother Goose pantomime, ‘done into a burlesque’ by William Wade and described by Wade himself as a piece of ‘inane nonsense’. 42 H[arcourt] Cecil Beryl (né William Harcourt Sparrow, 1854/57–1931), successful provincial theatre – and latterly cinema – manager who was one of the pioneers of musical comedy in Britain. 43 The Lady Slavey, by John Crook and George Dance, became one of the most successful musical comedies ever toured, although it did not do well in the West End. 41

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the landlady prepared my supper with the old stand-by of ham and eggs, I left my address at the theatre for the baggage man to bring my trunk, which had been taken with the rest from the station on the theatre truck. After unpacking and finding a place for everything according to my childhood training, I went to bed. The sheets looked clean enough but reeked with the essence of cooking fumes, having evidently been “aired” against the kitchen ceiling. The joys of touring! Very tired, I soon slept, but presently awoke, being “bitten” all over. I lit the lamp and never shall I forget the sight. Bedbugs! I had met a few odd ones before, but here they were in battalions. And my pretty pink summer dress which I had made myself and carefully hung against the door with other things, there being no wardrobe, was “studded” with them. What a night of “bloody murder!” I killed everything in sight, several times during the night repeating the operation until at last I slept from sheer exhaustion. When I told the landlady she said, “you must have brought them with you, I have never had any complaints before.” Having learned of the ways of bedbugs, as well as others, at school, I turned her pictures over for her and showed her some breaks in the wallpaper, when she admitted I couldn’t have brought those. She was sorry. She had no idea they were so bad. She would do something to get rid of them but no one had ever complained before. And in those last six words lies the explanation of all the accumulation of wrongs humanity is suffering from. “No one complains” but allows injustice and every similar “bug” to increase and multiply to the detriment of human well-being and happiness, until the damage done is well nigh and irreparable. The landlady did make an effort, she gave me another room which was slightly better and started house cleaning. Nevertheless, I was thankful when the two weeks were up. But to the brighter side. The chorus, fourteen women and six men rehearsed alone, learning words and jolly, tuneful music. They were the all-round best looking lot of girls I had met so far. All picked for voice and appearance. Jack Graves, Bessie’s brother, was one of the boys. When we were “letter perfect” we learned “business”, Mr. (later Sir) George Dance,44 the author and producer undertaking to teach us. For the opening chorus we were to skip in waving our arms gracefully to the music. The skipping seemed easy but the arm waving chaotic. Mr. Dance called me forward with “here you, Miss, come here.” My heart sank and I felt sick. What had I done? Did this mean dismissal? Expecting the worse, I stepped forward and Mr. Dance said “just go round by yourself and repeat what you did just now. That’s just what I want. Now girls, watch her and move your arms to music as she does.” What a relief. Here George Dance (1858/65–1932), dramatist and manager. His A Chinese Honeymoon played over 1,000 times at the Strand in 1901–4. He managed a large number of touring musical comedy productions from London’s Adelphi, Gaiety, Daly’s and Prince of Wales’s theatres. He was knighted in 1923 in recognition of his ‘munificent gift of £3,000’ in aid of the fund to save the Old Vic.

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was the result of physical drill and dancing lessons, to know what to do with your arms. Of course. there were “black looks” and whispers of “in with the management”, which I distinctly was not at that time. Rehearsing with Mr. Dance was simply torture for everybody concerned, including the principals. After expressing his satisfaction with certain “business”, he would alter it all at the next rehearsal. “Now forget all you did before, we are going to do it differently”, he would say, show us a new way and invariably at the next rehearsal, greatly surprised, he would say, “what are you doing? I didn’t tell you to do that”, and refer back to the previous business. Then somebody, usually I if it was a chorus number, would explain how he had altered it, and nervously picking at his moustache while listening and thinking, he would suddenly wake up with, “Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, I forgot. Well now, you are going to do something entirely different from what you did before.” At the last before the dress rehearsal, Kitty Loftus (no relation to Marie)45 as the title role, made her entrance with dustpan and brush and when held up by Mr. Dance, an argument ensued. All I heard was Mr. Dance saying, “don’t you know yet?” “No, I don’t,” snappes46 back Kitty Loftus, when Mr. Beryl joined the fray with, “When the hell will you know?” losing his temper for the first time, more at George Dance, we all felt, than anyone else. Band47 went dustpan and brush on the stage and out stalked little Kitty, head in the air, snorting “I am not going to be spoken to like that.” Brave, thought I, though I saw visions of no show at all. However, the understudy, the wife of one of the comedians, was called to read the part. Peace was evidently declared, for Kitty appeared at the dress rehearsal that night, which took place as soon as the company playing that week had vacated the stage. There being no dressing rooms available and the chorus having to dress in the large wardrobe room, I “made up” at home, so only had to change my dress. Everybody was already on the stage and it did not take me a jiffy to change and join them. None having wirnessed48 the transformation, they greeted me with, “who are you? I don’t recognise you.” When I identified myself they said “why don’t you always wear a bit of make up? You’ve no idea how it improves your appearance. Pale as you are, you need a bit of rouge.” I wondered what father would have said to that, for those words recalled a terrible scene in Witten on the Ruhr. A school chum of mine got some “Schminke”49 from an elder sister and put some on my face which I forgot all about until father came home and saw. Was ever a parent so cursed and disgraced as to have a daughter who rouged her face to attract attention? I wondered why a little rouge should call forth such outbursts and felt heartily disgusted with adults in general and my father in particular, when Kitty Loftus (1867–1927), actress, singer and dancer. ‘snappes’, presumably, snapped. 47 ‘Band’, presumably, Bang. 48 ‘wirnessed’ – witnessed. 49 Schminke – make-up. 45 46

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in later years I understood the vile insinuations. Why will some adults exaggerate innocent childish pranks into sure signs of vicious and criminal tendencies, instead of laughing them out of existence? No wonder some youngsters “fall” under that kind of hypnotism. During the first act the principals went in front to see the chorus and I heard it from Mrs. Beryl’s sister,50 who was one of us and spoke a few lines, that they unanimously declared me the best looking of them all. “Fine feathers,” I said, though I naturally appreciated the compliment. We wore modern dress, afternoon in the first, evening in the second act. Mine was a tan and white picture hat with pink roses, in the first, cream net with pink roses in the second act, both very becoming to me. And “make up” did make a difference to my face, especially as I wore none, not even powder, off the stage which called forth many a jeer as to thinking myself too damned beautiful to even powder my shiny nose. I eventually succumbed to powder and “labelling my eyes”, as they suggested, with a bit of black, to say nothing of lipstick. The opening, on the following Monday, at Northampton was a tremendous success to the great happiness of everybody concerned. The piece was a kind of Cinderella idea of an impecunious Irish Major with three daughters, of whom Phyllis, the youngest, too proud to let the world think her father was too poor to keep a servant took the part of the latter, the Slavey. An American Millionaire, “The Tomato King”, visits the Major, who hopes to marry one of his daughters to him, though not Phyllis, which is the one he falls in love with. “Flo Honeydew”, a Music Hall Artist also visits her old sweetheart, the Major, bringing with her Lord Lavender, her new one, intent on capturing the Millionaire. Roberts, the sheriffs officer (and Flo’s father) calls for the furniture to pay for the rent but is persuaded by Phyllis to act as flunkey while the Millionaire is being entertained at dinner, with a promise of payment in the morning. The other creditors (the chorus), being passed off as “Society ladies and ‘untin’ blokes” as Roberts explains them to the Millionaire, who pays the former fifty pounds to impersonate him, himself passing as his secretary, to play Phyllis at her own game. “Fifty pounds for passin’ as a millionaire. Why this is the job I’ve been waitin’ for all my life!” says Roberts. Clean humour, causing hearty laughter, interspersed with tuneful music and touches of pathos, all round good acting by an excellent company, made “The Lady Slavey” one of the greatest successes, financial and otherwise, ever achieved on the stage. We developed into quite a happy family with Mr. Beryl, “The Governor” as we called him, at its head. He had the advantage of being a gentleman as well as theatrical manager, which puts him head and shoulders over many others. Mrs. Beryl, whom I later understudied, played “Flo Honeydew”. We were a “first class” company visiting all the principal towns and theatres. I May Metcalf played Mlle Pontet. Mrs Beryl (née Martha Edith Metcalf, 1864–?) played as Edith Rosenthal.

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renewed my acquaintance with Glasgow, this time playing the Royalty Theatre of the same ownership as the Royal.

Chapter XVIII In Newcastle on Tyne, which played a different and fatal part in my later life, I shared rooms with another Kitty, Kitty Maxhew.51 On Monday night after supper our landlady, with our permission, introduced a boarder of hers, a young doctor who had been to the theatre and was anxious to meet and tell us how much he enjoyed the show. On the course of conversation during which he told us he was engaged to be married, etc, we came to the subject of character and palm reading. He said he could read people like an open book and thought we two Kitties were as different as chalk and cheese. I could have told him that, since this was my second and last week with the other Kitty. Of course, we were anxious to hear all about ourselves and he said he would tell us if we promised not to be offended. We promised, and from hands and faces he read that Kitty Mayhew preferred going out to enjoy herself to taking care of her home, where as with me home would be first consideration. She did not care for children, but with all my stage ambition, I would prefer to have a good home, a good husband and half a dozen kiddies to take care of and if he were not engaged and very much in love, he would propose to me himself. Though we laughed at it all, here was a revelation of my inmost soul which I had crucified on the cross of my father’s attitude towards his “burden” and my own reaction there-to. So far no man had wanted to undertake the responsibility of me as a wife, not receiving any encouragement in that direction though several had professed love for me that they would “do anything for me, if I would let them”. It was easy enough to decline their love with indignation or laughter, whichever the situation required. Sharing rooms with other girls, some of whom were already acquainted from previous visits with some “nice boys”, I met them too, and others they introduced. Most of them were quite nice, young men about town with perhaps more money than sense, who appreciated the change of taking actresses out driving, to lunch or supper, from their own town friends. I then corresponded with half a dozen boys from different towns at the same time. They liked me, thought I was more like a boy chum than a girl, would I write just to show I thought of them sometime. No doubt, that is the story they tell all girls. So it goes, pour passer le temps, until the correspondence fizzles out when other actresses come their way or other boys your own. And as “kind words never die”, the interchange thereof no doubt did some good both ways. In the Lester Collingwood Company, I shared rooms sometimes with three sisters from Liverpool, who destroyed all their letters but kept the empty Kitty Mayhew (1868–?), musical theatre performer.

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envelopes for their mother to find when she “nosey parkers” among their things. But to return to Kitty Mayhew and our parting. The previous week in Cheltenham, we went shopping together and I laid out some money for a few articles for her own personal use. Having told her the total and made a note of it, I thought it unnecessary to keep a detailed account as I did of the household things we shared. When it came to settling up at the end of the week, she questioned the correctness of what she owed me. Luckily, I had a good memory and could tell her the price of every article, which she could not deny, and paid. It was only a trivial sum of two or three shillings but I could not put up with such lack of memory and suspicion on her part in addition to her untidiness at home. We would have parted then but our rooms in Newcastle were already engaged. Our tour ran into November when we dispersed for pantomime, I going with several others as the “big eight” to Nottingham with the same management. The “Forty Thieves” once more but a much bigger and better production than Lester Collingwood’s, although that had been good as a touring pantomime. It was no use spending money on going to London for the two or three weeks I had out, so settled down in a sitting room and bedroom all to myself until the following Easter when the “Lady Slavey” resumed the tour. Having free entree to other theatres and place of amusement, I whiled away several evenings thus. Walking round and investigating the city, the shops and the market on certain days, was most interesting, also picking up “bargains” in lace and other things in the market. I made all my own “undies” and blouses, sewing also in the dressing room during long waits, setting the other girls off too. Would I cut out a blouse, or whatever it was they wanted to make and show them how to put it together and so forth, till we had a regular “sewing bee”, helping and fitting each other. Some of the girls were better sewers than I. “Finger exercise” I was always rather clumsy at, which was a great drawback to my piano playing. Though I could write music from dictation at school, I could never get my fingers over the piano keys. Father did not mind that at all. He rather hoped that would be a handicap to my going on the stage. At aunt Dora’s there was no piano and I forgot, through lack of practice, what little I did know. The pantomime ran eight weeks during the first seven of which each of the eight girls sharing the same dressing room had been off ill, except myself who jocularly bragged of being “the only strong and healthy one of the lot”. But on the last Monday morning I awoke with a very painful throat. I tried to get up but the room “spun round” and I lay down again. The very motion of swallowing was intensely painful and when my landlady appeared with breakfast I turned from it, and when I turn from food there is something wrong with me. I remained in bed, sipping hot milk and port, at the suggestion of my landlady who was most kind and attentive. She wanted to call a doctor but I did not think myself sick enough for that. I struggled to the theatre at night and was greeted with shouts of derision at my “health and strength”, and expressions of sympathy. “You idiot, why didn’t you stay in bed and send for the doctor, you can’t go on tonight, go and see the

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doctor at once.” The theatre doctor lived just round the corner and he seemed shocked at my condition. “Why didn’t you send for me? You are not fit to be out,” he said. He examined my throat and pronounced it very badly ulcerated, caused by sudden change from very hot to very cold atmosphere. And I remembered how during the previous week I had felt the extreme cold, going home from a very over-heated dressing room. It also looked like quinsy developing to the doctor, but he would do his best to prevent that. He gave me some powders to take, told me to gargle with warm water and vinegar and stay in bed, he would call and see me tomorrow. I was evidently quite ill and all my conceit in superior health and strength received a shock, though only temporarily. By Wednesday the doctor was surprised at my speedy recovery and on Thursday I got up and went to the theatre. It was Mr. Beryl’s “Benefit”, and I did not want to miss that. The doctor declared me perfectly healthy but anaemic and recommended Guiness’ stout with dinner and supper. I was not particularly partial to it but had taken it before at Conny Angus’ recommendation as a gastronomic economy during rehearsals and other occasions of financial shortage, when one had to take a meal out, as it contained food value as well as drink and was more sustaining than a sandwich. The doctor also thought I was “worrying over something” and advised me not to, as there was nothing worth worrying about. Perhaps not, but my unhappy home relations, disillusionment with many things in life, the unnecessary, unfair obstacles to personal advancement, and so forth, did worry, get on my nerves and irritate me. Dressing room talk of how it was impossible to procure an engagement in some London theatres and touring companies unless you were “kept” by some rich man, was rather sickening to one who had taken the gospel of religion ethics and morality as seriously as I had. I was thankful that being “kept” was not necessary under Mr. Beryl’s management. though he had “kept” girls in the company who were quite charming, good-hearted and lovable. Mrs. Beryl, who played “Abdullah”, the Captain of the Forty Thieves, admired a dressing jacket I made, and after the run of the pantomime invited me to her home to make her one. I also helped in the wardrobe to make my own dresses, which I chose myself for the next “Lady Slavey” tour.

Chapter XIX There were several changes in the cast and chorus. Kitty Mayhew, a contralto, did not return but got married. I asked Mr. Beryl to let me sing contralto, since it was as easy for me to sing that as soprano. And why did I want to sing contralto? Because “they were paid five shillings more,” I told him. He laughed and said, “No. I can’t spare you from the sopranos but you shall have the extra salary all the same.” He also gave me the lines his sister-in-law, who did not return, had spoken and the understudy for “Flo Honeydew”.

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This year, as every subsequent year of my sojourn with the company, we visited Dublin and Belfast, always followed by glasgow, after a crossing from the latter, with a trip up the Clyde passing Dumbarton Rock which had been one of the principal landmarks on the panorama of Crusoe’s trip down in my first pantomime and touched many chords of memory. All the principal seaside resorts we also visited and many of the larger towns twice a year. We always travelled by special train, as on the previous year, sometimes hooked on to a local towards the journey’s end. Often the specials of several companies would meet at large junctions like Derby and Crewe and travel together for some distance. Those drab, dull stations would be enlivened by the exciting, joyous shouts of greeting and meeting of friends in different companies, friends with whom you had played in others. There would be hurried “drinks” together at the station bar, if open, and exchange of news and latest bits of scandal, and so forth, also recommendation of good “digs” and warning against others, especially if you happened to be going to the town the others were coming from, as did sometimes happen. Some landladies became so well-known, one only need mention their name or street to know which town they lived in. Regular “home from home” where one stayed tour after tour, though they varied considerably. One week you would live in well furnished rooms with piano and bath and good, bad or indifferent cooking, the next in poorly furnished, minus piano and bath, but where “Ma” lived up to the endearing qualities of her title. It always fell to me to be caterer, housekeeper, bookkeeper, when several of us lived together. We usually decided in the morning or the night before what we would have for dinner, etc., and I did the ordering. Everybody agreed they had never lived so well nor so economically. In many ways life seemed all that could be desired. I was travelling far and wide and making friends, to say nothing of improving my education in many directions, geographically by travel and visiting local places of interest, by reading with the aid of a Nuttall dictionary, and certainly by attending a series of Physiology lectures with lantern slides, for “women only”, given by an American medical woman, Dr. Mary Longshore Potts,52 several afternoons at the theatre we played at in the evening. We were lucky to meet Dr. Potts in several towns. She explained that she had given her lectures all over the civilized world except in her own country, the U.S.A., the “Land of the Free” where sex was not permitted open, decent discussion. Dr. Potts ended her lectures with “procreation” and “maternity”, vital subjects which, it seemed to me, should be discussed before both sexes together, since they were of the greatest, most vital and sacred importance to both, and would Anna Mary Longshore-Potts, MD (1829–1912) came from a family of Quaker radicals and abolitionists and was one of the first American women to qualify as a doctor. She lectured on women’s health across the English-speaking world, publishing the lectures in 1887 as Love, Marriage and Courtship.

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promote a better understanding of and respect for each other. It was certainly more elevating to listen to Dr. Potts on sex, than to the dressing room discussion thereof by those who thought they “knew all” when they knew little or nothing. We were fortunate also in seeing Madame Sarah Bernhardt53 playing special matinees at our theatre in several towns. It was like a goddess from another heaven visiting us, though we ordinary mortals could not use the “green room” while it was being converted into a gorgeous boudoir-dressing room for the Divine Sarah, until she had departed. For the next pantomime, Arthur Hart’s agency sent me to Edinburgh four days before the opening after neglecting to book me earlier and only after others declining to go so far, he let me go. His excuse for not sending me earlier was that I wasn’t tall enough yet I found I was quite as tall as the others, even slightly more so than some. I wasn’t sorry to have missed the earlier rehearsals and being a quick study, I knew as much as the rest and more than some at the opening, judging from the way others asked me “What do we do next?” and I was able to tell them. The other seven of my group had been most kind in showing me what to do and they told me later when we became acquainted in the dressing room that they had thought me very stuck up with my quiet, “Yes, thank you, I understand.” I told them that I was simply “taking it all in” then and hadn’t time to talk. Giving up my temporarily engaged combined room, I joined Minnie Hayden, a beautiful, naturally curly haired blond, who had arrived through Arthur Hart, a day earlier than I, delayed by the same excuse, “not tall enough”. She had a charming sitting room with piano which she played to perfection, and bedroom and bath. A combined room in the same apartment was occupied by another member of the company, Billie Reeves, who was then one of the “Musical Gees”,54 who played a sketch on the Music Halls, “A Musical Smithy”, all the blacksmith’s tools being musical instruments. They introduced this in the pantomime as well as playing other parts. After all night rehearsals, we three walked home together, and at Christmas, when Minnie’s father came on a few days visit, he invited Billie to Christmas dinner with us, after which I suggested that since Billie was paying for his room the same price, eight shillings, Minnie and I were each paying for ours that we might as well pool the food bill by Billie joining us in that, thus saving extra expense for ourselves and extra cooking, etc., for the landlady. Carried unanimously, with acclaim! Soon after the opening, we met two nice boys, veterinary students, Jack and Ernest by name, which will suffice for further reference. Jack’s home was in Staines on Thames, Ernie’s in Cheltenham, in the Cotswolds. Every day, when convenient, after their morning studies, we four went for long walks in every direction Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1924), the great French actor and theatre manager, on a world tour between 1891 and 1893. 54 This musical comedy act appeared on the music hall and variety stage from the late 1880s until at least 1915. 53

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outside the city the boys knew, getting home just in time for tea and the theatre. After the show they would see us home, sometimes coming in for a drink and smoke, while we other three had supper. On alternate Sundays they would come to us to dinner or we would go to their rooms, Billie too of course, and sometimes other members of the Gee’s and the pantomime came to tea and stayed to supper while we had the jolliest musical parties, Jack’s contribution always being, “The place where my old horse died”55 which he delivered with such deep feeling and love of horses that I cannot do better than let my readers share to some extent the effect it had upon us, by quoting the last verse. “There are men both true and brave who hold that in a future state, Dumb creatures we have cherished here below, Will give us joyous greeting when we pass the Golden Gate, Is it folly that I hope it may be so? For never man had friend more enduring to the end, Truer mate in every turn of time and tide, And should we meet again, it would lighten half my pain At the place where my old horse died.” Old Mr. Gee, who had travelled and played all over the world always had interesting experiences to relate. Mr. Walter Hatton,56 the owner of the theatre, was so delighted with the success of the pantomime, “Babes in the Wood” that he gave two splendid supper dances at his own beautiful home during the run. The “Babes”, played by two diminutive sisters, Music Hall artists, fascinated me with the way they “ogled” the men in front. I had seen quite a lot of that by now but it seemed so incongruous in the “Babes”. I had visited Edinburgh twice before with the Lady Slavey and though my heart had gone out to the beauty of it at first, I now felt thoroughly at home there and was sorry when the time of parting came. It had been such a happy experience to which even the landlady and her daughter with their kindness and attention had contributed.

Chapter XX Once more I took a boat trip from Leith to London and returned to Mrs. Hillier, her room being vacant, until I was due for “Lady Slavey” rehearsals at Nottingham. Minnie Hayden and I remained friends for many years, often visiting her at her house which she shared with her father, and his sister, an older curly-headed edition of herself. They were pretty well-to-do, owning property A sentimental equine poem by George J. Whyte Melville. Walter Hatton (né Thomas Spurling, 1849–1903), the manager and lessee of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh.

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in Devonshire, where they invited me to spend my summer holidays with them, which playing through the summer prevented me from doing. Jack and I corresponded fairly regularly, he correcting my spelling of words where I used double vowels and consonants or vice versa, according to German spelling. We were good chums though he thought I was “cold” and “God help the man I married if I didn’t love him.” I told him no man was in danger since I would not marry a man unless I loved him and I had no intention of marrying at all. And, whisper it not among my own folks or to “Mrs. Grundy”, since I don’t wish to shock them, and what the mind doesn’t know, the heart doesn’t grieve, we kissed each other, though never likely to be engaged. I had advanced in that respect, living with others and witnessing their hail-fellow-well-met, and perfectly harmless familiarity of a friendly kiss. Jack was a bit of a character reader too and the following is what he wrote for me on our second meeting: “You have rather a matter-of-fact temperament and inclined to take things as they come; very much addicted to plain speaking which leads you at times to say things you are sorry for afterwards; very determined and fond of outdoor life and animals; capable of deep feeling which you endeavour to hide; strong in your likes and dislikes; have a hasty temper but not inclined to bear malice; self confident, vivacious, fond of company and I should say very superstitious. Have had a deal of worry and trouble in your past life over which you sometimes brood.” It was rather jolly meeting the old Slavey crowd again at St. Pancras Station, good old St. Pancras! Elsie Hull one of the “originals” with whom I had shared rooms at times invited me to join her, her fiancé, Lewis Vincent and Jack Graves. They had engaged rooms and hoped someone else would join them. Nothing could have happened better for me, since I had purposely refrained from settling digs in the hope of dropping in with others. But to show how easily people draw wrong conclusions. I must tell of the Nottingham girl who joined the company, fell desperately in love with Jack Graves and eventually married him. Some weeks later, when she, I and two others were sharing rooms, she told me how jealous she felt of me in those early days, thinking that since Lew and Elsie were engaged, Jack and I must be, although we were never seen together like the other two, which struck her as very strange. At times fate struck a discordant note which disrupted the harmony of life, as it did when Lew­Vincent, Elsie Hull and I passed a man and woman in earnest conversation, without their noticing us, on a platform in Derby Station one Sunday. Lew and Elsie recognized the woman as a former sweetheart of Lew’s which of course aroused the green-eyed monster in Elsie. They wondered who the man was, and though I could have told them that he was “Dreck” the Variety Agent, I was “mum”. That week was not a happy one, Elsie continually harping and hen-pecking, at last tearing a photograph of “Violet” which she knew Lew possessed.

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Trying to pour oil on troubled waters was futile, and no doubt they derived some happiness from their “lovers’ quarrel” but had I been in the place of either it would have been “good-bye forever”, instead of making up, after such tonguelashings, to which I would have prefered “good-bye” in the first instance. Elsie was relieved and delighted at the distance placed between Violet and Lew when later she read of the former having gone on the Music Halls and sailed to fulfil an engagement in Buenos Aires. When I about the same time saw an announcement that Mr. Dreck had gone to Buenos Aires on booking business, I drew my own conclusions. That was the last I heard of either. What a life, what a game! It was on this tour, when playing in Hull that I had my chance to “shine”. Mrs. Beryl had a cold and on Tuesday night, I had to deputise for her. Now I had never felt any sympathy for people who were nervous. I thought it was just affectation on their part. What need was there to be nervous when you know your part? A feeling of exhilarating, exciting expectancy of doing and enjoying your work, I could understand, but nervous – not I! But oh, when the stage manager broke the news to me! I don’t know what happened and I am unable to describe the sensation, but my heart seemed to jump up into my throat and stay there. If the stage had opened and swallowed me while waiting for my entrance it would have been a happy release. However, I flounced on, and certainly spoke the dialogue, or rather yelled it, to my own ears, while the stage manager at the side shouted, “speak louder, they can’t hear you.” It was terrible, like being strangled, shouting for help, and urged to shout louder. However, I played the rest of the week, the musical numbers going just as well as when sung by Mrs. Beryl. The stage manager was surprised to hear that eight years earlier on coming to England, I couldn’t speak the language. Infact, whenever discussion on nationality arose, or trying to guess by their speech what part of England different people came from, and I at last said I was German, the answer usually was, “You’re a liar.” Another thing made people feel dubious, my singing “God Save the Queen”, when occasion required, with as much soul and gusto as in my childhood I sang “Heil Dir im Siegeskranz”.57 I couldn’t be a very patriotic German, they thought. But I begged to differ since Queen Victoria was “Bill’s”58 grandmother, and my living in her country, I saw no reason why I shouldn’t express as much respect and patriotism for her as for him. Were they not of the same family? And were not the two nations cousins? Besides my patriotism went deeper than mere singing. My tribute to my country should be good character and honour gained by right living. They thought my sentiments did me credit but that I had set myself a hard task, that I took life too seriously and moralized too much. The “Lady Slavey” being an enormous success everywhere, they naturally wanted to produce it in London and instead of taking the successful touring ‘Heil dir im Siegerkranz’ – ‘Hail to Thee in Victor’s Crown’ was the unofficial  national anthem of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918. 58 Kaiser Wilhelm I. 57

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company to a West End theatre, the “powers that be” selected a London company with May Yohe,59 an American “coon” song singer, as Phyllis. Being a star and Lady Francis Hope, it was infra dig. for her to make her entrances with others. They evidently forgot “the play’s the thing” and pulled it to pieces to make special star entrances for her Ladyship, also let her wear an unaccountable, gorgeous evening dress at the end. I cannot remember exactly when the production took place60 but we were not playing, so it must have been before the beginning or at the end of one of our tours. Some of us were present and sick at heart with the utter failure of the thing. The remarks we heard at the end of the show were the reverse to complimentary, especially to the author, “If he couldn’t write anything better than that,” and so forth. We felt it was murder most foul of our own great success. May Yohe, without detracting from her ability in any way, was not suited to the part. She was out of the picture and out of all proportion. She would have been better as Flo Honeydew than dainty, petite Phyllis. Though the “Slavey” did not run long in the West End, we played the suburban houses with our usual success. Next Christmas, I went to Bradford and had such an all-round happy time with different people I met, to say nothing of my comfortable rooms, that I asked for a re-engagement next year, and though I could relate some interesting incidents, they are not necessary to the thread of my story.

Chapter XXI On the next Lady Slavey tour, I experienced most bitter disappointments and heartaches right from the beginning. Grace Henderson with whom I shared rooms then, as I had occasionally on the previous tour, when she joined us, was called to understudy Flo Honeydew. The blow to my pride and self-esteem is indescribable. Nothing had been said to me and I asked the stage manager why the understudy had been taken from me. He said it hadn’t, only Mr. Beryl wanted two understudies for the part and I would still be one of them. Grace declared it had nothing to do with her. She was as surprised as I was and of course she couldn’t refuse the offer. She had played parts before but taken the Lady Slavey chorus job because she had a child to support, her second husband, a doctor in Edinburgh, not yet being able to support them all. I was almost inconsolable, wanted to leave the company, commit suicide, do anything to assuage my suffering. Grace was most kind, sympathetic and patient. Mary Augusta ‘May’ Yohé (1866–1938), an American musical theatre performer who made her name in the West End production of Little Christopher Columbus in 1894. She married Lord Francis Hope the same year, divorcing him in 1902. 60 The West End production of The Lady Slavey ran at the Avenue Theatre between October 1894 and January 1895. The various touring productions ran from 1893 to 1907. 59

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After all, this was but a trifle compared to others’ troubles, trials and disappointment of stage life. I would just have to get over it as best as I could and buck up. Of course, I cried and cried though I found little relief in tears. They had nicknamed me “Niobe” already because of my spells of weeping. I used to feel so oppressed at times, as if I were carrying all the burdens and responsibilities of humanity. And for no apparent reason at other times, I would feel just the opposite, in the seventh heaven, when all was right with the world. The similar feelings of my childhood seemed to become more and more greatly accentuated. I became more and more conscious of something being wrong with the world, wrong that I was unable to put right, which worried and irritated me. To cut a long and painful story short, since I must return to it later, the Beryls moved to Brighton where Mr. Beryl undertook the management of the Theatre Royal. Mrs. Beryl left the company, Grace Henderson playing her part,61 which, by all the rules of right and justice, we both thought, belonged to me. Between that tour and the next pantomime rehearsals, I had one week out and Grace, who was going to join her husband in Edinburgh and play at the Royal where I had been two years before, suggested that since I was so fond of the place, to stay the week with her. She wrote to her husband and as luck would have it there was a room in the same flat. I thought that was great and I would surprise Jack and Ernest whom I had missed on each visit with the Lady Slavey, they being away for their vacation. I dropped Jack a line, giving him my Edinburgh address and found a letter awaiting my arrival telling me that he and Ernie had parted company, himself living elsewhere so that spoiled my visit more or less right away. Jack would not tell me the reason of their quarrel but I gathered it was the other chief reason, next to money, that men fight over. I wanted to see Ernest just for “Auld Lang Syne,” and Jack told me at what time I would most likely find him having a cup of tea. I did and he was delighted to see me, awf’lly good of me to remember him and all that sort of thing. Back in that cosy room where he and Minnie, Jack and I, Billie Reeves and others had spent so many happy hours, disappointment at the disintegration of happy relationship as well as unhappy home relations, overcame me and I wept. Ernie tried to comfort and soothe me, took me in his arms, kissed me and, then spoilt everything by passionately declaring that “at last I have you to myself. I have always wanted you, not Minnie. Jack could never love you as I do,” and more rot like that. It brought me to my senses though, and I gave him a slap in the face that brought him to his. He humbly apologized but told me that Jack was wrong in thinking me cold. I was not cold but knew “when to apply the brake.” “Apply the brake” is what I had been doing all my life. A look from father was enough to stop me from doing even the most harmless things so when it came to an utter betrayal of friendship, the brake applied itself automatically. Grace Henderson (n.d.) went on to play Flo Honeydew until c. 1900, after which she continued to have a successful career in provincial musical theatre and pantomime until about 1907.

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“Jung gewöhnt, alt getan.”62 But I felt so disappointed and disillusioned with Ernest, though he was wealthier and considered better looking than Jack, who was quite handsome. And I kept my “secret sorrow” to myself. Still I had a pleasant week otherwise with Grace, her husband and Jack. Getting to Bradford next Sunday seemed difficult, since trains are slow, few and far between in Scotland on the Sabbath, and I did not feel inclined to take what the railway had to offer nor, leave Edinburgh earlier than was absolutely necessary. So, I looked up in the “Stage” where the companies in Edinburgh were going next week and found “our old friend”, May Yohe, who was playing “Little Christopher Columbus” at the Lyceum, booked for some place further south than Bradford so I called on her manager, who kindly placed a compartment on his special train at my disposal as far as the nearest junction to Bradford, whence I got a local “home”. And home it was with dear, old Mrs. Gregory and her daughters, Kate and Gertie. They were upholsterers by trade and knew how to make the best of their rooms, of which they had two sets, I having the smaller sitting room and bedroom, the other being occupied by other members of my pantomime.

Chapter XXII On the next Slavey tour Grace Henderson played Flo Honeydew and I understudied. In Huddersfield on the Monday night, Mabel Hensey, with whom I shared rooms, and I came out of the theatre, each laden with a brown paper parcel, our laundry, which was returned too late on the previous Saturday in Leeds to be packed in our own baggage, so we packed it in a wardrobe hamper. Immediately two “stage door Johnnies” in evening dress (in Huddersfield of all places), rushed up with, “Oh, I say, I beg your pardon, permit me,” each trying to take a parcel which we held on with, “No thank you. I am quite able to carry it.” “Oh, Lady Disdain, don’t be so independent. I have been admiring you every night last week at the Grand. You look lovely in that black evening gown,” said my would-be light porter,63 still trying to take my parcel, which I relinquished rather than risk its contents being scattered. We hadn’t far to go, and the situation did not warrant a “how dare you?” kind of scene. I had suffered many lectures in the dressing room and at home on “diplomacy”, “spoiling sport”, missing “opportunities” and so fort, that I became quite tolerant toward that sort of approach by men. These two were genuinely delighted with the show and had occupied the same box every night during the previous week at Leeds. They left us at our door with an invitation to supper on the following night. Our landlady knew them both, “two of the richest men Jung gewöhnt, alt getan – once learned, never forgotten. ‘Light porter’ refers to a worker charged with carrying light parcels.

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in Huddersfield.” In fact, my escort, John P.C.64 owned the property on which her house stood. They were “all right”. So was supper at the Wool Pack Inn, a well established old hotel. Oysters, excellently cooked and served, pheasant, etc., champagne and liqueurs were a pleasant change from our own economic table. The principal topic of conversation was John P.C.’s breach of promise case.65 He was a widower with one daughter. A lady was suing him for one thousand pounds damages. I never could understand a woman suing for breach of promise when she ought to be thankful to be rid of a man who broke his promise to her. Some months later, I read in the press that she received five hundred pounds, and later still that he married someone else. Though our hosts’ conduct so far had been perfectly circumspect and they arranged a drive for the following afternoon to which they were going to invite another friend for a girl we were expecting to lunch with us, on the way home J.P.C. started raving about my neck and arms again and suddenly blurted out, “I’d give you a thousand pounds to sleep with you for one night!” “I wouldn’t for a million,” I laughed back, “and don’t be so feckless with your thousands.” “Good Lord!” he exclaimed, “do you mean that?” “I do!” I said very emphatically. He couldn’t understand a woman not having her price, and such a price. He had never met one like me before and he apologized and respected me. No use explaining to him that I was trying to live up to a principle and disprove the alleged badness of all people on the stage. “See you tomorrow 2:30 sharp.” he said as we parted. “P’r’aps. P’r’aps not.” said Mabel when we had closed the door. “Dirty dogs, that’s all they think about,” she added when we compared notes, though she gasped at my refusing a thousand pounds. We concluded that the drive would be off but lo and behold, sharp on time up they drove in a most smart turnout, wagonette and coachman, belonging to Mabel’s “boy’”, who was a bachelor. Our friend was unable to keep her date with us, so the boy “Gooseberry”, quite a nice youngster, after stopping at two or three friendly wayside inns, became reminiscent and confided to his pals that he was secretly married to a Gaiety Girl. “Good God. old chap. You’re joking,” they both exclaimed. But no, he told the whole story of how they had met and so forth, and the church they were married in. They seemed positively shocked at him being married to her. All right if he had been merely keeping her. All this “gin and past life” was most entertaining and amusing to Mabel and me. We had tea at our last “house of call” instead of going home and drove up to the stage door in great style, the envy of all who saw us arrive. After, “thanks for the buggy ride” and all that, Mabel and I thought we had seen the last of them, but later a note arrived from “John”, sorry they had forgotten all about asking us to John C. Crosland, nephew of the MP for Huddersfield. The case was brought against Crosland in December 1894 by Amy Grundy, ‘well-known in the provinces as the prima donna in William Hogarth’s Opera Company’.

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supper on Thursday night, just a little farewell as they were going away on Friday for the weekend. I said, “Shall us?” and Mabel said, “Let’s.” On the way up stairs to the dining room, I heard John say to the waiter, “All right, we’ve engaged bedrooms.” “Oh, have we,” I thought, and whispered it to Mabel as soon as I could. That was all right, she told me. The hotel couldn’t serve supper after hours except to guests staying there, which meant engaging bedrooms, which was all it amounted to, for we had quite a pleasant time discussing matrimonial troubles in general and J.P.C.’s and the secretly married one’s in particular. John regretted that I wouldn’t change my mind, hoped I never would in favour of some else and, on parting, suggested that surely he had been a “good boy” and deserved a kiss, which under the circumstances, how could I refuse? They had both been real good sports, all things considered and had relieved the monotony of life, which was something to be thankful for on our part, even as they expressed their pleasure in our society. The dressing-room verdict of my “refusal” were as varied as the moral outlooks of the occupants. There were the conventional, irreproachable, even “straightlaces”, with whom I was generally classed, who applauded my “resistance to temptation”, though it had really been no temptation to me since the whole idea of such a transaction was alien to me. I was not in need of money, managing to rub along on my little £2‑0‑0 salary, and J.P.C. was not the man. Besides, I was in love with my own idea of love and a £1000 or any other price sale of myself had no part in it. Others, who made no bones about “augmenting their salary” and who were all that could otherwise be desired, called me everything from a “bloody prude” to a ditto idiot. I jolly-well, damn well and every other kind of bad-well, deserved to starve, refusing all that money instead of banking it. From the point of view of a world in which all “the virtues” without money are a handicap and so much bunkum, no doubt they were right. The following Christmas, Mr. Beryl produced the old Nottingham “Forty Thieves” with almost the same company, at Brighton, I even wore my same old dresses. Here, in the course of dressing room discussion, regarding the difficulties of women advancing in the theatrical profession without influence, money or both, of which I shall say more later, I found one of the “small part ladies”, the wife of the principal comedian, had understudied quite a lot, and it was she whom we had seen as “The Little Genius” in Nottingham when we rehearsed there. She was excellent in the part, we all thought, and had no idea she was only the understudy. In Brighton, I met a friend of the Beryls, Madame Marie Klauwell,66 who had sung the leading roles in Grand Opera in Vienna when she was eighteen years old. She had married, contracted a disease for which she was operated upon and left lame. Her operatic career was ruined. She and her mother settled down in Brighton where she taught singing and sang at concerts and “at home”. Marie Klauwell (1853–1911), Austrian operatic singer.

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Being a country woman of theirs had probably something to do with the kindly friendship they developed for me. Madame Klauwell thought I had a splendid voice which ought to have been trained for opera; what a grand Brunhilde, Elisabeth, Gretchen and Elsa, I would have been, so “anmutig und graziös”.67 (If father had only stood by, helped and protected me, instead of opposing me in everything I was ambitious and capable of doing!) As I remained in Brighton during the few weeks between the pantomime and Slavey rehearsals, which now took place here, Madame Klauwell gave me singing lessons free and helped me considerably in voice production, breathing, etc., also procured me a week’s engagement at the Pier Pavilion and took me to sing at a very swagger “at home” where she appeared to be persona grata with everyone. At my first appearance on the pier, I was attacked by a different kind of nervousness. My left leg seemed incapable of touching the ground, it was shaking so, and I was just standing on the right leg. My songs I knew backwards, I had sung them so often, and they “went well”. Nellie, Mr. Beryl’s youngest daughter by his first wife,68 (there was another, Maggie, and two boys) had appeared in the chorus with us during Mrs. Beryl’s last tour. She had since taken up Oriental dancing, performed a pas seul69 in the pantomime and wanted to play one of “Phyllis’s” sisters, who each did a dance in the “Lady Slavey”. As Mrs. Beryl had given up touring, there was the difficulty of rooms for Nellie. She could not be left alone, “sweet seventeen”, so Mr. Beryl asked me would I do him the great favour of having her live with me. And so that we need not be too economical over rooms, he raised my salary five shillings. Knowing Nellie pretty well by meeting her on tour and at her home in Nottingham and Brighton, I was only too delighted to remove the apparently one and only obstacle to the fulfilment of her immediate ambition. I also had a list of very good rooms by now, so had no difficulties in that direction and engaged them in advance. Nellie, unlike me, was an early riser. When living alone, I usually had my breakfast and the morning paper brought to my bed at 9 o’clock, which was most convenient too for the landlady, instead of setting and clearing the table. Nellie, rising at eight or earlier, would bring my breakfast up herself, “preferred to do that little service for me”, to sending it up. In Bristol, where Nellie expected to entertain friends from Weston-SuperMare, whom we also visited one day, we engaged extra-special good rooms. The dinner we had ordered to be ready on our arrival, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding (which is also called batter) etc., were excellently cooked, as we told the little maid when she cleared and inquired if the dinner was satisfactory. Nellie, in her exuberance said, “As for the pudding, it was a perfect poem.” “Oh no, Miss,” said anmutig und graziös – graceful and gracious. Nellie Beryl (1877–?) went on to have a successful career as a musical theatre and variety performer until at least 1914. Like KM, she became a member of the Actors’ Association. 69 pas seul – solo dance. 67 68

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the maid. “It was a batter!” With difficulty we managed to keep straight faces until she had left the room. Nevertheless, it was the best “Yorkshire”, I have ever tasted bar none, and I’ve met some good ones. In Glasgow, where Mr. Beryl had been manager some years earlier and where they had many friends, Maggie, the other daughter stayed with us. She was a charming, sweet soul, whom I loved and admired very much. On account of tuberculosis, which took one of her brothers, a few years later, she spent much time at Davos Platz and eventually was cured, I heard. There was a woman in the house who read cards and crystal and we had no end of fun having our “fortunes” told. However illegal fortune telling may be, there’s more in it than meets the eye, but since it is punishable by law, those who have it told should also be punished until police interference with it is abolished.70 Anyhow, it is considerably more pleasant and truthful than the political fortune telling by candidates for office, as to the wonderful things that will happen to us if we elect them. Among other things I was told I would write for the papers, be connected with an important paper and have my name appear in the press otherwise. Incredible as it seemed at the time, it has come true. At the most I never expected my name to appear except in reports that my acting was good, bad or indifferent which up till then it had not.

Chapter XXIII About this time there was much excitement in “the profession” and the press over a statement made by Mr. Clement Scot,71 theatrical critic in the “Daily Telegraph”, to the effect that it was impossible for an actress to rise to success except through the manager’s bedroom. With his knowledge of the world in general and the stage in particular, he ought to have known. At some later date, Mrs. Kendall (Miss Madge Robertson)72 went so far as to publicly call herself the “only virtuous woman on the stage”. I doubt if she was the only one even in her circle of leading actresses, although there was plenty of evidence that certain “mediocrities” and talented women, in spite of their talent, would not have been playing leading parts had they not been the wife or mistress of a manager or some other influential man in, or connected with, the profession. On the stage as a whole Mrs. Kendall, “St. Madge” as she was nicknamed, had plenty of good, virtuous company – not that it matters. The Witchcraft Act of 1735 was used to control spiritualism etc. until its repeal in 1951, when it was replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums Act. 71 Clement Scott (1841–1904), an influential theatre critic. He was forced to relinquish his post at the Daily Telegraph after the article, ‘Does the theatre make for good?’, appeared in the evangelical journal, Great Thoughts, 1 January 1898. 72 Dame Madge Kendall (1848–1935), actor and theatre manager, best known as a Shakespearean and comedy actor, and for her impeccable reputation. 70

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I had been there long enough to learn that one could be just as “good” on the stage as in the world at large, and that “their is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”, but there seemed to be a tacit understanding among the “powers that be” that mere “talent” minus money, influence or “easy virtue” was not to be encouraged unless absolutely necessary and useful. There would have been less talk of the stage “going to the dogs” if talent had been fostered on its merits and mediocrity banished entirely instead of being encouraged on the principle of sex indulgence, “über Alles”,73 legal or otherwise. It isn’t fair, least of all to the paying public and ordinary shareholders in theatrical enterprise. In Nottingham on this tour I shared rooms with some other girls while Nellie Beryl stayed with a family of friends, the head of which was Robert Halford Esq. J.P.,74 one of the directors of the Nottingham Theatre Company, owners of the Theatre Royal, and Lady Slavey Company. On Saturday, Mr. Halford invited me to join Nellie for the weekend and follow the company to the next town, Manchester, on Monday. That stay at “Ashtree”, Mr Halford’s home, was one of the most charming and precious experiences of my life, as was the association for several years with his family, which I regret I lack the poetic phraseology adequately to describe. Mr. Halford was a widower, with four sons and three daughters, whom he loved and adored, in spite of which he had more than his share of family discord. Nellie, his oldest daughter,75 quarreled with the rest of the family, and to keep the peace he granted her a generous allowance to stay away as much as possible. So she lived in Berlin, but was visiting her home on this occasion, the only time I met her. She, of course, had German items of interest to discuss and I found her most friendly. “Ashtree”, with its lofty rooms, large entrance hall, wide staircase, lighted by a stained-glass window, its gardens, lawns, conservatories, hot-houses, stables and all up-to-date conveniences, was the acme of elegance and comfort combined. What a change from the “old digs”! Nellie Beryl and I, occupying the best spare bedroom, had breakfast most luxuriously in bed and lazed the morning away until lunch, after which our host took us for a drive in his high dog-cart. Mr. Halford was a most charming, courtly, entertaining host, a brilliant, elevating, poetic conversationalist, to whom I was never tired of listening. although he called himself a “prosy old codger” and “old geezer”, and was always grateful to a “fairy” as he called his own or any other congenial womenfolk, for lending him her sympathetic ear. He had the kindest, though sometimes very tired, eyes, which über alles – above all. Robert Halford (1841–10), an estate agent and prominent Nottingham businessman. 75 Nellie was in fact the second daughter (b. 1874); there were three sons and four daughters. The other children were: Harry Baker (b. 1867), Elizabeth Carrie (b. 1868), Bernard Vane (b. 1870), Percy Robert (b. 1876), Ethel Lottie (b. 1880) and Hettie (b. 1884). Halford’s wife, Caroline, had died in 1895, aged 52. 73 74

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latter would be accounted for by hard work, for in addition to being a Magistrate he was an estate agent, chairman of a Bank, a Brewery and other “Big Business” concerns, which kept his eyes busy in more ways than one. Evidently the pleasure of my visit had been mutual, for during the following week, in addition to gloves for Nellie and me, “a contribution to your wardrobe”, I received a charming, kindly letter from him –­“Thank you for your bright presence and good, cheery company. It forms a sort of happy interlude in a somewhat sober picture, and I have just a faint hope that you have enjoyed it. I wish you God-speed during the remainder of your tour, a special measure of success and prosperity in your next engagement, and a full realization of your highest hopes for the future.” It was November, and the tour drawing to a close. “Dick Whittington” with Vesta Tilley76 as “Dick”, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Liverpool, came next. There were several other “Slaveyites”, with two of whom, Nellie Claire and Leonora Grieve,77 I shared most comfortable rooms. I had quite a nice little speaking part too, one of “Fitzwarren’s” impudent apprentices. The pantomime ran for three months, a phenomenal success in every way. Our producer and stage manager, Mr. E.T. (Teddie) Steyne,78 was the allround best I have met. He rehearsed each section separately, so thoroughly that when they all met for general rehearsal, none had to wait, wasting time and energy, while others were trying to learn their “business”. His rehearsals were the smartest and most perfect, although he lost his temper at times and yelled “for God’s sake go home and pray to the Almighty to give you some intelligence!” when someone deliberately did the reverse to what he told them, even to turning left when he said “right” or vice versa. Or, after quietly watching a “number” right through, he’d remark, “Very nice, but not a bloody bit like it!” and once more show how it should be done. His wife79 played a small part and understudied. The Court and Shakespeare theatres also had pantomime, and the ladies of the three companies indulged in a doll dressing competition, in aid of local charities. The dolls, 70 in number, all alike, were supplied by Mr. T. Bush of the Bee Hotel, a favourite theatrical rendezvous. I dressed mine as a Christmas tree, and though it missed getting a prize, the Press was of the opinion that it ought to have had one. Leonora Grieve got second prize for my suggestion of a grass-green dress with some violets strewn over it, and called “A Spring Flower”. It seems that the violet has a political significance in Liverpool, as well as making its seasonable appearance at the time. We were a happy family at 48 Seymour Street, with one of the best landladies in the city. Nellie Claire met her “fate” whom she married within three years, and they “lived happily ever after”. Vesta Tilley (née Matilda Alice Powles, 1864–1952), a music hall star and male impersonator. Leonora Grieve (1878–?) was a successful provincial musical theatre performer, specialising in principal boy roles. She disappears from records after 1906. 78 E.T. (Teddy) Steyne (d. 1912 in Australia), actor, stage manager and producer. 79 Frances Steyne (d. 1926). 76 77

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I still treasure her and his photo which he sent me with the following note during our next “Slavey” tour; “Dear Kind Kitty, I enclose a photo of a man who wishes to be held in remembrance, as he remembers those who were kind enough to put up with a good deal of his society recently. I go to bed at twelve o’clock, and I read only men and books, and I wish I didn’t, and that there was any way of turning back the clock; but not even Paraceleus or Thomas Hood knew that trick, so I have to take refuge in make believe – not a wholesome diet. I shall play golf tomorrow wet or fine, and when your body’s tired enough your mind has got to rest. Come back soon, all of you.” Edw. Happy memories; plenty of congenial company, much better than living alone as I had done during the last three pantomime seasons.

Chapter XXIV But my happiest day was one Sunday in February. Mr. Halford had much business to transact in Liverpool and Birkenhead on Saturday and Monday, and as he always believed in combining business with pleasure, he invited me to spend the intervening Sunday with him at the Adelphi Hotel. What a delightful experience! Luckily I am a good listener, while he was a good talker and I heard a great deal of his family anxieties and hopes, his daughter Ethel who was engaged to be married, his “baby” Hetty about 14 years old, at a private school in Weston-SuperMare, where I had met her with Nellie Beryl on our visit there from Bristol, and Harry, his oldest son, happily married, and his three lovely children, two boys and one girl, Kathleen, and Bernard his only unmarried son, living at home. All these I was to meet on my next visit to Nottingham. Harry and Bernard were in business with him. His other son and daughter, both married, lived away from Nottingham. I told him of my ambitions, hopes and disappointments, especially my latest regarding “Flo Honeydew”. Grace Henderson was not returning for next tour, and instead of giving me the part, Mr. Beryl engaged Queenie Leighton,80 a regular Music Hall artist, whom I had met playing Principal Boy in a Bradford pantomime. I had so hoped for the part this time. I had played it quite frequently and developed thorough control over my voice, but Mr. Beryl’s excuse was that he was obliged to engage someone who was better known than I. Queenie Leighton certainly was better known than I, in more ways than one. Nellie Beryl and I shared rooms again on the next tour and soon had Alice Thorburn,81 also from the Liverpool pantomime, joining us. Her brother was Queenie Leighton (née Lilian Caroline Augusta Rickard, 1874–1943), a music hall star and noted principal boy. 81 Alice Thorburn (Mrs E. R. Browne, 1879–?). Her brother was Charles Thorburn (1884–1924), business manager of the Scala, London Pavilion and Vaudeville theatres. In 1915, Alice Browne 80

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manager at a London theatre. Then our new “Lady Slavey” Laura Thompson,82 a really good actress whose parents were on the stage too, joined us. When we reached Nottingham in May, Nellie stayed at the Halfords’ again, and though I too had hoped for an invitation, nothing happened. After Liverpool and two charming, friendly letters from Mr. Halford since, I was puzzled to say the least, but took no notice. Laura, Alice, Gladys Surtees (the daughter of a General who had been through the Indian Mutiny), two other girls and I, shared rooms that week. On Monday morning about 10 o’clock as I stood looking through the window, thinking, a brougham stopped at the door, and who should step out but Ethel Halford? She had driven down with her father and after leaving him at his office, came in search of me to invite me and “everybody with me” to lunch on Tuesday. What a “feast for the gods”, and champagne, in the large dining room this time – such a jolly, happy afternoon we all spent! It is difficult to say who was the happiest: Mr. Halford our host and the only “mortal” among the “fairies”, or the “fairies” in general; Gladys Surtees who won the prize of one sovereign which Mr. Halford offered guessing nearest to the number of leaves on the pineapple; I, being the unwitting cause of the party, or Nellie Beryl who had quite unintentionally placed me in that happy position. In leave-taking Mr. Halford expressed the hope that I would stay the weekend as I had last year. On Saturday morning I received a note from him, delivered by special messenger. “My women-folk are all deserting me today; you must play the Samaritan by coming to lunch with me and I shall expect you at my office, St Peter’s Gate at one o’clock exactly to drive up. The arrangement for the night is that you come with Nellie from the theatre to stay with us till Monday. Please convey our kind regards to Miss Thompson and say that we can put her up also from tonight to Monday, and will she come along with you and Nellie.” During our tête-à-tête luncheon Mr. Halford surprised me with the question, “Why didn’t you come and stay the week with us?” To which I could only reply, “Because I was not invited.” “Do you mean to tell me that Nellie Beryl did not give you my invitation?” It seemed unbelievable to him, but it was so. “I did not think it necessary to write you since I was corresponding with Nellie regarding your visit and I thought it would give her pleasure to convey my invitation to you.” It was a bit of a shock to me too as it was to him, that Nellie could be guilty of such duplicity and stupidity, for she might have known she could not carry the former through successfully. Her excuse for my not coming had been that I had not cared to leave the others, which accounted for the “wholesale” invitations to lunch. wrote to her brother to ‘expose’ KM as a probable German spy. Charles Thorburn passed the letter to the Home Office (see also KMA: 84 and Appendix III). 82 Laura Thompson, a provincial musical theatre performer. She also played Phyllis in the 1913 tour of The Lady Slavey. Her father, W[illiam] T. Thompson, was also an actor.

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Our weekend was a great success, the weather was wonderful, perfect, and on Sunday after lunch Mr. Halford took us all, his daughter Ethel, Laura Thompson, Nellie Beryl and me to tea with Bernard on his houseboat on the Trent at Attenborough, a few miles from Nottingham, where he lived all summer and very nice too! Bernard, the personification of that blond, blue-eyed, athletic, healthy British manhood you read about so much, met us with the dingy and rowed us across and upstream to his most cozy, comfortable home on the water, “far from the madding crowd.” An ideal spot, just river, sky and country. After a most delightful afternoon, back to “Ashtree” and supper at which Harry and his wife joined us. The latter was a good pianist, so we finished the evening with music and songs. I felt a sense of appreciation and gratitude at my lines having fallen in such pleasant places, greater than I could express. Though in the background most persistently lingered those ghosts, “it’s too good to be true,” “too happy to last.” The following Christmas I went to the Theatre Royal, Sheffield, same management as Bradford, where I met Dolly Rowe83 whose friendship I still enjoy after all these years. Through her I met Mr. and Mrs. H.S. Buckell, a charming young couple who lived at Sharroso,84 a smart residential district on the outskirts of Sheffield, and who invited me to stay with them on future visits to Sheffield. The song “Bluebelles” was very popular that season and our Principal Boy and Girl sang it as a duet but “never got a hand”. It was also the vogue to have someone sing from a box or any other part of the house, so our musical director picked a voice – mine – to repeat the chorus in front of the house, after which the Principal Boy and Girl on the stage “took calls” while the applauding audience peered into the dark whence came the voice. When John Hart, the proprietor, visited the theatre for the last performance I asked him for “a part” for next year but all he said was “write to me, write to me,” which I did, but received no response, not so much as “thank you, go to hell” for the extra work and “wear and tear” of my own evening dress. Katie Cohen who had played the “Fairy” in Liverpool the previous year and was visiting her cousin Fanny Josephs, who was also in the “Lady Slavey” with me, suggested that with my voice and appearance I ought to be doing my own turn on the Music Halls, like herself and her husband, Albert Christian.85 The end of February found me back in London, at Mrs. Hillier’s and rehearsing in a Music Hall Sketch with Fred Walton, his wife and nephew. Fred was the The editors have been unable to trace Dolly Rowe; however, in 1914, she was writing to KM from 17 Camberwell New Road, when she was reviewing plays for the ‘Ref.’, presumably The Referee. 84 Herbert S. Buckell (1869–1944) and Beatrice Buckell (1869–1941). Herbert was a commercial traveller in Xylonite, an early form of plastic or celluloid. The Sheffield district they lived in was Sharrow. 85 Katie Cohen and Albert Christian played for the D’Oyly Carte company in the 1880s before going on to star in music hall and variety on both sides of the Atlantic. 83

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brother of “Witty Watty” Walton,86 who played “Roberts” the principal comedy part in the “Lady Slavey”, and had deputized for him occasionally. Dolly Rowe had played in some show with the Waltons and they offered the part in their sketch to her, but as she had another engagement, she recommended me for it. It was just for a special four weeks and helped along nicely toward the next tour. I quite enjoyed this new experience “on the halls” which also strengthened my self-confidence in my ability. At Easter the “Lady Slavey” opened again and we had another “Flo Honeydew”, a nice, likeable girl whose mother travelled with her. She hated to play the “villain” and had the sweetest kind of rivalry with “Phyllis” for the Millionaire. Her fiancé and the agent who booked the engagement for her were friends. Also Laura Thompson’s parents joined us, her father W.T. (Billy) Thompson to replace “Witty Watty Walton”, who had demanded most unreasonable “Star” dressing room. travelling conditions and salary, the best of which he had enjoyed all along. This summer, as the previous one, we had two weeks’ vacation, ending the tour at Sheffield in the middle of July, to resume on August Bank Holiday (the first Monday in August) at Yarmouth. The previous year I had spent the vacation there by the sea but this year I hankered after country, trees, fields. I mentioned my desire to my landlady, and she knew of the “very place” if I had no objections to a small farm in Derbyshire, 12 miles south of Sheffield. Her description sounded desirable and I gladly accepted her offer to run out, I paying her fare to make the necessary arrangements. So on Sunday I hied me to Shatton Farm at Bamford. The farm, occupied by a recently married young couple, was a mile from the village, right off the beaten track, nestling among meadows and lanes lined by tall hedges of wild roses and honeysuckle in full bloom. What a delightful change to “meander” at my leisure through this ideal bit of English countryside for two weeks, instead of rushing through it by express. Mrs. Buckell with whom I had become better acquainted during this last visit to Sheffield, cycled out with other friends several times, enjoying rambles and picnics which I organized. The days sped all too quickly, though it was jolly to meet the “boys and girls” again and resume the tour. Nellie Beryl and I no longer shared “digs”, each joining others according to temporary convenience and preference. The Halfords were away when we visited Nottingham on this tour, thus avoiding social petty jealousies among the “fairies”. But when playing at Derby, and Mr. Halford passed through on business in Buxton in the beautiful Peak district through which we so often passed by train on Sundays, he invited Nellie and me to join him, go shopping while he transacted his business and meet him for lunch after. He loved little “junketings” like that, and they certainly were a pleasant, enjoyable break in the daily routine to his participants. Also, Nottingham being easily accessible by train from Derby, Nellie Witty Watty Walton (né Walton Hemming, 1852–1914), the most successful of the WaltonHemming family of entertainers; a comic actor and music hall artist.

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and I rushed off after the Saturday night performance to spend the weekend at “Ashtree”.

Chapter XXV “Cinderella” at Peter Davey’s “Royal County Theatre”, Kingston on Thames,87 was my next Pantomime, through an introduction from Dolly Rowe, whose home was at Surbiton near Kingston and who knew Mr. and Mrs. Davey well. What a jolly. happy crowd! Mr. and Mrs. Davey were more like hosts entertaining a company of guests than “theatrical management”. Strange that here I should experience a sort of interpretation of a dream I had when a child at my grandfather’s. Toward the end of an all night rehearsal I sat at the side of the stage, rather tired and sleepily gazing around, when the trestle work of the “fly” opposite brought my dream most vividly before me. I dreamt that I died and went to heaven, but instead of heaven being the beautiful place I had always pictured, all white, gold, pale blue (my favourite colour) full of bright lights, God sitting on a golden throne, surrounded by angels it was just a wooden trestle, the framework of a house being built and I and other children trying to climb, clinging on for dear life, afraid of falling. I was so disappointed with heaven and wished I had never come there, when I woke up, thankful it was but a dream. But as it flashed across my mind now I saw my “trestle heaven” as the Stage – the profession – with everybody “afraid of falling”, of losing an engagement, of one coming to an end, of saying or doing anything that might offend “the powers that be” and “get the sack” and so forth. Well, here I was, fairly in it, fearing and clinging with the rest. And such is life. Alice Thorburn of Liverpool pantomime and Slavey tour was here too and once more we shared digs. Alice was a good little Catholic who went to mass regularly, but remembering my own early experiences I thought “rather you than me”. I had met Alice’s mother and family at their home in London, and they evidently approved of me. though most particular with whom Alice associated. Alice was even permitted to accept invitations to luncheons and suppers “if Miss Marion goes”. Alice was a pretty, dark, fluffy haired little thing, several years younger than I, who reminded me of a fluffy “chicken”, which I nicknamed her. She was “never going to marry” but a few years later a wealthy planter from Jamaica visited her family and fell in love with, married and took the “chicken” out with him. She threatened to find a rich husband out there for me. There evidently weren’t any for she never wrote. Some years later, her brother whom I met in the Strand one day told me Alice, her husband and their three children were over on a visit, but they were all out when I called. The Royal County Theatre was famous for its pantomimes, most of them written by Peter Davey (1858–1946), who was also responsible for the conversion of the theatre from an assembly rooms in 1897. His wife, Zillah (1864–1946), was apparently not theatrical.

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Many happy days have I spent with Dolly Rowe, her mother and family at their home in Surbiton and later in London. After four happy, successful weeks in Kingston, the Company opened at the Opera House, Cheltenham, on January 21st. On the following night just as the overture was finishing, came the news of Queen Victoria’s death, which the manager announced to the audience, who quietly dispersed. It seemed as if the world stood still and could never continue without “The Queen”. However, the following day King Edward VII was proclaimed and life went on as usual. On February 4th we opened at the Duchess Theatre, Balham, a southern suburb of London. On the next day I went to Hyde Park to cheer King Edward and the German Emperor on their way from Paddington Station to Marlborough House. While waiting, something impelled me to look round, and there, a little distance back, a man was steadily gazing at me. I turned away, thinking, “how like Mr. Halford, but he is not likely to be here.” However, I turned again to make certain, not to cut him if it should be he, and sure enough it was. We had not met for over a year, and this unexpected encounter was a mutual pleasure. We agreed that if we read this in a book we should consider it far-fetched, but then truth was stranger than fiction, as I have often experienced. Having finished the business for which he was in town in the morning, he thought he would take a stroll in the Park and “get a glimpse of Royalties”. Suddenly he caught the golden glint of a woman’s hair and felt certain of only “one woman using that particular dye” which, I assured him, was one of those “German fast dyes” she had been born with. So he stood still, gazing and wishing she might turn her face to him, and felt intensely gratified and flattered at such an “old geezer” having sufficient magnetism and influence over her to succeed. Would there were more “old geezers” like him in this world, with such dignified, distinguished bearing and above all such a fine, splendid mind and intellect. He could be stern and serious as a Judge, happy and carefree as a child, generous and benevolent to a fault, happy in making others happy. So we stood together and waved and cheered as “Teddy” and “Bill” passed. That loyal duty done, Mr. Halford hailed a hansom which drove us to the Trocadero to luncheon, where we exchanged “news” of the past year and the future. On parting, Mr. Halford having to catch a train to Nottingham, he remarked how much brighter and happier I looked now than when we first met in the Park, when I looked distinctly “blue”, and hoped he had contributed somewhat to the change, for which I was obliged to give him entire credit. The tonic of his society, to say nothing of a champagne luncheon, would change anybody’s blues to a rosy outlook. Queen Victoria’s death had cast a general gloom. Kaiser Wilhelm attending her funeral had set off a whole trail of German memories, of “might have beens”, of disappointments, the loss of my citizenship. According to a paragraph I saw in the “Daily Mail” which was news to me, Germans who had left the country and failed to keep in touch with their Consulate, automatically lost their German

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citizenship after a certain number of years.88 I felt intensely indignant and hurt at the time. As if a stupid, asinine, man-made law could annul the fact and truth of one’s nativity, even should one relinquish one’s legal claim thereto, which I have never thought of doing. I felt that if women had anything to do or say in the matter, they would never tolerate such an insulting, unjust law. A country, as a home, should always be “legally” open to welcome a returning wanderer. Will governments ever learn that “the Spirit is more than the body” or man-made law? In my childish innocence I had believed that there was nothing left to be desired in this world except Peace between nations, and I had grieved because I was not a boy to be able to fight for that, as I had learned from others to see it, a strong well-armed Germany, keeping all the other nations in order, like a schoolmaster his class. What a lot I had learned since then and how much more I had still to learn. No wonder I looked “blue”. However, fate had waved a magic wand and I was the happiest thing on earth now. The friendly correspondence between Mr. Halford and myself which had lagged somewhat during the previous year, was now revived. His letters were always entertaining, telling of family activities at home, of business or pleasure travel in the British Isles or on the Continent, begging for sympathy when his annual enemy, hay fever, nerves or other ailments beset him; expressing sympathy with and encouragement in my own struggle for success, and occasionally sending a helping hand in the shape of a five pound note, as he did, with a beautiful letter, when my engagement finished on a return visit to Kingston, during the last week of February. On March 11th the “Slavey” tour started again, Nellie Beryl this time playing the title role, which she had been understudying. Though she was all right in the part, she was considerably less experienced and less well known than I, except as Mr. Beryl’s daughter. On April 15th we were in Nottingham once more and Nellie and I spent Sunday evening at “Ashtree”. Other guests occupying the spare room, we did not stay the week, nor the weekend, since Mr. Halford had to go to London on Saturday morning. But during the week he took me for a lovely drive, showing me places of interest like Lord Byron’s old home89 and others. How he hated motorcars in those days, because they startled his horses. “Hell cars” he called them. You couldn’t pay him to ride in one. “You are well known to the police,” amused him immensely, the continuous salutes from the “bobbies” calling forth that remark from me, little dreaming how some day I would be even better known, though in a different way, to that fraternity of London and New York. On the unification of Germany in January 1871, the ‘Law on Nationality and Citizenship’ was enacted whereby German citizens ‘who leave the federal territory and reside abroad for ten years without interruption will thus lose their citizenship’. This may be the reason why KM gives her birthplace as ‘London’ in the 1901 census, taken on 31 March. 89 Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire. 88

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On the following Monday at Cardiff I received a large letter from him, the balance sheet of a brewery company of which he was Chairman. I wondered why, since I had no chares90 in it, nor ever likely to have out of my salary. Was it to impress me with “wealth” in millions of pounds? or was there a “catch” in it? There was, and I found it. I went carefully over every column and discovered the discrepancy of 1 shilling, which I marked, and wrote near it, “Where’s the missing bob?” and returned. In my accompanying letter I suggested that the Board of Directors should change their Chartered Accountant, appointing me in their place, since I was anxious for a better part with a higher salary, keeping an eye on the shillings, and so forth. By return mail Mr. Halford wrote: “Thou art a Genius and it shall no longer be said that finance is thy weak point. Of a certainty too thou art born to riches or to become rich with years, for who with such a faculty for finding the missing “Bob” could ever fail to discover when required, the greater “Quid”?” (one pound) “I was greatly amused at your letter and have forwarded extracts from it to our Auditors.” (I heard later how amused all the financial “old fogies” were, that a woman, a mere chorus girl at that, had “caught them napping”, trivial though it was.) In the same letter Mr. Halford said, “I am glad you have a good word for me and that you enjoyed the few hours change I was able to give you. Perhaps in the “sweet bye and bye” when we meet on some “beaut – ee – ful” shore, who knows? Or in Hyde Park?!” “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick” and mine was pretty sick and fed up seeing no chance of advancement in the “Lady Slavey” Company, and as we were to have five weeks vacation in the summer, I thought that a good opportunity to go to London and try my luck with some other engagement. Mr. George Dance was by now sending other Musical Comedies on tour and he surely could give me a part. I’d had enough of “Lady Slavey”. When we played the thousandth performance I had missed only three, less than any other of the original members, and the show was getting on my nerves. When we broke up and Mr. Beryl came to take Nellie home, I asked him to release me from my contract which he reluctantly did, saying he was sorry to lose me and would keep my place open till the last moment, in case I changed my mind. So, much as I hated parting from them, I left the dear old crowd which had been like a happy home and family to me in spite of the inevitable occasional “rows” and petty jealousies among us.

‘chares’: shares.

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Chapter XXVI Back to London and Mrs. Hillier’s. Mr. Dance was surprised too when I called on him for work, and would not engage me until he heard from Mr. Beryl himself that he had released me, and two days later, having received Mr. Beryl’s reply to his letter, he engaged me for chorus, small part and understudy in “A Chinese Honeymoon”,91 to rehearse in five weeks’ time. Having promised Mrs. Buckell in Sheffield to spend my vacation, if any, with her, I went prepared to stay four weeks, at which she was delighted. But on the second day I received a telegram from “Tommy Ray” Mr. Dance’s manager: “Come at once, rehearsal.” Thinking he had confused me with someone else I wired back, “Rehearsing July 4th Chinese Honeymoon.” Back came another wire, “Transferred to “Kitty Grey”, rehearse at once, open next week.” So I replied that I would be there the next day, and caught the night express. From what I heard of “Kitty Grey” I was delighted with the transfer. A company was already on tour, sent by Mr. George Edwardes, of the Gaiety and Daly’s Theatres, who was famous for his perfect Musical Comedies, and “Kitty Grey” was one of the best, with Evie Green, a perfect artist, in the title role.92 Mr. Dance had bought the second rights and was sending a company to the smaller towns, which mostly were new territory to me. I had missed three days’ rehearsals and the Chorus was almost letter-perfect when I arrived, in the midst of their singing the opening of the second act. When we became acquainted, some of the girls told me they were glad I arrived at last after hearing so much of my being expected, “as if I were of the utmost importance.” Sarcasm! They were all strangers to me, but one of the girls, Ethel Ford,93 I had seen quite recently coming out of Herbert Blackmore’s agency in Garrick Street, and was greatly impressed with her appearance, tall, blonde, good-looking and exquisitely dressed in purple. “Can’t dress like that on two quid a week,” I jeered to myself, little dreaming I should meet her within two weeks and make a life-long friend of her. The purple dress was half-mourning for her mother. “Kitty Grey” was a “ZAZA” type of play,94 full of humorous complications A Chinese Honeymoon started modestly in Hanley, Staffordshire, in 1899, with Laura Thompson’s father in the main comic role and went on to become the longest-running (1901–4) West End musical comedy of the Edwardian era – but not with the original, provincial cast. 92 Kitty Grey, a superior musical comedy based on a French play, Les Fêtards. George Edwardes (1855–1915) was the most powerful producer of musical comedy in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century theatre. He is credited with transforming the genre. Evie Greene (née Edith Elizabeth Greene, 1878–1917) was a successful musical comedy performer in the West End and on Broadway; from 1908 she played only the variety stage. 93 Ethel Ford (later Saker, n.d.), a musical comedy performer and early silent film actor. 94 Zaza (1898), a French drama by Pierre Berton and Charles Simon, adapted into English 91

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and charming music. When the company met on the stage of the Shaftesbury Theatre for “full” rehearsal, whom should I meet among the principals but Laura Thompson. Mutual pleasant surprise! Laura played “Lady Binfield” whose husband, Sir John Binfield, M.P. (Jack) was running after “Kitty Grey” the famous dancer. Maud Boyd95 played “Kitty” and I was charmed with, and almost envious of, her beautiful, well trained voice. At the end of rehearsal the musical director asked me to “bring a song tomorrow, the governor (Mr. Dance) wants to hear you.” “What on earth for?” I asked, quaking inwardly as to what was wrong with my singing. “On the Q.T., it’s for the understudy for ‘Kitty’,” he told me, “Mr. Dance suggested you for it and there are others who want to hear you first, so do your best.” Was it necessary, I wondered, to give me a momentary plunge into a nervous hell before lifting me into the 7th heaven? To understudy “Kitty Grey” without my even asking for it. Wonderful! Especially as I had felt an attack of “secret stage fright” when I heard Maud Boyd sing the first song, “The Powderpuff” and thought I could never tackle that. However, I kept my eyes and ears open and when we opened on the following Thursday at Clacton on Sea for three days, I knew every word and note of “Kitty’s” part as well as my own “bits”. Of course the show was a great success. The parts were all well cast and well played. Laura Thompson as “Lady Binfield”, the Quaker American heiress, was charming and perfect, the best of the four I have seen in that part. Laura, Phoemie Barnes,96 who played her sister, the up-to-date, go-ahead American girl, and I, shared rooms, visiting Folkestone, Bournemouth, Jersey, among others, to me, new beauty spots in which I reveled and enjoyed the sea as well as country. Both Laura and Phoemie were superstitious over peacocks feathers being unlucky and they never noticed (as I did at once) the vase full on the mantelpiece in our sitting room at Folkestone until in the middle of lunch, when Phoemie, who sat facing them, suddenly exclaimed “My God!” while I laughed heartily. “You devil,” she cried, “you knew they were there all the time, grinning to yourself ever since we came in.” She had the landlady remove them, though I could not see how such things of beauty (and snowdrops, which were also taboo in the dressing room) could possibly bring “bad luck”. While playing at the Kennington Theatre, London, toward the end of July I received a charming surprise letter from Mr. Halford, chaffingly reproachful for not giving him a London address when I wrote him of my intention of leaving the “Slavey Co.” and having to discover my whereabouts through Mr. Beryl. As a matter of fact I had expected a reply before I left the “Slavey” and suffered all sorts of heartaches and slights at its non-arrival. by David Belasco. It was the notorious and ‘most talked-about play’ of the 1900 London season. 95 Maud Boyd (née Maud Rachel Boyd Mont, 1867–1929), ‘operatic singer’ and musical theatre performer. 96 Pheemie [sic] Barnes in the original touring cast list of Kitty Grey (1900).

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“Let me have a line reporting progress for despite your fickleness I have still a sort of lingering regard for the prosaic as well as the poetic Kitty -- Ethel was married on the 8th -- and the family consisting of two persons, Hetty and myself. Bernard lives on his houseboat. -- I­ am engaging a Companion, Housekeeper and Chaperon for Hetty and am trying to write in the face of a great sense of loneliness and to make believe that “all things work together for good” -- I am quite well but somewhat fagged with heat and work and for the present cannot look forward to any holiday. The mood of letter writing is not upon me just now and somehow I don’t think I am in magnetic touch with you, for I have not a thought nor a sentiment worthy of transferring save that I am always with true regard, Yours very sincerely, Robert Halford.” “Man lives not on bread alone” and that letter, as many others from Mr. Halford, was a “champagne dinner” to my soul. His whole attitude toward me was a compensation, and more, for the lack of a similar friendly understanding of me in my own father, with whom I gradually developed a great sympathy as I gained more knowledge of the world, and realized how similar troubles and trials affect people differently, according to their own temperament, environment, associations. A “tomboy” from 6 to 15 years of age had been only part of father’s troubles which he resented instead of trying to bear and make the best of. Poor Papa. “Kitty Grey” went along very happily. “The Queen of Musical Comedy” the local press everywhere called it. Early in October, at Stockport, Mr. Michael (Mike) Levenston,97 one of Mr. George Edwarde’s producers, came down, saw the show and called a rehearsal next day when he made slight alterations and improvements, some very much to Maud Boyd’s annoyance, which came to a climax during the evening performance. “I am too ill to go on again,” she said as she came off the stage at the end of the 2nd act, passing a group of us waiting for our next entrance. I had heard that remark too often to get excited over it, but when Arthur Stigant (Stiggie) our stage-manager came and said, “Come along, get ready,” I felt like sinking through the stage. I went livid and the make-up stood away from my face, the girls told me later. Luckily Laura Thompson had a bottle of champagne waiting for an “auspicious occasion” which evidently had arrived, for she opened it to “steady my nerves”. “Kitty’s” next entrance was to bid good-bye to her lover, “Jack” and send him back to his wife, who had come to Kitty under an assumed name to get a lesson in how to keep a husband, and eventually disclosed her identity, begging “Kitty” to “give me back my husband.” “I have not taken him from you,” replied Kitty, and gives her the pearls which Jack had brought her that evening. I confess I expected an “encouraging hand” when I made my entrance, but was greeted with a “loud” silence. It was Friday, the “élite night”, and the house was full, full of an audience disappointed at having an understudy to finish the Michael Levenston (1855–1904), a theatre manager and George Edwardes’s ‘right-hand man’.

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piece. “Jack” and I spoke the dialogue leading up to the “Farewell” duet, which ends with -­ “If love be done and dead, Our love so fair and young, Let nothing more be said, Nor let a dirge be sung. But leave our love among The flowers that fade – and die. With tear and laugh for epitaph: Farewell. Good-bye.” Then the “house came down!” It did my heart good to hear the applause, in which the company in the wings joined. we took the usual encore and finished the show without further mishap. But “Stiggie” was funny, dancing about, repeating “She’s heard your applause, she’ll never let you play again!” However the following week at West Hartlepool Miss Boyd developed a sore throat and played only Monday and Saturday, I playing the other nights, which I heartily loved and enjoyed. Our landlady’s daughter was employed in the box office and told her mother that people who had been in on Monday night and again during the week said, “though Miss Boyd had a wonderfully trained voice they preferred the “other lady” in the part.” My star seemed to be in the ascendant that week, for Mr. Dance offered me the part of “Sadie”, Lady Binfield’s sister in place of Phoemie Barnes who was leaving the company. I was so overjoyed with my success that I wrote and told Mr. Halford all about it. But before he could reply I had to tell him that Mr. Dance had changed his mind, as it meant too many understudies on, should “Kitty” be off. I was brokenhearted, but had to choose between the understudy for “Kitty” and the part of “Sadie”. Mr. Halford’s reply was very sympathetic. “My disappointment on receipt of your second letter with enclosure of Mr. Dance’s letter which I return herewith, was as keen as my sense of pleasure at your previous letter announcing the good news. Surely the stars under whose auspices you were born must have been in dire conflict at that eventful moment, for never has patience, perseverance, true pluck been so ill requited as in your case. My sympathy with you is real and intense. I have a genuine admiration for any fellow-being, male or female, who displays that courage, which under circumstances oft-times difficult, oft-times dark and depressing, never wholly gives up, but after perchance a groaning of the spirit, or it may be the shedding of unseen tears, takes heart again, puts on the old fighting armour, and with the eternal hope which is perhaps the one remaining heritage to the struggling mortal, goes forth again to fight. Such courage you have shown, and must still show. There must be no giving in or giving up, no slacking of purpose. “All things come,” etc., must still be your motto, and “perseverentia omnia vincit”98 your creed and faith.” Dear, old comforter! Perseverentia omnia vincit – perseverance conquers all.

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The blow was also softened by Danny who replaced Phoemie, turning out to be a regular “good sort” who developed into one of my best pals. She and Phoemie were in the original “Kitty Grey” production with Evie Green, whose praises they were never tired of singing. On the last night of the tour, at Grimsby, I played again. Smoking was permitted in the theatre there and Maud Boyd refused to appear, because Saturday night would be worse than any other. Some of our members left for pantomime, while others, including myself, joined the other “Kitty Grey” company at the Crown Theatre, Peckham, a London suburb, the following Monday to replace some of the people who had left that also.

Chapter [XX]VII Kitty Gordon,99 who had understudied Evie Green, played the title role now. She was engaged to be married to Mike Levenston, the producer, and did later marry him. The following week we had more changes in the cast, George Graves, another of Bessie’s brothers, playing the “King of Illyria” whom “Kitty’s” aunt and dresser, “Mrs. Bright” recognizes as “Ernest” who courted her when she was a young circus rider, “Little Zozo”. Ernest III of Illyria comes to court “Kitty Grey” now and does not recognize “ze aunt” and instead of meeting “Kitty”, he finds “Lady Binfield”, who, while left alone in the dressing room, dons “Kitty’s” dress. The King mistakes her for Kitty, making love to her, while “Lady Binfield” gives an awkward imitation of the wiles “Kitty” had taught her, to “fascinate and keep a man”. The King is charmed and gives her the black pearls, intended for the real Kitty. At the party the King gives after the performance, and to which the whole company is invited, as well as Sir John Binfield (Jack) Kitty introduces Jack’s wife as “my cousin Kitty, Kitty the second.” Sir John is horrified, he feels sure she is Edith his wife, but dare not admit it, and has to bear as best he can the King’s ardent advances to her. Strange how men are shocked when their wives play the same game as themselves. On Thursday, December 26 we opened at the New Theatre, Richmond, playing there nine days. The theatre was indeed new, clean and bright with electric lights, very different from grimy, smoky, gassy, old Grimsby and I wished I might have the chance to “shine” here, which lo and behold, I did. On New Year’s night while the overture was playing came the news that Miss Gordon was not well enough to appear. How I reveled in the part! In this town I shared rooms with Ethel Ford, who at the end of the previous tour had invited me to stay at her home, which she shared with her sister, Kittie Goldsack and Jack, her husband.100 They quite made me “one of the family” we Kitty Gordon (1878–1974), a celebrated stage and silent film actor; she married Michael Levenston in 1903. 100 Kittie Goldsack (née Kathleen E.C. Wright, c. 1876). According to the 1901 census, Kate [sic]  99

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having many tastes and characteristics in common. I fitted in most happily for me. The week of February 3rd we played Kingston where I had some jolly reunions with friends, but the weather was so bad we all caught cold and were more like a travelling hospital than a theatrical company, going to Hastings on the following Sunday. On Monday at tea time I felt so ill I decided not to go on that night, when the stage manager called to tell me that I would have to “play”, as Kitty Gordon was laid up in London with “flu”. So there was nothing for it but to buck up and do my best. On the way to the theatre I explained my predicament to a chemist who gave me a bottle of voice tonic which helped considerably. I played the whole week, staying in bed all day saving myself for the evening, going through the part with my back opening and shutting,101 hot and cold perspiration pouring over me alternatively. If that wasn’t “flu” I’d like to know what is. The following week we played at the Broadway Theatre, Deptford, another southeast suburb of London, where I hoped to continue in the part and have some managers and agents to see me, but although my recovery had been more rapid and perfect than Kitty Gordon’s, she played, though under difficulties. Next week in Cardiff I was called upon at a moment’s notice to play “Kitty” at the Saturday matinee, and during the last song saw Kitty Gordon in the dress circle. Luckily I “went” as well as she did. The last week of March we played Derby, the weekend between which and Northampton I spent at Nottingham, with Mr. Halford, Hetty, Bernard and Miss Belle Daniels, the housekeeper and companion-chaperon to Hetty. Miss Daniels had met Nellie Halford in Berlin, had been her guest at “Ashtree” and just fitted into the domestic and social gap left by Ethel’s marriage. She was very pleasant and gracious and we regarded each other with mutual approval. The tour continued happily, taking in Leamington and Coventry, both new and interesting ground to me, learning at the latter more of Lady Godiva, thoroughly approving of the fate that overtook Peeping Tom,102 whose effigy is still at the window. While at Coventry a group of us drove to Kenilworth Castle, spending a happy day reveling in ancient history which always appeals to me. The last two weeks of the tour, the end of April and beginning of May, we played at Balham and Fulham, southern suburbs of London, I joining Ethel Ford with whom I had shared rooms all this tour, at her sister’s, “Little Kittie” as a contrast to “big Kate” (Myself) and Jack at “The Limes” their own house in Balham. Those were happy days of home life for me, in the bosom of the Goldsack family, and their neighbour and friend Mary S. Cochrane, one of the most levelheaded, goodnatured, humorous, witty, happy souls imaginable. Just good sense, Goldsack was living in Balham with her husband, John Ibbotson Goldsack, a secretary to the satirical magazine, Judy, and her sister Ethel F. Wright. 101 Although the KMA renders this as ‘back’, KM probably meant ‘book’, as she was going over her part. 102 He was struck either blind or dead.

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sunshine and healthful joyous breeze personified. A natural disperser of gloom, beloved of all who knew her. We had two months’ vacation, part of which I had promised to spend with Mrs. Buckell in Sheffield, and one week from June 2nd with the Halfords in Nottingham, that being the only convenient time for them to have me. And what a delightful week it was, living with the most kind, charming people, in the lap of luxury and affluence. And to crown all, one day just before lunch as I reveled in the beauty of the conservatory which adjoined the dining room, Mr. Halford entered saying, “Kitty, I hear you are going to spend the afternoon with Bernard on the houseboat.” Then he placed his hands on my shoulders, looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Won’t you try and ‘hook him’ this afternoon. I want to get him off my hands and it would give me the greatest pleasure to have you for a daughter-in-law, and on the day you marry Bernard I’ll settle 1000 pounds a year on you in your own right.” Who can imagine the thrill of surprise, honour, satisfaction, ecstasy, which I experienced! That this man for whom I had developed a reverence embracing all the finest emotions with which one human being can regard another, should want to gather me into his family as a daughter, was a far greater honour and triumph to me than a mere offer of marriage with a “settlement” from any wealthy man. What would my own father say to this? He might even be reconciled to my having gone on the stage. Dear Papa Halford. I thanked him, most inadequately I fear, placing the responsibility of the fulfilment of his hopes upon Bernard. Though I had come to regard marriage as the happiest relationship between a man and woman who loved each other, and had met several charming, congenial men, with any one of whom I felt I could be happy for the rest of my life, I still adhered to my early resolution never to marry, therefore never to encourage any man in that direction. Bernard had never paid me any particular attention, in fact, from casual remarks by his sisters I fancied he was “otherwise engaged”. I fully realized all the material and social advantages I should gain by marrying him, in addition to ending my struggle for an existence, and decided that should he propose and overcome my scruples regarding “dependence” and health, I should be an utter fool not to accept him, especially since his father wished it, the rest of the family evidently liking me and I being perfectly happy among them. So after lunch I set forth in high spirits for the train to Attenborough, where Bernard met and took me to the houseboat, on which my photo already graced the piano, as others did some of the rooms at “Ashtree”. How little we know or suspect the trivialities which shape or mis-shape our destiny! The gramophone and records were ready for me to choose my favourite, if any. I looked through them and picked “The Toreador”, a most popular one of George Edwardes’ musical comedies, from the Gaiety Theatre. I had no idea the wretched thing started with “Keep Off the Grass”, while I was thinking of “My Toreador”. --- “For me he’s fighting. My heart and soul go out to you, my Toreador.” I chuckled inwardly at the ironic humour of the situation

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from my point of view, being by now fairly accustomed to the queer quirks fate had developed a habit of springing on me, but I wondered if the “Hint” meant anything to Bernard. Had his father spoken to him on the subject? Whether or not, it looked as if I had deliberately chosen “Keep off the Grass”, as a warning to keep his distance, anyhow. Not being in love with Bernard, I did not angle for, much less “hook him”, though had he proposed I should have accepted him to please his father, and played the double part of wife and daughter-in-law to the satisfaction of each. However, the Almighty Stage Manager and Producer cast me for very different future parts. Nevertheless, I had a delightful afternoon rowing, after tea with strawberries and cream, while Bernard took it easy and we discussed anything but marriage. Seeing me off at the station to get back to “Ashtree” in time for dinner, he kissed me, which I took as a preliminary to a future proposal. His father always kissed me on meeting and parting as he did all young friends of the family. “An old man’s privilege” he used to say, and on one occasion, Harry, who with his wife, had been at a little gathering at “Ashtree” claimed to be an “old man” too and kissed all the girls on their departure, just like father. I regret to say my visit to Mrs. Buckell, following on my visit to “Ashtree”, was not a success. Though a perfectly charming, hospitable hostess, poor little Bee (Beatrix) Buckell was unhappy, neurotic, dissatisfied with life and everything in it, fed up with England and its social and every other conventionalism. She wished she had gone on the stage and been “free”, instead of getting married; she wished she could go to America, where women had a better time than in England. She envied me the “free and easy” life I led, while she had nothing but conventional home-life, her husband, whom she called by his initials H.S., her dog, John, – such a fine fox terrier, her maid; just a daily round of one thing after another, except on her “at home” day, second Thursday in the month (Bun-scramble, H.S. called the At home). Nothing to amuse her but her music and painting, or a bicycle ride, and one couldn’t go out alone with other men, for fear of scandal, and she couldn’t always get a woman friend to go, only on occasional theatre party when there was a good company at the theatre, and so on, – the daily grouse and grumble. I couldn’t “see” her causes for complaint; she seemed to have everything to make a woman happy including a very handsome husband, evidently devoted to her. To all appearance they were perfectly harmonious, but in the course of pouring out her heart and mind to me, while I was trying to point out her advantages, and hinting that all she needed was a baby to occupy her time and mind. That led to the crux of all her trouble. Her mother had brought her up in such ignorance and “innocence” on sex that she expected marriage to mean merely sharing a home with a man. The physical side was such a shock to her that it left her full of horror and disgust. She lived with H.S. merely to keep up appearances, to avoid scandal, but wondered how much longer she could bear it. The tragedy of sex ignorance and hallucinations!103 I was glad to return to London and the Goldsacks, who had no false ideas on They never had any children.

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the subject and where consequently the atmosphere, though correctly conventional, was more congenial and unrestrained. Their reaction was so different, as for example in the case of the popular postcard of a puppy, sadly contemplating the puddle from a dripping umbrella, wondering, “Will they blame me for that?” Ethel, Kittie and Jack whose family was never complete without a dog and cat, were mirthfully sympathetic, whereas Bee Buckell was shocked and offended at my sending her such a coarse, vulgar postcard openly through the post. Ethel and I continued with “Kitty Grey” Co. starting the Autumn tour on August Bank Holiday, I understudying a new “Kitty”, Berthe Palliser.104 While playing in Plymouth, which I had visited every year with the “Lady Slavey” Co., I was much disturbed one night by the word “peregrination” running through my mind. Repeatedly I was awakened by it. Peregrination, peregrination. I had no recollection of ever hearing it before and wondered at its meaning, until I looked in my dictionary and found that “peregrin” was English for “Wandervogel”. Whether one believes in “prognostication” or not, it was strange that I who had hoped to “settle down” should receive a hint of continued wandering, in Plymouth, where since then I have landed twice from America. Mr. Halford and I continued to correspond and in one letter, dated October 31, 1902, he said, – “­ Today is the anniversary of my wedding, one in the years that are gone starred with a red letter of happiest rejoicing; now a memory, a heartache, an unforgettable void. But the years are gliding swiftly by, and one goes on striving in the whirl and strife of a busy life to dull the sharp edge of grief, and from time to time, in the love and regard of true friends, even temporarily to appear of light heart.” I played “Kitty” quite frequently on this tour, including the whole last week at Reading; after which I went home with Ethel to her sister Kittie, who had sold their house in Balham and moved to a new one in Bedford Park W. I called on Mr. Dance during the following week, hoping for a part in one of his companies. Tommy Ray, his manager, told me I’d find him at rehearsal at the Strand Theatre. My interview with him was very short. He could offer me nothing but chorus and understudy. When I told him it wasn’t fair, he gave parts to people who couldn’t sing and act as well as I and wanted to push me back in the chorus, he said petulantly, “Well, if you don’t like it you know what you can do.” I replied “Very well, good-bye Mr. Dance,” and flounced out of the theatre.

Chapter XXVIII “Here’s a how d’you do!” The second week of December, Christmas and pantomime upon us and I resting.” Feeling pretty sick at heart. Berthe Palliser (n.d.) seems to have had a successful provincial career until around 1905. She was subject to a two-year ‘stalking’ campaign by ‘the scion of an ancient Scottish house’.

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I right away did the round of the agents for any port in a storm and landed on the same day in pantomime chorus, replacing someone who had dropped out at the Camden Theatre, Camden Town. I rehearsed at once and found a very cosy “combined palace” at Mrs. Bird’s, 84 Charington St., a short distance from the theatre. The outstanding feature of this engagement was my meeting with Ida Wynne Westcott,105 daughter of the Coroner for Hackney, and the friendship which developed. Ida was very stagestruck and belonged to an amateur theatrical society. This was her first “professional” engagement and she was impressed with my “career”. I became a regular visitor at her home in Camden Road, opposite to what appeared to me as a beautiful castle, but what she told me was Holloway Prison for women. Except to remark that “things are seldom what they seem,” I gave it no further thought as anything in my life. But, you never know your luck. Both Ida and her father Dr. Wynne Westcott deplored the fact that I, with my physique and health was not married, when I ought to be contributing to the population. Without going into details, I protested I would never marry, but Dr. Wynne Westcott laughed – how could I say that, having met his two sons. I conceded they were charming boys, but younger than I and I couldn’t consent to kidnapping. The younger, still studying medicine, had “galloping consumption”, which carried him off within the next four years and the older, a surgeon, died even earlier. Getting an engagement to follow the pantomime seemed impossible and I could not “eat humble pie” and ask Mr. Beryl to take me back, and certainly not Mr. Dance. As Easter, when the spring tours usually start, drew nearer and nearer, I became distinctly worried, disgruntled and desperate. Dear, thoughtful Mr. Halford sent me five pounds “pocket money” which helped considerably. I economized in every way, even to doing my own washing. My landlady was agreeable to letting my bill run on and I saved by walking almost daily, instead of riding by bus to the agents. An unexpected helping hand and diversion came from one of my old “Lady Slavey” friends with whom I had shared rooms at times. I was going along Leicester Square towards home, when a bus drew up beside me and someone on top called down, inviting me to come up. It was “Eve”, which name will suffice, whom I had not seen for several years. She was a dancer, but now retired from the stage. She invited me home to dinner if I were free, and we spent a pleasant evening exchanging news. She lived in a charming flat in Southampton Row, “kept” by “Adam”, a wealthy man from the North, whom I had met with her in the old days, when they first became acquainted. He was single and deeply in love with “Eve”, but she was married to an actor whom she had not seen nor heard of for six years. Precarious as stage existence was could anyone blame her for accepting “Adam’s” offer, though she felt her position most keenly at times. Both Adam and Eve were most kind and helpful, inviting me to drop in any time; “always enough Ida Grace Wynn Westcott (1875–1933) became a singer. She emigrated to the United States in the same year as KM (1915) and became an American citizen in 1923.

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food for a friend and a drink to cheer you up.” Without benefit of clergy these two were much happier and more congenial that some married couples I know. They visited the United States together and met some of the “best people” there. Dropping in to lunch on one occasion after their return to celebrate a bit of good news of my own, Eve and I indulged in an extra gin and bitters, which released the floodgates of her memory and she told me all about her husband, what a brute he had been, how her baby had died and so forth. Regular “gin and grief”. If only she could find him and be divorced so that she could marry Adam. I noted his name in case I should ever meet him. Some time later I dreamt that I called on Eve and found her weeping over a clock that had fallen all to pieces, which I quite easily put together for her. Nothing wrong with her clock when I did call and I could only interpret the dream as my being instrumental at some time of doing her a good turn. She was about to go America alone to visit her mother who had moved and settled down there, and her two sisters who were playing there. During her absence, while looking in “The Era” one day I saw her husband’s name among the deaths. Not knowing Eve’s address in America, I cut the whole “Births, Marriages and Deaths” column out and sent it to Adam at his home in Yorkshire. In due time I received a picture postcard from Eve of the “White House” from Washington, thanking me for the news. I certainly had done a good turn, for Adam rushed to America, married Eve and took her home to his mother, on whom she made quite a good impression. Except for Eve’s burst of confidence I should never have known her husband’s name, she would never have heard of his death, nor made an honest man of Adam. Queer chain of circumstances.

Chapter XXIX But to return to my own affairs. On the Wednesday before Easter I chanced to meet a girl who had been in the Sheffield pantomime with me, and who told me, she being too short, of a tall soprano for chorus being needed in “La Toledad”,106 with which her husband was rehearsing. “La Toledad!” I had read such glowing accounts of its forthcoming production, such a galaxy of “stars”, Georgina Delmar of the Royal Italian Opera, Alec Marsh of the Carl Rosa Opera Co., Emily Soldene, a “star” in her zenith some thirty years ago, making her reappearance, Charles Collette, a high class comedian, brotherin-law of Lady Bancroft; Mary Collette, his daughter; Roland Cunningham who had played “Sir John Binfield” in the “Kitty Grey” Co. which I had joined that one week at Peckham, and others.107 This was an English version by Augustus Moore (journalist and playwright, 1856–1910) of the French operetta La Toledad by Edmond Audran. 107 Georgina Delmar (née Georgina Edith Bessie Delmar Cavendish, 1875–1948), opera singer 106

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I had been eating my heart out with envy reading about it. Why could not I be one of them? And here was “Hoggie” short for Hogan, persuading me not to be a fool, turning up my nose at the chorus in such a lovely company. No, I wouldn’t go. We mooched about all day until about five o’clock when she had to meet her husband at the stage door of the Shaftesbury Theatre, where I had rehearsed with “Kitty Grey”. There something seemed to draw me in. Giving the doorkeeper an agent’s name, he let me pass. Rehearsal was just finished and tomorrow’s journey to Windsor, afternoon rehearsal there, and other details were being discussed. Two girls whom I knew slightly, but had no idea that they were in this show, hailed me at once with “Oh, Kitty Marion, are you coming with us?” which of course drew attention to me, and Roland Cunningham came forward to greet me. I told them I had heard they wanted a soprano, but that I wasn’t keen on going back in the chorus. But Cunningham said “Oh, come along, this is no ordinary chorus, this is a family party,” and introduced me to Mr. Augustus Moore, the part author, proprietor and manager of the company, who in turn introduced me to the musical director Mr. H.E. Baker who took me up and down a scale on the piano, said “very nice” and gave me words and music to take home and study. Mr. Moore told me the salary was thirty-five shillings, and the time of the train call in the morning. I asked him for the understudy for the leading part and he laughed “For heaven’s sake let me produce my show before you ask for understudy; if there is anything suitable you shall have it.” I was walking on air and but for hugging the roll of words and music I would have considered it all a beautiful dream. Such joy after two months of “grizzling!” On my way home I dropped in on Eve and she rejoiced with me. My landlady was glad too, though sorry to lose me. Such exhilaration to be packing up and going “on the road” once more. Arriving at Windsor station, Mr. Moore told me to ask Mr. Robertson the stage manager to give me Miss Somebody’s lines as she was not coming. The lines, which always got a laugh, were those spoken by a dresser, getting very confused over “my lady” and “Miss” when congratulating a chorus girl on her marriage to “Lord Shoeford”, with which the play opens at the “Union Theatre of Varieties”. “La Toledad” is the star of a troupe of Spanish dancers which is owned by “her aunt, La Maracona”, played by Emily Soldene. We rehearsed in the afternoon and Friday and Saturday, opening on Monday. My little part was easy enough, natural nervousness being quite helpful in it, and the charming, tuneful music by Edmund Audran of “Olivette”, “La Mascotte”, “La Cigale” and “La Poupée” fame, I picked up easily through the kindly help of the three girls I shared rooms with. The week at Windsor was really to “polish up” the show for the following, at the Kennington Theatre, London. and musical theatre performer; Alec Marsh (n.d.), for many years lead baritone with the Carl Rosa Opera Company; Emily Soldene (1838–1912), singer, actress, director, theatre manager, novelist and journalist; Charles Henry Collette (1842–1924), noted comic actor; Mary Effie Collette (1871–1961), comedienne, vocalist and musician; Roland Macquarie Cunningham (1872–1958), actor and singer.

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During the second act at the dress rehearsal, Mr. Moore who was busily buzzing round at the front of the house and the back of the stage, came to me and said, “Who are you? I don’t seem to recognize you.” I explained, and he said, “You look so different; you look beautiful from the front; why can’t you look like this off the stage?” (How reminiscent of the “Lady Slavey” dress rehearsal.) “Because I don’t dress and “make-up” like this off the stage,” I replied. Here I was at Ostend in the latest Parisian toilette, calling on “Lady Shoeford”. I couldn’t do that “off the stage” on 35 bob a week. How disappointed some of the “Johnnies” must have been who were attracted by my appearance on the stage, to meet a comparatively “plain Jane, and no nonsense” off. Though the production was a great success, we rehearsed every morning to rub up different parts. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, much to my disgust, several very smart looking girls came from London to sing for the understudy, for the title role, and on Thursday during the first act Mr. Moore surprised and delighted me with, “If you’ll understudy the “Maracona” you can have “La Toledad” as well; nobody wants to understudy the ‘old woman’.” Old or young, it was all the same to me, and I was almost letter perfect in both parts. The charm of Windsor, the Thames and vicinity were enhanced considerably by my good fortune. Our visit to Windsor Castle and St. George Chapel, was most interesting and inspiring, historically. On Thursday of the following week at the Kennington Theatre we had our first understudy rehearsal, I taking “La Toledad” and “La Maracona”. On Friday while the overture was on and I ready for my own bit in the opening, the wardrobe mistress, who attended to Miss Soldene, came to tell me that the latter had not arrived and would not have time to dress and make-up if she did, so I had better change into her dress and be ready to go on. Asking my understudy to speak my lines, I hurried off with the wardrobe mistress who helped me into Miss Soldene’s dress, and was just in time to light a cigarette and dash on, – the fierce, haughty, temperamental Maracona putting the fear of herself into her troupe, declaring her love for “Antonio” her leading man (Alec Marsh) who hated her as much as he loved her niece, “La Toledad”. Towards the end of the act, Toledad, driven to desperation by the tyranny of her aunt, runs away with a professed lover, Cosmo Lombard (Roland Cunningham), a stock broker who, for financial reasons of his own wants to remove the chief attraction from the Union Theatre. At the news of Toledad’s flight, the Maracona, with much excitement and singing in the finale, faints. Everybody was surprised at my coming-to to take the call. They thought I had really fainted. What a thrilling, exciting time when the curtain was down, and everybody congratulating me. Mr. Moore rushed through the iron door and kissed my hand, as he thanked me for “saving his show”. He had been surprised when I made my entrance instead of Miss Soldene. Her letter saying she was not well enough to play that night, came by the last post, about 9 o’clock. Poor old thing, only the previous night, standing near her, waiting for an entrance, the wardrobe mistress who was with her, introduced me to her. I bowed with due deference to an old lady and a great star, while she tossed her head and snapped her fingers in my face. In the second act everybody had followed the fugitives to Lombard’s villa in

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Ostend, where all tangles were straightened, La Maracona giving up Antonio to Toledad, consoling herself with “Tom Lightfoot” (Charles Collette), “manager of the Union Theatre”. Triumphant as the evening had been, it finished in a storm of tears as soon as I reached the dressing room. What caused these violent reactions in me? Everybody was living at home in London, except I, who stayed all alone in the same rooms, a few doors from the theatre, facing Kennington Park, I had occupied in my early “Kitty Grey” days. The next morning I received a letter. “Dear Miss Marion: I beg to offer you the part of La Maracona for the rest of the tour and if satisfactory to you I should be pleased to double your salary. If this is agreeable to you I shall be glad if you will confirm it by letter. Faithfully yours Augustus M. Moore.”

Chapter XXX Then the previous night was not a mere dream, as it seemed when I awakened. Mr. Moore told me there had been several important people in front who were delighted with my performance. I felt that my chorus days were over and I at last on the high road to success. The next week we played at the Avenue Theatre, Sunderland, where I had been so often, sometimes twice a year, with the “Lady Slavey” and once with “Kitty Grey”, playing the part there the previous year. Of course I wrote my good news at once to Mr. Halford and his reply came by return of post. “Your letter gives me much joy. Singularly, I was down at Brighton on business for a few hours on Wednesday last when your name turned up in conversation with Beryl. I have never quite forgiven him, and I am sorry to say, the recollection of his want of real appreciation of your work in the “Slavey” leads me to the conclusion, much as I like the man in many respects, that he is tainted with that hard selfishness and indifference to those with whom they have been associated, that I fear is only too common in the theatrical world. However, we will not dwell upon the demerits of others, but content ourselves with a happy feeling of satisfaction that you are at last recognized as being capable of something outside chorus and I am quite sure that it will not be Kitty’s fault if she does not improve the occasion. You raise a blush on my youthful cheek when you say that to me you owe some share of the success because I acted the unseen friend during, or in part of the recent time of waiting. It is generous of you to speak so kindly of the little service rendered, but this at least I hope you will always understand that you have my sincere regard always, and my best wishes ------- Miss Daniel and Hetty are both truly delighted with your success and both join me in warm remembrances of friendship.”

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The following week we went to the Theatre Royal, Sheffield, and what was my surprise, but shock to some, to see my name “starred” in place of Emily Soldene, with Georgina Delmar, Alec Marsh and Charles Collette. What a joke! And what a row there was that night when some of the company met Mr. Moore who had come down from London. The idea of starring an understudy, a chorus girl, when that prestige should have fallen to Roland Cunningham, who was next in importance to the others. Mrs. Baker, the musical director’s wife, whose husband had been present, told me all about it on Monday. I was greatly amused. I knew I should not last long starred, under the circumstances. Talk about jealousy among women! It seems that Mr. Moore, a brilliant journalist and editor, was rather an amateur at theatrical management, had simply telegraphed the change of names to Sheffield. The following week at Manchester and thereafter Roland Cunningham was starred. Still, I had a pleasant week staying with H.S. and Bee Buckell who felt quite proud and distinguished among their friends, to have one of the “leading actresses” from the Royal as their guest. Being a “principal” now, I shared a dressing room with Mary Collette, who played “Lady Shoeford”. Mary, a piquant little brunette, and I were as sociable, congenial and alike in our tastes as we were unlike in appearance, and most happy together. She and her father were just a couple of darlings. When we returned to London they invited me to their home in Chelsea, where Mrs. Collette gave me a standing invitation to tea and supper on Sundays, of which I took full advantage, spending many delightfully happy evenings and meeting many charming people, including Lady Bancroft,108 Mrs. Collette’s sister and Ernest Bryant, Mary’s future husband, who was clerk to Queen Alexandra, and whom Mary married later. After Manchester we played Brighton, Peckham and Southport, finishing the tour, surprised and disappointed at no further bookings, the reason for which I shall come to later. I returned to Mrs. Bird in Charington Street, resuming my trampings to the agents, again taking short cuts through slums which exercised a weird fascination and repulsion over me. The filthy hovels, broken windows stuck together with paper, or the holes filled with rags, the wall of passages I saw through open doors in passing, were thick with grime as if they had not been cleaned since they were built. The women lounging about in doorways and on steps, gossiping, were ragged, unwashed, unkempt. Children of all ages, some tiny tots just able to walk, playing and rolling in the gutter, yelling to each other much in the same foul language used by their elders. “Come ’ere you, Johnny, you ’ear me, come ’ere or I’ll break yer bloody neck!” “I’ll kill ye, if ye don’t come out o’ that gutter, gettin’ yerself all dirty.” As if he possibly could have got himself more dirty than he was. Babies in play chortling “tome ’ere ’ou boody sod!” Some of them quite pretty in spite of their dirty faces, bodies and rags. Nearly everywhere in the provinces I had seen slums, but here I saw the same slums so frequently and was more deeply impressed by them. The “poor” who had puzzled me at the Christmas Marie Effie Bancroft (née Wilton, 1839–1921), an eminent actor and theatre manager with her husband, Squire Bancroft. She became Lady Bancroft following his knighthood in 1897.

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Figure 1  Playbill for La Toledad, starring Kitty Marion, Theatre Royal, Sheffield, 4 May 1903.

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fête in Germany seemed like spick and span, well-to-do citizens compared to the very abject poverty of these people. What could you expect from children bred, born and brought up in such invironment? How could landlords tolerate such tenants, turning their property into slums? For the well-being of the country I felt these slums should be abolished, and the people, particularly the children, rescued from them. But how? I often broached the subject among friends only to be advised not to worry about it, landlords didn’t as long as they received their rent regularly, and the people were perfectly happy living like that, not being accustomed to anything better. It would be foolish to relieve them of the burden and responsibility of their children, the latter, I suggested to be placed in good homes, no institutions, which from what I had heard and read of them, were anathema to me, but with families where it would be convenient to look after an extra child or two. Expenses to be defrayed by the government or philanthropists who had the well-being of humanity in general and children in particular at heart. “If I were a millionaire, that is how I would spend my money,” I used to say, only to be laughed at for wanting to waste good money on a lot of ne’er-do-wells, or called unnatural, wanting to take children away from the parents who “loved them”. Love them! how could anyone who loved children bring them into such hellish slums? “Kitty, you are quite mad, wanting to turn this earth into heaven; you can’t do it, conditions have always been like this and always will be” – different friends used to tell me in such and similar words, when I would insist conditions could be altered and this world be made more like heaven than hell, as it was now for most people. As I passed “through the halls of joy, through the haunts of woe”, during this enforced period of resting, the difference and injustice in conditions between the rich, the poor and very poor became more deeply than ever impressed upon me. In July I spent another glorious week with the Halford family in Nottingham, without however making any apparent progress towards becoming Mr. Halford’s daughter, though he treated me as one, and always called on me to play the good fairy at lunch or dinner whenever business brought him to London. Bernard sent me his photograph, and different ones of the houseboat. He also wrote to say that father and the family were away, he had curtailed on smoking and strong liquors, consequently saved a “crispy” which, if I needed it just to say the word. “I mean it, joking apart.” Was he making advances? Mr. Moore rewrote “La Toledad”, eliminating several parts, stringing the best musical numbers together into a sketch for the music halls, to open at the Palace Theatre, London, on October 19, for four weeks. Georgina Delmar and I were the only two of the original principals left. My spirits soared tremendously as a member of a company “topping the bill” at the Palace, and the applause for my song, which Mary Collette sang originally, was music to my soul. The Referee, not distinguishing names on the program said, “Miss Somebody sang smartly a developable ditty with the refrain ‘It all depends on how you wrap it up’”, which seemed to me like genuine press appreciation, and most encouraging.

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Figure 2  The Ladies of Ostend in La Toledad, Palace Theatre, London. Kitty Marion, fourth from the left, in the back row. The Tatler, 18 November 1903. Once more everything looked like plain sailing when another devastating hurricane struck me. The London Theatrical Managers Association brought an action against the Palace Theatre for producing a stage play without a licence. It was quite usual for music halls minus a dramatic licence to play sketches, or small stage plays, without anyone invoking the law against them. Of course there was consternation among all whom it concerned on the halls, and the Palace, according to law, losing the case, creating a precedent. Who ever had their knife into the Palace? Well it was not the Palace, but Augustus Moore, who some years earlier had written a play, submitted it to George Edwardes, who declined it two years later as not suitable. His next production was so like Mr. Moore’s play that the latter sued Mr. Edwardes and was awarded damages which he invested in the production of “La Toledad”. Mr. Edwardes, one of the most powerful men in the theatrical profession, promptly brought “brotherly love” to bear upon Augustus Moore, in theatrical and music hall enterprise, with the result of eliminating him therefrom. The bludgeons of chance! Talking of brotherly love, Mr. Lionel Monkton, famous author of musical comedies, was the husband of the then Gaiety star Gertie Miller (later Countess Dudley) and brother of Mrs. Augustus Moore.109 During the month at the Palace many old friends turned up to congratulate me on my success (Ye Gods!) among them “Muddy” as her two children and friends Lionel Monckton (1861–1924), a prominent composer and lyricist for musical theatre; Gertie Millar (1879–1952), one of the biggest musical comedy stars of the Edwardian period; Justina Mary Moore (née Monckton, 1859–1915), a novelist.

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called her, one of my old “Kitty Grey” pals, whose husband had been in the original Lady Slavey Co., and whom she divorced. “Muddy” and a friend were doing a double turn on the halls; why didn’t I try the halls? So many people had suggested it, “with your voice and appearance it would be easy,” and having gone well at the Palace I saw no reason why I should not do the same as a single turn anywhere. So, more or less under the wing of Muddy who was being initiated into the ways of the music halls, I set about getting dresses, songs, band parts, etc. Money to pay for them, of course, was the greatest difficulty, and there was nothing for it, but to explain the situation to Mr. Halford and ask him for a loan, which arrived by return of post with an I.O.U. for me to sign, – just as a matter of business. Pantomime season was upon us again and I tried to get in somewhere until I could be ready for the halls, but to no avail. It was awful to be “resting” at Christmas. Mr. Halford as usual sent me an enormous, delicious Melton Mowbray pie, and Bernard a bottle of “Bollinger”, which Muddy and I cracked sometime later when she came to tell me of some good luck by way of dates booked. What I lacked in professional engagements, I made up in social, all my friends being most kind and encouraging. Mr. Augustus Moore gave me permission to sing the song I had sung at the Palace, which was most useful and always a success. Mr. Charles Collette gave me a song of his own – “The Happy Go Lucky Brigade”. “Our motto is good fellowship and glory. We freely give and spent, we ne’er desert a friend. When a pal is down we don’t refuse him aid.” And Mrs. Collette pressed many a half-sovereign in my hand, “until the weather breaks”. Ethel Ford and Kittie Goldsack had a good standard speech, “How are you off for money, Kate? I can let you have a few shillings to be going on with.” And Eve, Danny, Ida Wynne Westcott and others all did their best to tide me over. In the meanwhile I was doing extra turns, benefit and charity performances, to which I invited agents, by letter and personal calls, to see me, but they never answered letters, and were usually too busy to see a new, unknown turn, or if I saw them in their offices, instead of talking business, they veered off to impertinent personalities, “weekends”, and the old gag, “are you married?” till I felt utterly nauseated, and was glad to get out into the fresh air. They had no use for women who merely wanted legitimate work. I found that most women had to run the gauntlet in the same way. Heartsick and disgusted, I wondered sometimes why life was made so difficult for women; what was the use of struggling on when the odds were all against one, why not end it all with one plunge? Then I would remember the advantages that had been mine -- and would be again. Encouraging words of Mr. Halford and other friends would spur me on. I gritted my teeth and determined that somehow I would fight this vile, economic and sex domination over women which has no right to be, and which no man or woman worthy of the term should tolerate.

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Chapter XXXI At last, in March my luck turned. I saw an advertisement of a new firm, “The Howard Vaudeville Circuit”. I lost no time in calling and found two quite decent, business-like men, Prof. Charles Howard110 and Mr. Cowper Smith, who were starting their “circuit” by opening a music hall, the “Empire”, at Cambridge, on April 4th, for which they engaged me to do two turns, wearing different dresses and singing two different songs at each performance, Salary £5. Corn in Egypt! What better place to “graduate” at than Cambridge? Quite a successful week to the satisfaction of the management and company, one of whom, a clever actress of Dickens part, I met again later. Unfortunately, Professor Howard’s Dramatic and Musical Agency seemed to have no booking influence with other managements. From Mr. Halford came a letter, May 8th, in which among cheery things he said --­ “I note that the work you are so anxious to find and willing to do has not yet come, and if one was disposed to wonder why, one has only to glance down the advertising columns of the ‘Era’ to find an answer. I should think it is many years since the Theatrical Profession generally was in such poor straits as it is at the present time, and the number of the unemployed, both male and female, was surely never so great. ---- Poor Nellie Beryl, she must be feeling sick at heart at so long an enforced idleness, and I have heard more than one female number of your profession say lately – ‘No wonder that I cannot find work if N.B. with her father’s influence is still out.’” -- Hard on Nellie, but she had a good home. So, while continuing on the treadmill round the agents, etc., I noticed that Billie Reeves of Edinburgh days, was playing in a Fred Karno111 show at the Royal Holborn.112 I called on him and he was delighted to see me. “Of course” he would give me an introduction to Mr. Harry Ketteman, the manager, with the result that I gave a trial turn and procured a week’s work, May 23rd, at a salary of £2, which I accepted on the argument. “You want to be seen in London, don’t you?” Ida Wynne Westcott came to see me and was delighted. A man sitting near her remarked, “Oh, what a pretty girl,” as I entered and led the applause. Dropping in to tea at Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Moore’s in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, as I often did, I found them very pleased at my having a chance at last, and Mr. Moore helped me in constructing an advertisement, quoting former press notices, to insert in theatrical papers. Everybody was so kind, helpful and constructive, except the “powers that be”. ‘Professor’ was used in the theatre by comedians, saloon pianists and Punch and Judy men. Fred Karno (né Frederick John Westcott, 1866–1941), music hall impresario, credited with originating the slapstick comedy which characterised silent film comedy. 112 Royal Holborn Theatre of Varieties, one of the most popular music halls in London. 110 111

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Several agents saw my turn and Jack Munro of Willand’s Agency wanted to be my “sole agent”. On Thursday night Mr. Ketteman brought me a message from a Mr. Browning, an agent, asking me to meet him at the Empire Palace, Camberwell, after I had finished my turn, as he could book me an immediate date with Mr. Sparrow, the manager. Presently Mr. Munro came round, complaining that he had heard I was going to let another agent book me for Camberwell, but as he was going to be my sole agent he would take me to see Mr. Sparrow, so when I had finished, I drove with him and a friend, a Mr. Aplin of Hyman’s Agency to Camberwell. He promised me no end of bookings, including South Africa and the Continent. What castles I built – the Continent, Germany! Mr. Browning, whom I had not met before was waiting at the Palace and very angry at my bringing other agents when he had arranged to book me with Mr. Sparrow, while neither he nor the others made any attempt to see Mr. Sparrow, who, it so happened, came into the vestibule just as Mr. Browning was leaving, in a huff. I knew him by sight and immediately introduced myself and explained the situation to him. He listened courteously but had never heard of me, much less had a date for me. (I did play his hall two years later.) My chagrin and disappointment were indescribable. Mr. Munro was sorry and sympathetic and promised to see what he could do later. He was driving to Waterloo Station; could he give a lift towards home? I accepted, but soon had to fight off his caresses and kisses. I felt like killing the whole vile tribe, who, it was plainly evident had engineered the incident to see how I would react. Needless to say, they dropped me like a hot cinder. Three weeks later I gave a turn at a trial matinee on June 17 at the Britannia, where I met Mr. Sam Bury of the Thomas Barrasford113 tour, who offered me “Monday next” at the Pavilion Glasgow, Pavilion Newcastle, the week after at £4 per week. Mr. Bury asked me to call at the office after the matinée to sign the contract, which I did, when he wanted to kiss me. I told him not to be silly and tried to “chaff him off”, as I had been advised by other artists as a better way of handling such a situation, instead of becoming indignant. I said I’d kiss him when I returned from the north. Much as I wanted the work, I walked towards the door, not waiting for the counterpart of my contract, when he followed me and threw his arms around me, refusing to let me go until I kissed him. “All right,” I said, and gave him what he called a peck on the cheek and dashed out. I felt sick, nauseated. How dared men take such brutal advantage of their economic power oven women! Under the circumstances I feared the dates would fall through, but the contract arrived by post the following morning, and though I went well at both halls, Mr. Bury only gave me one more date, another “Monday next” at the Regent Theatre, Salford, Manchester, instead of the whole tour of fifteen weeks. Sam[uel] Bury (d. 1909), a variety agent. Thomas Barrasford (1860–1910), the managing director of a chain of halls, who, according to the Era, would ‘give the artist as much as twenty one weeks’ work every year [so] there was keen competition to get on his tour, for it meant a comfortable time and the money was good’.

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Some time later while discussing him and others of his ilk, as we often did in the dressing room, one of a sister turn told me she had “got used to it,” that when first she resented this same Sam Bury’s overtures, he laughed at her and said “I’ve had your sister, why shouldn’t I have you?” In Newcastle I tried to settle for Pantomime with the head of a syndicate owning several leading theatres in the country, at which I had played yearly with the “Lady Slavey”. Yes, he remembered me, but hummed and hawed, and wasn’t quite sure if he had any vacancies. At last he said with a leer, “you know I have my ladies back year after year if they are kind to me and do as I ask them!” “So I have heard, good morning, Mr W--”, I replied and took my departure. While in Newcastle I did settle several future dates direct at independent halls in nearby towns at £5 -- and one for July 11th at Hartlepool after which, on the advice of a fellow artist from Liverpool I went with her to try my luck at some of the suburban halls there, at one of which she was playing the following week. Mr. James Kiernan and Mr. James Crowther, the joint proprietors thereof, two gentlemen, the like of whom the profession needs more, booked me their two halls at £2‑10 each for August 1st and 8th, and return dates with a raise of £1 per week, the two first weeks of January. Through local agents I booked another local hall for an immediate and later date. Two months I stayed in Liverpool until I was due at Gateshead and Byker early in September. I found most comfortable accommodation in Greek Street with a Jewish family who had escaped from pogroms in Russia, and I thoroughly enjoyed Mrs. Lewis’s chicken soup with homemade noodles, “gefüllten Fisch”114 and other delicious Jewish dishes. Of course I had reported progress to Mr. Halford and when I was about to leave for Gateshead I wrote him at Sherringham, where he, Hetty and Miss Daniells were staying, and though I received no reply from him, Miss Daniells wrote “Hearing from Mr. Halford that you are still in Liverpool I am writing you before you leave for Gateshead” -­ Strange that he did not write. After Byker, I returned to London and reported “vacant dates” at Mr. Bury’s outer office, without seeing him. To my surprise a contract came for October 3rd at the Regent, Salford, where I had played in “Kitty Grey”. As I had to pass through Nottingham I decided to go on the Saturday before my date, break my journey, surprise Mr. Halford at his office and perhaps have lunch with him. I arrived there just in time. His brougham was about to leave, pick him up at the bank and take him to lunch. He was the most happily surprised man when he stepped in and found me there. The fairies were indeed kind, but where had I sprung from, and why my long silence? When I reproached him with not answering my letter, giving him my change of address, he said he had not received it. “My child, you know how delighted I would have been to write and wish you success.” How could I tell him of Miss Daniell’s letter and upset the harmony of his gefüllten Fisch – gefilte fish; usually served as fish patties, a traditional dish in Ashkenazi Jewish households.

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household? If he was surprised to see me, Miss Daniells was considerably more so though in a different way. Since I was not due in Salford until 2 o’clock on Monday for band rehearsal, Mr. Halford insisted I should stay the week-end. While telling him of the troubles and trials of a music hall artist, he asked, would an introduction to Mr. (later Sir) Oswald Stoll115 be of any use to me. Heavens, the dear, old Innocent! He did not know that it was the height of every variety artist’s ambition to have an introduction to Mr. Stoll and play the Moss and Stoll halls, the biggest tour in the country. Well, as he was Mr. Stoll’s banker, he might have a little influence with him. He would write him and let me know the result. He had met Mr. Stoll on the train going to London once, had invited him to lunch and offered him champagne and a cigar, but Mr. Stoll neither drank nor smoked. Queer chap -- he wondered what his vices were? I had never heard of any, but if trying to “corner the market”, as I learned later he tried to do is a vice, Mr. Stoll had it.

Chapter XXXII At the Regent, Salford, Houdini, the famous “Handcuff King”116 topped the bill. There was also Dave Marion,117 an American comedian, and when I arrived at the theatre the baggage men promptly seized my home trunk to take to Mr. Marion’s rooms and were surprised when I objected, and told them that the gentleman was not my husband, as they thought. I hadn’t even seen him. During the week, Mr. Halford sent me Mr. Stoll’s reply, requesting me to send my application, vacant dates and lowest terms. The latter Mr. Halford suggested at £6 per week as a fair sum. He also read me a severe lecture on “the married man with a grievance” whom I met at Newcastle, and joked about. Mr. Halford often teased me for not having any sweetheart, any affinity, except an “ancient admirer”, an “ancient lover”, a “father confessor” – himself --­so when I met very much “misunderstood”, henpecked Fred – whose father, an alderman and wealthy ship owner, had compelled him to marry a woman older than himself, to “tame him”, he seemed to become wilder. How happy he could be with me, why didn’t I give up the stage and let him keep me, how different it would be to come home to me and be happy instead of being led a dog’s life by his wife, he would never go home except for his little boy and girl whom he loved devotedly, and so forth. Poor Freddy, I laughed at him, told him not to make a fool of himself, to be a good boy and “play the game”, of course I felt sorry for him and all that, but couldn’t think of “understudying” his wife, I didn’t like her part. We had Oswald Stoll (1866–1942), co-founder of the Stoll-Moss Group and the Royal Variety Performance. The Stoll-Moss syndicate dominated employment in the music hall and variety theatres from the end of the nineteenth century. 116 Harry Houdini (1874–1926), the renowned magician and escapologist. 117 Dave [David] Marion (c. 1864–1934), a burlesque actor and producer. 115

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Figure 3  Playbill, showing Kitty Marion on the bill with Houdini, Regent Theatre of Varieties, Salford. 3 October 1904.

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met quite casually at the theatre among a group of artists of both sexes and some friends of the manager, when he reminded me of meeting me with his wife when they visited a friend of the latter in the “Kitty Grey” company at West Hartlepool when I played “Kitty” and he had admired me ever since. I had forgotten, at which he seemed hurt, the incident until he recalled it. “You evidently were not impressed with me,” he pouted. “Evidently not,” I laughed back. He was a jovial, merry, witty soul, a great general favourite. So, when I joked about this handsome, wealthy man, this “lover”, I had found at last, who would give me a home, if everything else failed, Mr. Halford took it seriously and wrote me his opinion – “The man who is mean enough to decry his own wife and still live with her, always proves a cad, a snob and a blackguard. A gentleman would respect himself too much to discuss such a situation with anyone. Surely you can find an unencumbered one to adopt you!!!!” Of course Mr. Halford was right, even in the face of extenuating circumstances, yet the world seemed very lenient toward that kind blackguard especially if he was rich and good looking. As for finding someone “unencumbered to adopt me” I had never tried, beyond showing him, without overstepping the bounds of property118 and in maidenly modesty in vogue, that his “adoption” of me would be most welcome. I returned to London and stayed with “Eve”, who was lonely, “Adam” having gone shooting in Scotland. Freddy continued to write, begging me to join him. I was becoming more and more disgusted with the struggle for existence on commercial terms of sex, and seriously considering the preference of living with a man who professed to love me, to being at the mercy of so many who hinted, expected, even demanded sex submission, as well as coin of the Realm in commission, as an inducement to procure work for one. I had one date, November 14, booked, at North Shields, near Newcastle and return dates in January at Liverpool. Mr. Stoll sent me contracts for the Empire, Nottingham, December 5 and Palace Leicester, December 12, two weeks instead of the whole tour, which I had hoped for and which would have given me a chance of recovering my financial equilibrium. So far it was nothing but getting deeper into debt, the “lean” swallowing the “fat” weeks, and I felt thoroughly “fed up”. Mr. Halford invited me to stay a few days at Ashtree, on my way to North Shields, and he was just as nice and hopefully encouraging as ever, but to me it seemed like merely holding out hope of future grass, the growing of which looked doubtful, to a starving horse. Somehow I could not make Mr. Halford see the situation, the difficulties of getting work, from my point of view. He rather seemed to enjoy and applaud my “heroic struggle”, which was getting on my nerves. Though naturally reluctant to throwing my principles overboard and accepting Freddy’s “proposal” as any port in a storm, I wrote to Mr. Halford telling him that I saw no other way out. I posted my letter in Nottingham, hoping for a telegram the next day in North Shields, dragging me back from the abyss over which I appeared to be going. Presumably, ‘propriety’.

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Freddy met at the theatre on Monday night and was nonplussed at the “extra coat of ice” I had on, apparently very disappointed when I told him not to meet me again, that the relationship he suggested was impossible. We travelled the short journey from North Shields to Newcastle, where I was staying, together but at the station I insisted on going home alone though I permitted him to come to tea on Wednesday, to “talk it over”. Next morning came a letter from Mr. Halford, the most cruel letter, it seemed to me, ever written. He not only expressed his opinion of the man, but of the woman, which was much worse, who would live together under such circumstances, and forbade me all future association with any member of his family and household. I have not kept that letter, so cannot quote from it, but I answered immediately, resenting the eagerness with which he cast the first stone at me for a sin which so far I had not commited. He ought to have known me better. For once in my life I had no tears. I felt too stunned. My eyes were dry and burning. Luckily I had my work to occupy my mind, and in Ethel Ford who was playing at the Tyne Theatre that week, I had a sympathetic soul to pour my heart out to. She had met Mr. Halford on our journey from Oxford to Reading with “Kitty Grey” and they were mutually charmed. He had been to Oxford on business and was going on to London, so Ethel and I shared his carriage as far as Reading. Ethel and other friends who knew of Mr. Halford always said I ought to marry him, never mind Bernard, and now Ethel said at once “he’s jealous, that’s all, evidently hadn’t the courage to ask you himself and is angry at someone else wanting you. Why did you tell him about Freddy, it was none of his business whatever you did.” That was the attitude of all my worldlywise friends, “never tell a man anything, let him find out for himself.” And situated as I was, none would blame me for “making hay” while I had the chance. That was all very well but I had no inclination to make that kind of “hay”. “Every heart knoweth its own sorrow,” and mine felt heavy with an unspeakable pain. I hoped for a relenting letter from Mr. Halford, but none came. It was difficult to realize that my beautiful world of perfect Platonic love of which he had been the Deity, had come to an end, and instead of an anticipated rescue from a precipice, he had given me a blow that might have sent me over. However, pride and sense of humour helped me to sustain me. On Wednesday, thank the Lord, I was spared the “Good-bye for Ever” scene with Freddy. Early in the afternoon I received a telegram from him to the effect that he was leaving for London on business for his father, and would see me on his return next Monday. Just as I opened the telegram, a hurdy gurdy outside struck up “The Gypsy’s Warning” – “Do Not Trust Him, Gentle Lady.” How I laughed! Appropriate perhaps, I thought but quite unnecessary. I bade him a “final” farewell in my reply to his letter from London, which was forwarded to me. He little dreamed of my loss of which he had been the unconscious cause, and which strengthened my determination to avoid all sex entanglements. Having two weeks out before opening at the Empire, Nottingham, I thought it best to spend them there, but instead of an honoured guest at Ashtree, I was very

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much Peri outside Paradise,119 economizing, in a combined room, “The ups and downs of a donkey’s life!”120 I did quite well at the Empire and the Nottingham “Daily Guardian” called me a “vocalist of the ‘legitimate’ order”. The following week the Leicester “Daily Mercury” said, “Miss Kitty Marion is a vocalist of the higher type, and it is pleasing to note how greatly music hall audiences appreciate the better class music when it is put before them. Kitty Marion delighted the house with the well-known ‘Carnival’ and was encored so enthusiastically, that she had to give another, ‘In Sunny Spain’.”

Chapter XXXIII On to Liverpool, where a stroke of good luck came my way. On Dec. 29th, Mr. Kiernan, at whose halls I should have opened on January 2nd, asked me to see the performance of Mr. Leslie Norman’s “Trip to Chinatown”121 Co. at the Metropole Theatre, Birkenhead just across the Mersey, with a view to at once taking up the leading part, Mrs. Guyer. The leading lady had left for pantomime and the understudy was hopeless. I brought home the part, rehearsed Friday and Saturday, watched the show at night, and opened with it the following Monday at Burnley. Everybody was delighted and surprised, wondered how I did it. One of the comedians complimented me with “You’re a bloody marvel.” They were a jolly, nice crowd and I spent nine happy weeks with them, 4 pounds per, until Miss Bertha Cadman, returned. One week we played at the Marlborough Theatre, London, close to Ida Wynne­-Westcott’s home. So many admiring friends to see me that week. I had a quick change from a very pretty dress to rags for the “Tramps in Trampland” duet with the leading man, and they told me I looked lousy ---- as if I hadn’t had a bath since I was born. I left the company to open at the Pier Pavilion, Southport, where I went exceedingly well, the press remarking on one of my songs, “Molly” bringing down the house. When I asked Mr. James Fioni, the agent in Liverpool who had booked me this and other dates, for a return, he told me “the management didn’t like your turn.” Following Southport I played the dates Mr. Kiernan had transferred for me,

A reference to Thomas Moore’s 1817 poem, ‘Paradise and the Peri’, which begins, ‘One morn a Peri at the gate/Of Eden stood disconsolate …’. A Peri is a Persian mythical creature somewhere between an angel and an evil spirit. 120 The Ups and Downs of a Donkey’s Life (1876), a children’s novel by C.L. Mateaux in which a donkey ends up in a ‘donkey show’, then a menagerie and circus, suffering untold cruelty – ‘stoned, kicked, beaten, belonging to nobody and everybody …’, until rescued by a kindly tinker. 121 A Trip to Chinatown (1890), an American musical comedy by Charles H. Hoyt; it was for decades the longest-running musical show on Broadway, before touring the United States and the United Kingdom. 119

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after which I played ten days, including a sacred concert on Eastern Sunday,122 at the Alhambra Palace, Morecambe. From there I went to try my luck in Manchester, where through a fellow artist I met Mr. Leo Fritz of Burns’ Agency, London, who arranged a trial show for me at the Palace, where I went so well that I thought I was made for life. Mr. George Parry, the Manager, sent a good report to his headquarters in London, and introduced me to a Mr. Walter Bentley, an agent, saying “do something for this little girl, she’s a nice turn.” Trying to talk business to Mr. Bentley he told me of an artist who booked a date direct somewhere – “the girl was fool enough to give herself away for one week, when I could have booked her all over England.” After telling him my opinion of him he was not likely to book me. Mr. G. Worswick of the Grand Hippodrome, Wigan, who had seen my turn, engaged me at once for Oct. 23 at £4 and a return date at £5, subject to approval on first visit. He also introduced me to Mr. Broadhead,123 who booked me at his hall in Bury for June 5th. Mr. Worswick also arranged for me to give a trial turn at the Grand, Bolton. He had been talking of coming to see me at Bury, and get some new, showy memos printed for me, and fix me First or Second Boy in pantomime. I thanked him for taking so much interest in me. After the show at Bolton we went to the station together. My train to Manchester leaving a few minutes before his to Wigan. As my train was due to leave he said there is just time for a nice kiss. “I din’t think so,” I replied and he said, “Oh, it’s no use my coming to Bury then.” Soon after he wrote asking me to transfer my date with him to the following year, would I return my contract for alteration? instead of which I tore his signature off and returned that. Needless to say no contract came for the following year. Through Mr. Parry, one of the most decent men in the business, I met a shareholder in the London Syndicate Halls (The Variety Theatres, Consolidated, Limited)124 who was willing to give me an introcudtion to Mr. Henri Gros125 one of the directors, if I would give a show somewhere for him to see my turn, since he never recommended anyone without knowing his or her capability. He arranged with his friend Mr. Will Collins, manager of the Ardwick Empire, a Stoll hall, for an extra turn, to which I invited several Manchester agents. The introduction to Mr. Gros procured me an interview with him when later I returned to London, and several dates, also returns. Mr. Collins also was pleased, but surprised at my not having received more dates, when I told him I had already played two Stoll halls. He sent up a good report and gradually more scattered dates, eventually the whole tour, arrived. Mr. Simpson, ‘Eastern’: Easter. The Broadhead Circuit (established by William Henry Broadhead, 1848–1931) owned about seventeen theatres and variety halls in North West England, centred on Manchester. The Bury hall was managed by William Birch Broadhead (1873–1907). 124 Which included the London Pavilion. 125 Henri Gros (1849–1910), a Dutch-born music hall manager and wine merchant. He was a leading figure in the Music Hall Managers Association and chair of the Conciliation Committee during the Music Hall Strike. 122 123

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of Will Sley’s agency who saw me at the Ardwick, booked me six weeks at Mr. Frank MacNaghton’s126 provincial halls, commencing in August. At Lincoln Mr. MacNaghton saw me and booked me his other three provincial halls and told me to write Mr. Fred Baugh, his manager, for the London halls, which were booked for me later by Mr. David Bliss, of Rosen and Bliss. Leo Fritz, though arranging my trial turn at the Palace, Manchester, only booked me one date, Tivoly,127 Grimsby for March 26, 1906, which the manager, Mr. J.H. Curry later asked me to transfer to April 2nd. In the meanwhile I played the Bijou Empire, Hull, May 29th, through Fioni, June 5 at Bury, July 3rd Tivoly, Dublin and a return date July 17 at the Regent Salford under a new management, booked through Frederick Yates of Liverpool, whose wife and I had played on the same bill somewhere. Working one week and resting three is a great strain on the pocket and nerves. I was therefore very happy and relieved when I started Mr. MacNaghton’s tour on August 7th at the Palace, Bradford at £4‑10 per week. Audience and press were most appreciative everywhere. At Leicester, where I had appeared at an opposition hall the previous December, the Leicester Evening News ended its notice of me with “such a turn as hers undoubtedly tends to raise the tone of the performances at the halls.” The Lincolnshire Echo said – The quality of the evening’s entertainment is greatly heightened by Miss Kitty Marion, etc. etc. Several Stoll dates came in and kept me going through Sept. and Oct. At one of the latter halls the manager, whom I had not met until treasury at the end of the week, said to me, “I am ashamed at having to pay you such a low salary after the success you have been here; who has booked this?” (£6). I explained Mr. Halford’s introduction to Mr. Stoll, etc. He told me that in his report to the head office he had valued me at more than double my salary. (Local managers always had to send in their estimates of each turn before receiving the salary list.) Return dates Nov. 6 and 13, for the Kiernan’s halls in Liverpool, which had been taken over by Mr. (later Sir) Walter De Freece, Miss Vesta Tilly’s husband,128 followed immediately upon one at Mr. Stoll’s Olympia, which saved railway fares, a great consideration for a small turn with comparatively large expenses, and debts to pay. Through Messrs. Rosen and Bliss I booked the Palace Theatres Bristol and Plymouth, Dec. 25 and Jan. 1st. The Bristol Times and Mirror said “Kitty Marion, a cultured vocalist with a good style and presence was a popular artist, and it is surprising she is not principal boy in some pantomime, as it is a part which she seems admirably suited to play with great success.” (I wore boy’s dress a great deal.) Feb. 5th, 1906 1 played the Chelsea Palace and Metropolitan at £4 a hall. Mr. Gros thought that was enough for London if I could work the provinces at £6 for In 1907, Frank McNaughton controlled five London and eleven provincial halls. Tivoli Theatre, Grimsby; opened 1905, seating 2,000 people. 128 Walter de Frece (né Abraham Walter de Frece, 1870–1935), theatre impresario and, latterly, Conservative politician. He married Vesta Tilley in 1890. 126 127

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Mr. Stoll. All things considered, including courtesy, I was glad to play London Syndicate Hall almost at any price. Mr. Gros booked me the other halls and return dates. On Feb.17 there appeared in “The Era” under the heading “Latent Talent” a letter from an agent, Mr. Will Dalton of Manchester, complaining of names of artists whom he had found, appearing under other agency advertisement, and resenting the latter taking the credit which he considered due to himself. He also referred to a paragraph in “The Era” in which Mrs. Barrasford129 emphasized her contention that there was a large number of clever artists in the provinces who had not yet had an opportunity of obtaining due notice from London audiences, and that Mr. Sparrow of the Palace, Camberwell, was the only London manager, as far as he knew, who would fall in with Mrs. Barrasford’s ideas of giving new turns to London a chance. That was too good an opportunity for a fight and I wrote to the editor of “The Era”, “I can quite understand your correspondent, Mr. Will Dalton, expecting credit where it is due to him; we all do, but very seldom get it. No doubt, had he been able, or taken the trouble, to keep the turns he ‘found’, booked up, their names would not, and need not, appear under other agency advertisements. It is only natural that artists, if one agent does not keep them booked up, should turn to others to find work instead of hanging about doing nothing. Last summer, in Manchester, Mr. Dalton was recommended to me as a decent and straight agent. I wrote to Mr. Dalton asking him to see my turn, but received no answer. On asking one agent for a return date at a hall where he had booked me, and where I had gone exceedingly well, and the local paper had remarked on my rendering of a certain song bringing down the house, he told me that the management did not like my turn. Hence no return date; who was being catered for – the management who did not like my turn, or the public who did? If, in engaging and encouraging artists, managers and agents would be guided by the public’s approval and appreciation of artists, instead of by their own fancy or prejudice (especially where women are concerned) there would be less talk of ‘latent talent’ and ‘bad business’. This applies to theatres as well as music halls. In addition to Mrs. Barrasford and Mr. Sparrow, whom Mr. Dalton mentions in his letter, Mr. Henri Gros also will give new turns a chance. Through an introduction I procured an interview with Mr. Gros. As a result I appeared at the Chelsea Palace and Metropolitan the week before last (Feb. 5th) and went splendidly at Chelsea, but not so well at the Met.; but then, even stars go worse at some halls than others. I asked nine agents to see my turn. Not one has done so. After expecting bookings galore, my date book remains empty. – On the strength of the paragraph in “The Era” regarding Mrs. Barrasford, which Mr. Dalton quotes in his letter, I wrote to that lady, asking her to try to see, or send someone to see, my turn, and grant me Maud Barrasford (née Maud D’Almeine Thomas, 1871–1925), a singer and theatre entrepreneur and manager. In 1905 she took over the Lyceum in London with her husband, and the Brighton Hippodrome, and developed the Devil’s Dyke Pleasure Gardens outside Brighton.

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an interview, but up to now my letter has been ignored. About eighteen months ago, after giving a trial show, I worked two Barrasford halls, went well with the public, but did not get the tour. I have now turned to Mrs. Barrasford, in the hope of getting work through a woman, where I failed to get it through a man. I have, with others almost given up hope for a woman who wants to earn her own living, and at the same time rise in the profession on her merits only, without influence of any sort.” Of course there were letters applauding Mr. Dalton and agreeing with him, but there were considerably more on my side during the six weeks “The Era” granted space for the discussion, which developed into a regular “free for all”. The Clydes, Instrumentalists wrote “Miss Marion’s letter in your last issue is of great interest to variety artists.-- It is most disheartening. Sometimes you cannot get a return because your manager does not like you, and sometimes you cannot accept the offer because he likes you too well,” -- and so forth, relating difficulties placed in their way. From Ethel Lloyd “I am pleased to see that a lady has had the pluck to take up the cudgels on behalf of her sister artists of the smaller fry.” And she relates her grievances. E.S.R. writes “With regard to the article by Miss Marion, although not on the music hall stage myself (but I have been nine years on the dramatic and comedy stage) I quite agree with her statement that her remarks apply to the theatrical as well as the music hall side of the profession” etc. etc. One from Nelson and Thomas – “We have read Mr. Dalton’s letter “latent talent”, also Miss Marion’s. The latter seems to me to have hit a bullseye. Having been some years in this business, we find it more puzzling every year. We have held two dates with Mr. Oswald Stoll, and have done immensely well on each occasion, but have received no further contracts. Why? We have always had returns on other acknowledged circuits. It seems to me the better your act goes the less chance you have of a return date. – It’s all a muddle!” And so it was, confusion, worse confounded. During my two years in the variety profession I found it to be seething with unrest and revolt against all sorts of injustice from which men, as well as women, suffered, particularly the “barring” clause in contracts, under which an artist agreeing to appear at a hall in a certain town, was prohibited from playing at any other hall within a radius of from ten to twenty miles between the signing of the contract and its completion, which meant an artist being barred as long as two years from certain districts. Monopoly was the aim of the barring clause, the crushing of smaller syndicates and individual halls by depriving them of the services of reputable artists, and unreasonably limiting the latter’s field of operation and freedom to work. The Moss Empires under the control of Mr. Oswald Stoll, were the principal offenders in this direction, according to the Memorial compiled by the Provisional Committee of the Variety Artists Federation, which was being organized by stars and others, who had “gone through the mill”, to promote and protect the interest of Variety Artists, and to abolish all abuses detrimental to their welfare. Playing two houses a night without extra pay, was a new imposition forced on us these days.

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According to my old membership card No. 788, the V.A.F.130 began in April 1906, with Goe O’Gorman,131 “No. 1” as its first chairman, and its first fight was for an equitable contract in place of the “take it or leave it, if you won’t sign it there are plenty who will”. So it had been in the past, “each for himself, and let the devil take the hindmost”. Now the artists, from the greatest, best known stars to the smallest unknown turns were going to stick together and fight for a contract fair to all, in which the only point of difference would be the individual artist’s salary. Negotiation between the V.A.F. and the managers proceeded until the beginning of 1907 when they culminated in the Great Music Hall Strike which lasted six weeks, and in which the musicians and stage employees joined. The Directors of the Syndicate Halls refused to come to terms and after due consideration and warning, all members of the V.A.F., playing the latter, were called out on strike by the organisation. The striking articles, including Marie Lloyd,132 picketed outside. These were stirring times, a strike meeting every day at the Bedford Head, Maiden Lane, Strand listening to V.A.F. officials, leaders and strikers, passing resolutions, cheering the speakers who brought it home to us that the artists, individually and collectively were “the goose that laid the golden eggs”. The artists whom the public paid their money to see, hear and applaud, not the directors and managers or even the new “Empires” and “Palaces”, they were building. The goose was being slowly, surely and systematically killed with unnecessary hardships, nerve-racking worries entailed by unjust and inconsiderate treatment, and the misuse of power by those shortsighted interests who could only see their own immediate gain. Being transferred from one hall to another, almost at the last moment, involving often a long railway fare, the cancelling of rooms already engaged and the upsetting of all sorts of arrangements was one of the artists’ grievances, which so far had not touched me. During the strike I was playing suburban Stoll halls and paying 5 percent of my salary, like all working V.A.F.’s to the strike fund. At last both sides submitted to the arbitration of Mr. George Ranken Askwith,133 appointed by the Board of Trade, whose award of an equitable contract between managers, artists, stage employees and musicians was published by “The Era” on June 5, 1907. During the previous year I had worked all over the country, finishing in London at the MacNaghton halls, playing their Forresters and Mr. Gros’ South London Dec. 17 and Bow Palace and the James Sparrow’s Empire, Camberwell The Variety Artist[e]s’ Federation, now incorporated into the actors’ union, Equity, was formed to fight for better conditions among music hall workers, which had deteriorated significantly with the increased syndicalism of the variety industry. 131 Joe O’Gorman (né Joseph O’Gorman, 1865–1937), a music hall comedian, singer and dancer. 132 Marie Lloyd (née Matilda Alice Victoria Wood, 1870–1922) was a music hall star and significant supporter of the 1907 Music Hall Strike, performing on the picket lines and taking part in fundraising activities. She also supported women’s suffrage, and, reputedly, in 1913 allowed her costume hamper to be used to smuggle Annie Kenney into the Pavilion Theatre to speak. 133 George Rankin Askwith, 1st Baron Askwith (1861–1942), lawyer, civil servant and industrial arbitrator. 130

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during the week of Dec. 24. These excepting Mr. Gros’ had been booked through Rosen and Bliss, who had been perfectly decent and business like. Though I had gone well everywhere, with a successively better time on the program each week, I could get no returns and when I asked Mr. Fred Baugh, Mr. MacNaghton’s manager, his reply was “I don’t want any bloody V.A.F.” That was the attitude of the “powers that be” in general towards the V.A.F., whom they tried to swamp by recruiting new turns from the theatres, and through trial shows for amateurs. On Nov. 20th I signed a contract for the Empress Brixton, Dec. 2nd at £4 and one­seventh for matinees. When I received the counterpart signed T.H.I. Grimes and Walter Payne, Directors, the salary was altered to £3.10 and initialed H.M. (Harry Master). Here was a case for the V.A.F. whose secretary, Mr. Monte Bayley, rang up Mr. Master, who admitted that he had altered the salary after his directors had signed the contract. Mr. Henry Gros, through whose recommendation I received the contract, was very angry at my going to the V.A.F. and told me I had so offended Mr. Masters that the latter would not give me another engagement. Many of my friends blamed me for becoming involved in all these fights and losing work through them. Why couldn’t I be satisfied with anything I got, and let others fight their own battles?? – why? -

Chapter XXXIV In the meanwhile “Muddy” had given up the struggle, left the stage, married a sufficiently rich man to support her and her two children, who were still at school, her little girl at the Ursuline Convent, Melines, Belgium; and had rented a bungalow at Bourne End on Thames, during the summer, where she and her husband, a most generous Scotsman, invited me to spend my “weeks out”, and weekends when playing in London, while they had moved into a house for the winter. River life with friends up and down the Thames was certainly a delightful compensation for what I missed in “dates”, though I should have liked a few more of the latter. During 1907 I played most of the Stoll tour, including the Hippodrome and Ardwick Empire Manchester134 the same week, deputizing at the latter and following Marie Lloyd on the program. It was here that I saw the news of “Eve’s” husband’s death in “The Era” on Saturday, and sent it on to her, thus bringing about her marriage to “Adam”. Also Newcastle once more, the Empire, where I followed “La Milo”135 the Statuary Artist, against whom the moralists and prudes made such an outcry. Both the Manchester Hippodrome on Oxford Street and the Ardwick Empire were largescale variety theatres opened in 1904, and key venues in the burgeoning Stoll empire of variety theatres. 135 Pansy Montague (1858–?), an Australian chorus girl and actress who developed a ‘living statuary’ or ‘pose plastique’ act as ‘La Milo’, imitating ancient statues, sculptures and legendary figures such as Lady Godiva. 134

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Figure 4  Miss Kitty Marion, Comedienne. The Umpire, 17 February 1907. From Kitty Marion’s scrapbook. Viewed from the front of the house, when I saw her in London, I thought her “turn” beautiful and artistic, nothing to cavil at. Playing on the same bill with her, I found that no one was allowed behind the stage except those employed in her act. Even I, while my music was being played had to wait until she had left the stage before I could go to my entrance. At the Saturday matinee I saw Freddy in the stalls. After my turn he “had to come round and say ‘how d’you do’,” although I had “deserted” him. He supposed I was doing very well, judging from my applause and complimentary remarks he had heard round about him, too well to reconsider my decision? An appreciative audience was no criterion as to my doing well otherwise, and my decision had been made, so “as friends we met, as friends we part,” according to the old song in the “Lady Slavey”.

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For economy and convenience in being near South London halls I was playing, I shared digs with Mona McDonald, whom I had met on the bill several times, at 86 Kennington Road with Mrs. Emma McLaghlan136 – “Ma Mac” -- a perfect character, a rough diamond, very rough but diamond of the first water. She swore like a trooper, called a spade a spade, was honest as the sun, and had a heart of gold to say nothing of the prize silver teapot, presented to her by the “Encore”137 as the best landlady in London, according the votes of artists who had stayed with her, including many of the stars. “Dreadful person” I thought when I first met her, but Mona said, “wait till you know her,” and she was right. Worth her weight in gold, which was not light, I concluded later. “Daddy Mac”,138 her husband, a carpenter by trade, mostly unemployed, but useful in keeping the house in repair and doing the rough work, had been a soldier, engineer in the same regiment with Kitchener when the latter was but a young subaltern. Early in 1908 Mr. and Mrs. Fred Yates from Liverpool were in London, Mrs. Yates playing, while he was trying to establish himself in London. One evening he called upon me to deputize at the Standard Pimlico (now Victoria Palace) for his wife, who was indisposed. After my turn I met him in front, when he introduced a man to whom he was speaking. The latter said he was going to the “Artistenheim”139 an International Artistes’ rendezvous, at the back of Leicester Square, and invited Mr. Yates and me to go with him. Having heard a great deal of the “Artistenheim” I was anxious to go in the hope of meeting some of the German artistes, mostly acrobats with whom I had shared dressing rooms at several halls. They had been pleasantly surprised to be greeted in German at rehearsal, by an English turn. Mr. Yates wanted to go home, but I accompanied my new acquaintance, whom I took for a “brother artiste” though in conversation I discovered he was an agent. He gave me his card and having seen my turn, said he would book me. All went well, meeting old acquaintances, having supper and quite a pleasant evening. Going home, I intended to take a hansom, alone of course, but “my agent” insisted on seeing me home “safely”. It wasn’t far, and I could easily have walked. To avoid argument and offending him, I stepped into the four-wheeler with him, but once out of sight of the club, he “reverted to form”. I moved to the opposite seat, warding him off, threatening to break the window and call a policeman, unless he behaved, though I had a dread of becoming involved in that kind of scene. I called on Mr. and Mrs. Yates the next morning, indignant at him introducing such a beast to me and letting me go off alone with him. Mr. Yates was sorry and apologetic, he didn’t know the man, had only just met Emma Elizabeth McLachlan (née Gardiner, 1853–?1913). When ‘Ma Mac’ appeared at KM’s trial for arson in 1913, some papers gave her surname as MacLeachlan. 137 The trade magazine for the entertainment industry. 138 William McLachlan (c. 1848–?1918). 139 Artistenheim – literally, ‘artists’ home’. The editors have been unable to find any information about this ‘rendezvous’. 136

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him when I came. Mrs. Yates, looking at the card he had given me said reflectively, “Arthur Hample, why that’s the man who was prosecuted in the Brixton assault case recently.” Looking up the case in the press I found he had enticed a woman to come from Birmingham to London on the pretext of getting work for her. The case was dismissed as the woman was of age and married and “ought to have known better”. But since women don’t know better m u s t they be at the mercy of moral vultures?140

Arthur Hampel, a 28-year-old music hall agent, was accused at the Central Criminal Court in June 1907 that he, ‘feloniously, violently and against her will did unlawfully ravish and carnally know’ Miss Victoria Beauchamp, aged 20. KM’s version of the case is slightly different from the court reports. Beauchamp had met Hampel in Leicester Square, not Birmingham, and gone to his office to discuss work. A doctor testified to her injuries, but following an examination of her sexual history (she was not a married woman) Hampel was found not guilty.

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MILITANT SUFFRAGE

Chapter XXXV “There comes a time in the life of a people suffering from an intolerable injustice when the only way to maintain one’s self respect is to revolt against that injustice.” (Lloyd George) “Where were you last Saturday, why weren’t you in the procession?” asked some of my friends and fellow members of the Actor’s Association1 on my arrival at the Clubroom one Monday morning. “What procession?” I queried, “didn’t know the A.A. was having one, besides, I was away, working.” “Not the A.A.” they said. “The Suffragettes, we had a grand procession.” “I’m not a Suffragette” I replied, drawing myself up to my full height with all the hauteur I could assume. “Oh, yes you are!” they laughed. “We know your views on things and conditions and from the way you complain about them, you’re a Suffragette right enough. You’d better join us next Sunday. The W.S.P.U. (Women’s Social and Political Union) is having a big mass meeting in Hyde Park,2 women are coming from all over the country and marching from all parts of London. The Actresses’ contingent3 will form on Chelsea Embankment and march to Hyde Park.” “All right,” I agreed. “Anything you say yourself” but what is it all about? And don’t expect me to fight the police and be run in.” For according to the press, that was what the Suffragettes did. They were just “hooligans”. I never read anything about them but the headlines and had never heard any argument on their behalf, but now I was being enlightened to a slight extent. So on the following Sunday, June 21, I joined the ranks and to the stirring music of the “Marseillaise”, mostly, marched along Oakley Street, Kings Road, Sloane Street and Knightsbridge into Hyde Park. I had thought it quite funny, like a pantomime Grand March, but when I listened to the speakers, I became serious. I heard my own ideas and ideals expressed much better than I could The Actors’ Association was founded in Manchester in 1891 to ‘protect the interests of members of the Association and of the theatrical profession generally’. KM was an active member, and also of the Actors’ Union.  2 This was the ‘Women’s Sunday’, a ‘monster rally’ with twenty platforms and over a hundred speakers, held in Hyde Park on 21 June 1908. Sunday was chosen so that as many working women as possible could attend. Women came on specially chartered trains from all over the United Kingdom.  3 The ‘actresses’ contingent’ became the Actresses’ Franchise League in December 1908.  1

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ever express them. I heard of the injustice to women in being deprived of a voice in the government to which they were subservient; of having to pay taxes in the expenditure of which they had no voice, the inequality between the sexes before the law regarding divorce, the ownership of legitimate and so-called illegitimate children, the difference between the sexes regarding conditions and payment in the labour market, the difference in punishment for similar crimes committed, and so forth. The scales were falling from my eyes and I recognized the other “mad women”, the women who had actually been demanding changes in conditions of which I had practically only been “talking in my dreams”. Well, now I was awake. I was one of them and would do all I could to help and make our dream of a better world come true. Dr. Helena Jones’4 physiological discourse, bringing the proud male right down to “cellular” equality with the female and refuting his superiority, physical, mental and moral, in every way, appealed to me immensely. I, who had mostly attended co-educational schools, had always felt on a perfect equality with boys. Women working in fields, whose muscular strength counts, are certainly “superior” in that respect to the male weaklings who are physically unfit to perform such work. It is impossible to draw a line between the sexes. Given a “fair field and no favour” in opportunity of development, individuals of both become equally superior or inferior to the average. They only differ in physical fatherhood and motherhood; neither can replace the other there. “Votes for Women” had been mere words to me. I never connected the slogan with “Wahlrecht”.5 I never gave it a thought that the argument the British women were having with their government could in any way concern me. What the situation on the subject was in Germany, I didn’t know. I learned in history that the “Alten Deutschen”6 had been on absolute equality, the women fighting beside their men in defense of their country. If women could fight, I now reasoned, surely they could vote. As a member of the Actor’s Association and the Variety Artists’ Federation, I voted for the executives, then why should not women vote for members of Parliament? So I joined the “Militants”, wore the colors, “purple, white and green”7 and Dr Helena Gertrude Jones (1870–1946) graduated in 1901 from the London School of Medicine for Women, became medical officer for Greenwich Infirmary and then a medical inspector for schools. An active but non-militant member of the WSPU, she was a regular speaker nationally, and organiser in Halifax. She was one of the dissenters who opted to continue the suffrage fight during the war.  5 Wahlrecht – right to vote. There were a number of active but moderate organisations campaigning for women’s rights in the late nineteenth century in Germany, before the formation of the more targeted German Association for Women’s Suffrage in 1911. Women were given the vote in November 1918. The International Woman Suffrage Alliance was founded in Berlin in 1904.  6 Alten Deutschen – old/ancient Germans.  7 The ‘purple, white and green’ colour scheme, devised by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, was launched on Women’s Sunday.  4

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gradually absorbed the gospel of “Votes for Women” as it had developed up to its reaching my ears. Through reading and attending meetings, I learned that there had never been any question regarding equal legal rights, responsibilities and privileges between the sexes in Great Britain until early in the seventeenth century, when Sir Edward Coke misused his parliamentary power by substituting his opinion regarding women’s position, for the laws, customs, precedents and facts of their legal equality with men.8 Others followed his evil example, gradually depriving women of their rights until the interpolation of the word “male” before “person” in the Reform Bill of 1832, their disfranchisement became complete.9 Since then intelligent, educated (Upper class not “low hooligan”) women, through meetings, speeches, petitions, etc. supported and encouraged by such shining examples of political manhood as John Stuart Mill10 and others, have attempted to recapture their ancient right, but were frustrated to a great extent by the “conspiracy of silence” on the part of the Press. I learned that there was a large majority in the House of Commons to carry Woman’s Suffrage in the days when Mr. W.E. Gladstone11 was Prime Minister – the “Grand Old Man” – the “Great Liberal” who said, “There is nothing so demoralizing to a community as passive acquiescence in unmerited oppression,” yet, though pledged to Women’s Suffrage, he broke his word, induced his followers to go back on their pledges and be false to the promises they had made, after which the mere mention of Women’s Suffrage in the House of Commons was greeted with coarse and ribald jests by members of Parliament. The W.S.P.U., founded by Mrs. Pankhurst12 in 1903, pursued constitutional methods of agitation, and on October 13, 1905, when Sir Edward Grey13 addresses a great Liberal meeting at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, Miss Christabel Pankhurst L.L.B.14 and Miss Annie Kenney,15 a Trade Union Leader from Oldham Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634), a judge and important legal writer. A footnote by KM on this page reads: ‘“British Freewomen” by Charlotte Carmichael Stopes.’ Stopes (1840–1929), a campaigner for women’s rights was the mother of the birth control pioneer Marie Stopes. She published British Freewomen: Their Historical Privilege, a pioneering study of women’s political standing in England, in 1894. 10 John Stuart Mill (1806–73), Liberal MP for Westminster and a leading political economist and philosopher, presented the first women’s suffrage petition to the House of Commons in 1867. 11 William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98), Liberal politician and Prime Minister. His son, Herbert, as Home Secretary, tangled with the suffragettes on numerous occasions. 12 Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) co-founded the WSPU in October 1903 with her daughters and other women at their home in Manchester. 13 Sir Edward Grey (1862–1933), Liberal MP for Berwick-on-Tweed; Foreign Secretary, 1905–16. 14 Christabel Pankhurst (1880–1958) studied law at Owen’s College, now the University of Manchester, but was not allowed to practise because of her sex. She was the WSPU’s chief strategist. 15 Annie Kenney (1879–1953) joined the WSPU in 1905. She worked in a cotton mill in Oldham but was not a trade union leader. On 13 October 1905, she and Christabel Pankhurst made  8  9

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went to find out the then “Liberal” attitude on Woman Suffrage. At question time when men asked and received courteous replies to their questions, Annie Kenney rose, lifted a small “Votes for Women” Banner, and asked, would the Liberal Government, if elected give Women the vote. Instead of receiving a yes or no for answer, they were thrown out with great violence. Outside they started a protest meeting, were arrested for obstruction and the next day sentenced to a few days imprisonment, with the option of a fine with costs. They chose prison and thus commenced the great “advertising scheme” of “Votes for Women” for, as Annie Kenney says in her book “Memories of a Militant”, “the Press has bitten; the very extremity of abuse, criticism and condemnation hurled at us for such an inoffensive protest as that which we made the previous night – was in itself a sign that astute parliamentarians realized that we knew what we were about. As the question was not a party question, we were treated with hostility by the Press of both parties – the party press invariably join forces against non-party measures.” Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst being released from prison, one after three, the other after five days, were given public receptions, which meant more publicity for the cause.

Chapter XXXVI In due time they opened an office in London,16 held meetings, organized deputations to the Prime Minister to lay their grievances before him. But instead of being received and listened to, were met by police, arrested and imprisoned, which instead of stopping the agitation as the government hoped it would, swelled the ranks for the Suffragists in general and the Suffragettes in particular. “Suffragettes” was an intended insult to the Militants by the Daily Mail,17 but became a title of honour which I was proud to share and live up to. But for the so-called “militancy” and the world wide publicity given it by an abusive press, half the world would not know yet that women were asking for the vote. For the Press continued its silence on the most wonderful speeches and arguments in favour of Woman Suffrage made by most important and distinguished leaders of thought, such as Isreal Zangwill,18 which, if published to the masses, would have converted them to our cause. the first militant protest – interrupting Winston Churchill’s and Sir Edward Grey’s speeches at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester and ‘assaulting’ a policeman outside. They were sent to Strangeways Prison for three days and seven days, respectively. 16 The WSPU’s national headquarters opened in London at 3 & 4 Clement’s Inn in September 1906. 17 Charles E. Hands coined the word ‘suffragettes’ in the Daily Mail (11 January 1906: 4). 18 Israel Zangwill (1864–1926), author, pacifist and cultural Zionist. He was a vocal supporter of the WSPU, and married fellow feminist and writer Edith Ayrton, step-daughter of the eminent scientist Hertha Ayrton.

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At a mass meeting in Caxton Hall, October 13, 1908,19 I volunteered to join a deputation to the Prime Minister but, though frightfully mauled, was not arrested. I learned police tactics and how to avoid being thrown by them. Our little group proceeded peacefully enough from Caxton Hall to the cheers and jeers of the crowd until some distance along Victoria Street, nearing Parliament Square, the police, including plain-clothes men, posing as “hostile crowd”, broke our ranks by shouldering in and pushing us away in every direction, and as each of us tried to proceed singly towards the House, petition in hand, two and three policemen, one on each side taking us by the arm and shoulder, quite unnecessarily pinching and bruising the soft under arm, with the third often pushing at the back, would run us along a little distance and fling us, causing most women to be thrown to the ground unless they were big and strong enough, like me, to lean well back while being run, and thus retain their balance. Many a small woman I caught and prevented from falling, on this and other deputations, catching the ball, as it were, thrown by the police. These occasions, too, showed us the fundamental difference between brutes and men. For while the former pleaded “for God’s sake, woman, go home, don’t give us this awful job to do.” Of course, we realized that the brutality rested not in those poor minions in uniform, but in the Government, whose bidding they did. Aching in body and soul, I went home at last to find my arms and shoulders black, blue and painful, as were every woman’s who had taken part in this rightful, legal, peaceful petitioning. One of the first things I learned was to sell the paper “Votes for Women”, on the street. That was the “acid” test. All new recruits who were anxious to “do something” were told the b e s t thing they could do was to take a bundle of papers and show the “faith that was in them” by standing on the streets with it, even if they didn’t sell any, as long as they held up “Votes for Women”20 to the public and advertised the cause. What a lesson in self-denial, self-abnegation, self-disciplin! The first time I took my place on the “Island” in Piccadilly Circus, near the flower sellers. I felt as if every eye that looked at me was a dagger piercing me through and I wished the ground would open and swallow me. However, that feeling wore off and I developed into quite a champion paper-seller. I also carried sandwich boards in poster parades, advertising meetings and important events. My friends all reacted differently to my interest in Votes for Women. Some always thought I was crazy, now they were sure. Some had always credited me with more sense, while others were converted, since it must be right if I, with all my common sense, believed in it. Some just dropped me. Minnie Hayden, whom I happened to meet doing the rounds of the agents one day told me she was too dis The ‘Women’s Parliament’ preceded the opening of Parliament; the first was held in February 1907. WSPU members, in groups of twelve, would walk to Parliament to protest at the Liberal government’s response to their demand for the vote. 20 The WSPU newspaper, Votes for Women, was launched in October 1907. 19

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gusted ever to speak to me again. Ida Wynne-Westcott and others I never heard from again. Mr. Henri Gros, who had booked me several times, told me I need not ask him for any more work. He died soon after. A girl with whom I had played the leading part in a dramatic sketch told me how in course of conversation with her agent, he asked who had played the other part and when she mentioned my name, he said, “Oh, that bloody Suffragette, she’d better not come here for anything.” A Music Hall agent laughed when he saw me wearing the “colors” and asked “What are you going to do with the vote when you get it?” “Make laws to protect women against agents and others who insult them when they ask for work,” I said very emphatically. He turned pale as he said, “Oh, Miss Marion, have I ever said anything offensive to you?” “No,” I replied, “by the same token you have never booked me the work you could have done.” Some months later, I met him at the South London where I was playing and going exceedingly well. “If you’ll take off those colors, I’ll see that you get booked up for life,” he said. And I said, “No, you should have booked me before I put them on; it’s too late to take them off now.” Twice I had played Nottingham since 1904 and on the Saturday of my last recent visit I was surprised and thrilled to see Mr. Halford passing by in a magnificent motor car, “hell” cars as he used to call them, smiling and waving to me as if nothing had happened. I felt obliged to acknowledge that friendly gesture with a letter, if only to tell him that I had not forgotten his loan to me. I had been paying debts all along and just keeping my head above water. He wrote back to say he had forgotten it, never intended that I should repay him and had destroyed my I.O.U. That was a considerable relief for which I thanked him though he thought I had treated him “most unkindly, to say the least.” I did not know what to say by way of disclaimer. I unkind to him, good Lord! I could not shape a reply and let the time go by, hoping to visit Nottingham again soon with a “new act” I was preparing, when I would see and talk to him. But fate decreed otherwise.

Chapter XXXVII The Variety Artists’ Federation next great battle was with the agents which, after much negotiation, and many preliminary meetings ended in a great Mass Meeting at the Bedford Head Hotel21 on Sept. 25, 1908. What a galaxy of stars! Men and women in their everyday clothes, minus glamour, glory and limelight, ordinary human beings fighting shoulder to shoulder with the lesser lights of their profession to abolish unjust commission clauses from agents’ contracts under which an artist paid 10 percent commission of his salary on the first engagement procured by an agent and 10 percent on all re-engagements with the same management, though they had been procured by other agents. Often an artist had to pay 10 percent to two or more agents on re-engagements. The V.A.F. wanted to Maiden Lane, Covent Garden.

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reduce the commission to 5 percent and abolish the re-engagement clause. Only established stars could refuse to pay more than 5 percent. Others had to “take it or leave it”. Harry Lauder22 told of the days when his salary was £3 or £3‑10, a week, with a wife and child to keep at home, railway fares, etc., to pay, but 10 percent first to the agent. R.G. Knowles,23 the American star, told of working for $9 and $15 a week, but never paying more than 5%. Victoria Monks,24 in speaking to a resolution she proposed, told of the impertinent reception she received from an agent when she first came to London. And of another who secured her the Stoll tour at £9 per week and was now claiming 10% on a £100 re-engagement, and she had to settle with him for £400 commission on engagements. She had not yet played. Many agents had already accepted the new contract drawn up by the V.A.F., for the rest we passed the following resolution – “That if by Friday, Oct. 2 next, at 12 noon, any agent has not accepted the amended commission note, he shall not be allowed to come to terms with the V.A.F. unless he consents in writing to the abolition of the re-engagement clause in past as well as in future contracts. The Meeting also supported the London County Council in seeking power by Act of Parliament to license all employment agencies, some of which were suspected of white slave traffic. To eliminate the latter it was thought advisable to issue licences only to persons proving themselves responsible and reputable so that no one could open an employment agency without a licence. Theatrical and music hall agents sought exemption, but the Actors’ Association and V.A.F. were in favour of their inclusion, laying ample proof for that necessity before the L.C.C.25 Our meeting was most enthusiastic, and showers of telegrams, expressing loyalty and adherence, from members all over the country, were read and applauded. After a long, lively discussion, interspersed with quips, cranks and laughter, of financial difficulties, the meeting was drawing to a close without the worst, unwritten, unmentionable clause concerning women artists having been mentioned, at which I was inwardly chafing and fuming when someone gave a short speech ending with, -- “that’s why they wont give me work.” Instantly I blurted out, “and they wont give me work because I wont kiss them!” The meeting exploded with laughter, applause, shouts of “bravo” and support of my statement. “Kiss your agent!” was the daily catch phrase, full of meaning as to how to get work. It was “meat” or “poison” according to the individual’s reaction to it. Sir Henry ‘Harry’ Lauder (1870–1950), the Scottish music hall and variety singer and comedian; by 1911 he was the highest-paid performer in the world. 23 R.G. Knowles (Richard George Knowles, 1858–1919), a Canadian comedian and early silent film actor. 24 Victoria Monks (1884–1927), a popular music hall singer. 25 London County Council. 22

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Many thanked me for “speaking up”. When the uproar had subsided and Mr. Clemart,26 our Chairman, able to speak, he asked me, “Will you come to the London County Council with us next week and tell them that?” Of course I would, only I had a date out of town, so gave my statement in writing. Several other women volunteered information and a deputation of ladies was arranged for during the week after my return to London. There were nine, if I remember rightly, of whom I will only mention two dancers who were taken with a troupe to Russia, but instead of dancing, they were expected to meet men in the front of the house and make themselves agreeable to them. The girls objected, went to the British Consul and were sent home. The beast who took them out went scot-free. Another told a story so similar to one I had read in “The Stage” of Feb. 18 that I concluded it was the same case. Through a well­-known and allegedly reputable firm of agents she went to Buenos Aires where in addition to her stage work she was expected to live in a house run by the management. She also was sent home by the British Consul. I had no opportunity of speaking to her as she had to catch a train to Reading where she was playing. The firm of agents was the same and “The Stage” carried such a strong editorial against them that they brought action for libel.27 The members of the L.C.C. who had received and listened to the deputation, were deeply impressed, surprised, shocked and sympathetic. So far, so good, and we anticipated a great clean up by the Government and the L.C.C. Being up against the inevitable, as artists invariably had been, the agents were bound to consent to the new contract, but the brunt of their resentment was born by the “little fellows” of the V.A.F. who could easily be replaced by new talent. I had some scattered dates booked for the next two years but no more came in through agents. I filled in with sketches, parts in which I procured through the Actor’s Association, and booked my own turn direct for future dates with managers of halls we played at. The Stoll tour was offered me again at the same salary, which I declined principally because I wished to produce a sketch, specially written for me (and paid for) which would give me an opportunity to act as well as sing and which I hoped to book for the Stoll tour and others. In spite of the managerial cry for new acts, I could not get a hearing anywhere. At Christmas, 1908, I played Second Boy, “Prince Charming” in the pantomime, “Red Riding Hood” at the Dalston Theatre,28 London, for a month, after which we went on tour. In Dalston I had a happy, congenial family party. While William Herbert Clemart, sometimes Clement (né William Herbert Cartmell, 1866–1915), a ventriloquist and chairman of the VAF. 27 The editors have been unable to locate these cases, but involvement of the theatre in the white slave trade was a cause for concern throughout KM’s career. The 1904 International Conference for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade, held in Zurich, specifically named theatrical agents as persistent perpetrators. 28 Dalston Theatre opened as a variety theatre in 1886; it reopened as a ‘traditional’ theatre in 1898, seating 1,030. 26

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playing music halls in the vicinity I found excellent rooms with another Jewish landlady, Mrs. Simon, which I engaged for the pantomime season. My old friend, Danny, who wanted to economise while her little daughter was home from school, joined me, and as there was a third bedroom, she suggested that “Douglas and Sybil” who were coming to town, might occupy that, since they also were “hard up” and anxious to retrench. It was an open secret among those who knew them, that Douglas, heir to a dukedom, was unhappily married and had run away with his little son’s governess. “Dirty Face” as he affectionately spoke of him, will be, since his father’s death, the next duke. Sharing rent and board proved most economical and satisfactory to all concerned, including Mrs. Simon who was an excellent cook and housekeeper, and glad to have all her rooms rented for a few weeks. After the tour I returned to Ma Mac’s and played a few scattered suburban halls, going well with audiences and press. “Miss Kitty Marion, neatly costumed, scores with ‘The Happy Go Lucky Brigade’ and ‘Here’s A Toast’, both numbers finding favour.” – “Looking a handsome, dashing principal boy, sings a good number.” – “Stately in style, both in dress and manner, possesses some excellent and tuneful chorus numbers the refrains of which are readily taken up by the Tottenham Palace29 Audience,” – “Whose songs, delightfully rendered are worth going a long way to hear.” – “While her rendering of “The Trumpeter” is heartily encored.” And so forth everywhere, which made no impression on the “powers” who were looking for talent. A few weeks, commencing Aug. 15 at the Hippodrome, Colchester,30 I played the leading part in a comedy sketch with Freddie French, part owner and leading man, thereof. On Saturday afternoon I received a telegram from the Actor’s Association to meet Mr. French on his arrival in London on Sunday evening for rehearsal. Monday morning we rehearsed on the train to Colchester, again on arrival at the Hippodrome, and I played that night to the satisfaction of the whole company. Followed by several weeks in London.

Chapter XXXVIII Early in 1909, “The Actresses Franchise League” was formed31 and on April 13th, we turned out in full force with our Banner,32 one side of which I had the Tottenham Palace Theatre of Varieties, Tottenham High Road, opened in 1908 with a stated capacity of 3,000. 30 The Hippodrome, Colchester, opened in 1905, seating 1,400. 31 The inaugural meeting of the Actresses’ Franchise League (AFL) was on 17 December 1908, at the Criterion Restaurant, London, and League activities began to be reported in February 1909. The founders were Winifred Mayo (née Winifred Monck Mason, 1870–1967), Sime Seruya (1875–1955), Gertrude Elliott (1874–1950) and Adeline Bourne (1873–1965). 32 The banner was in the AFL colours of pink, white and green and showed the masks of comedy and tragedy framed by wreaths and ribbons. 29

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Figure 5  The Actresses’ Franchise League with their banner, designed by Clemence Housman, at the Coronation Procession, 17 June 1911. honour of supporting, marching in procession from Marble Arch, Hyde Park to a great meeting and reception at the Aldwych Theatre to celebrate Mrs. Pethick Lawrence’s release from “Holloway”. The same week, I was playing the Chelsea Palace, one of the London Syndicate Halls, with Harry Lauder topping the bill. I shared a dressing room with Joan Rees-Webbe,33 a pretty youngster to whom Harry Lauder addressed his songs on the stage. On Monday night when we met in the dressing room, her younger sister, Audrey, who mostly accomplished and understudied her, craned her neck towards a paper on my dressing table and enquired “Is that an evening paper?” “No, that is ‘Votes for Women’,” I challenged, quite expecting to shock these two apparent little innocents on the subject. To my surprise Audrey gave a joyous gasp, “Are you a Suffragette?” “I am,” I replied. “So am I,” proudly proclaimed Audrey and a priceless suffrage friendship was cemented. Joan was an “anti” but their parents the Rev. Rees-Webbe and Mrs. Rees-Webbe as well as Dolly, their older sister were ardent “believers” and took me to their hearts with open arms. Joan Rees-Webbe (1883–1972), an actress. Her younger sister, Florence Audrey (1891–1985), a suffragette, was a schoolmistress like her mother. Dolly (Dorothy, 1882–1943), the eldest sister, became a ‘clerk’.

33

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Figure 6  ‘Music Hall Artiste, No. 54: Miss Kitty Marion at the Chelsea Palace’, probably from 1909 when Kitty Marion was playing on the same bill as Harry Lauder. From Kitty Marion’s scrapbook.

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During the construction work of the W.S.P.U Exhibition34 at the Prince Skating Ring, Knightsbridge, I offered my help, and Mrs. Flora Drumond’,35 “The General”, who led our great processions on horseback, was in charge, and said, “Oh, you are just in time to look after the telephone.” “I hate the telephone, I can’t hear a word on it,” I replied. “Nonsense,” she said, “You mustn’t hate any W.S.P.U. work, come along, I’ll show you what to do,” which was to answer and call the person asked for, to avoid everybody within hearing of the bell rushing to it. Our Drum and Fife Bank, in purple, white and green uniforms, with Mrs. Mary Leigh36 as Drum-major and Audrey Rees-Webbe as a drummer made its first appearance at this time marching through different parts of London every day, followed by a huge banner which I helped to carry to advertise the Exhibition. Approaching a suffrage meeting in Trafalgar Square, I came face to face with a man who was turning away from it with the despairing gasp “What are the women coming to!” “Their senses!” said I, very emphatically. Toward the latter days of the militant campaign I came upon an “anti”speaker in Hyde Park. I heckled and argued with him, greatly to the amusement and approval of the crowd. At last he touched upon the badness of women and declared that bad women were much worse than bad men. “Of course they are; women are always more thorough than men in everything,” I called out, which with a big round of applause for the women, ended his meeting. Many of the audience asked me to address them, but I had to confess that though I might be a good heckler I would be disappointing as a speaker. The next deputation37 was scheduled for June 29, 1909, previous to which, just to prove to the Premier38 that I had a good reason for participating, I sent him the following letter, which received the usual, courteous, meaningless acknowledgement.

The Women’s Exhibition, May 1909, was a highly successful WSPU fund-raising event held at the Prince’s Skating Rink, Knightsbridge. 35 Flora Drummond (1879–1949) joined the WSPU in 1905. Married to an upholsterer, she was especially interested in working women’s lives after working in clothing factories in Manchester. 36 Mary Leigh (sometimes Marie, 1885–1978), a schoolteacher before her marriage to a builder, joined the WSPU in 1906 and, with Edith New, became the first suffragette stone-thrower. She served several prison sentences and in 1912 was sentenced to five years in prison for firing the Theatre Royal, Dublin, hunger struck and was released on licence. Critical of the WSPU leadership, she joined the East London Federation of Suffragettes in 1913. 37 A march to Parliament organised by the WSPU, claiming women’s right to petition the king for the vote. When the deputation was refused entry to the House of Commons there were skirmishes with the police and government windows were broken. 38 Herbert Henry Asquith (1852–1928), Liberal MP for East Fife, became Prime Minister on the death of Henry Campbell-Bannerman in April 1908. He was a well-known opponent of votes for women. 34

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353, Strand, W.C.39 June 25, 1909.

Dear Sir, As you are probably aware, a deputation of women will wait upon you in June 29th. I shall be with them, as I consider it to be most necessary for women to have the vote, for the protection of my fellow workers on the stage, as well as others. It is impossible for me to attempt to prove to you how necessary this is, as it would take far too much of your valuable time, but the crying need of protection from intolerable insults, which we get when we ask for w o r k is, I can assure you from painful personal experience, only too great. I have embodied some of these experiences in written evidence laid before the London County Council, but I think that their proposed Bill, though doing much, is neither strong nor sweeping enough. One of the strongest arguments in favour of Woman’s Suffrage is that it would enable us to put an end of the pressure that is brought to bear, which sometimes forces a helpless woman to a course of absolute immorality, against herself. Trusting you will give this matter your consideration, Believe me, dear Sir, Yours Faithfully, Kitty Marion The R. Hon. H. H. Asquith. This time, with over one hundred others, including the Hon. Mrs. Haverfield,40 I was arrested. At the trial the latter was represented by counsel, Mr. Henle, K.C.,41 who proved the legality of the W.S.P.U.’s action, and her case was eventually dismissed, as consequently were all the rest. About this time, Miss Marion Wallace Dunlop42 was on trial for stencilling on the wall of St. Steven Hall in the House of Commons the following:

353 Strand, London WC housed the Actors’ Association (AA). KM and many other performers used this as their postal address, particularly when their career meant that they had no permanent base. 40 Evelina ‘Eve’ Haverfield (1867–1920), a noted horsewoman; she was a member of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) for over ten years, before joining the WSPU in 1908. 41 Frederick Thomas Henry Henlé (1874–1913), a barrister and twice a Liberal Party parliamentary candidate, defended suffragettes on a number of occasions. 42 Marion Wallace-Dunlop (1865–1942), sculptor; she studied at the Slade and exhibited three times at the Royal Academy. She joined the WSPU in 1908, having first supported the moderate women’s suffrage campaign. In 1909 she was arrested for stencilling a message advertising the WSPU’s Bill of Rights Deputation on the walls of the House of Commons. She was the first suffragette prisoner to go on hunger strike in protest at the authorities’ refusal to treat convicted WSPU members as political prisoners rather than common criminals. 39

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“Woman’s deputation, June 29th. Bill of Rights.43 ‘It is the right of all subjects to petition the King. All commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal’.” I cannot recall the length of the sentence imposed upon Miss Dunlop but to everybody’s surprise she was released after three or four days. She had adopted the hunger-strike, refused to eat, and the Government, being taken unawares, could not let her starve, so released her. All suffrage prisoners shortened their sentences in the same way after this, until a group in “Winson Green”, Birmingham, including Charlotte (Charlie) Marsh44 and Mary Leigh, were forcibly fed and their health increasingly jeopardized until the Government was obliged to release them, their sentences unserved.

Chapter XXXIX Now the mere going without food for a principle did not excite me very much considering the millions of human beings the world over who go without, during strikes and other catastrophes, to say nothing of those living continually on the verge of starvation, and myself on occasions declining the “price” of food. But this outrage on the part of the Government “incited me to violence”. I called at Clements Inn, our headquarters, and expressed my indignation. Christabel Pankhurst gave me the opportunity of making my protest in “deeds not words”, with a stone through a government window in Newcastle on Tyne, on October 9th, when Mr. Lloyd George45 would speak there on the budget, excluding women taxpayers from his meeting. I arrived early in the morning on that fatal Saturday and went to the address of a suffrage friend for breakfast, rest and “council of war”. Dorothy Pethick,46 sister of Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence, and I were told off to throw stones through the windows of the General Post Office. “Why break windows?” you will ask, if you are uninitiated, so I will explain that destruction of government property, such as post offices or other government office windows, is a time-honoured British argument on the part of the people when the government fails to listen to verbal argument and reason, which certainly it had failed to do in the case of Woman’s Suffrage since 1832, and to make matters worse had resorted to force against the women, which is symbolic of a savage beating a female into submission. Were self This sentence appeared on thousands of handbills printed to advertise the deputation to Parliament on 29 June. 44 Charlotte Marsh (1887–1961) qualified as a sanitary inspector before joining the WSPU in March 1908. 45 David Lloyd George (1863–1945), Liberal MP for the Caernarvon Boroughs and Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1908–15. 46 Dorothy Pethick (1881–1970), a younger sister of Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, was training as a social worker when she joined the WSPU in 1906. 43

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respecting, civilized women, worthy of the term, going to submit to that? No! From King John signing Magna Charta at the point of the Barons’ swords down to recently keeping an old gun in the place where the p e o p l e wanted it,47 they have resorted to militancy from window breaking to arson, such as burning the bishop’s palace, prison, mansion house, custom-house, excise office and other public buildings at Bristol in 1832.48 But back to Newcastle. During the day, I kept to myself, no connection with the Suffragettes, who were well known to the police, having been active for days, preparing for this event with meetings and distribution of literature. There was to be “concerted action” on several post offices on the stroke of seven, while sympathizers in the vicinity would shout “Votes for Women!” With two stones in my muff, feeling deadly sick and nervous, I made my way to the G.P.O.49 which I knew so well. Without “recognizing” Miss Pethick, I joined her as she was entering, to see that no one was near the windows to get hurt by falling glass. Luckily, the coast was clear and we strolled out, separated in opposite directions, waiting for the stroke of the clock, which seemed as if it would never strike again. However, just as we met again in front of the P.O. the Cathedral clock opposite started chiming. “Now for it,” I said and each hurled a stone at a window previously decided upon. My window did not break so I hurled my second stone with lightning speed and greater force, which shattered it just as a dedective50 grabbed my arm. He had seen me throw the first stone and tried to prevent me from throwing the second. “Never saw such quick action in my life,” he said. Miss Pethick’s first stone missed fire too, and as they know her and had been watching her, they prevented her throwing the second. Wild excitement reigned while we were being taken to the police station, followed by an ever increasing, cheering crowd, shouting “Votes for Women!” At the police station we met the other campaigners and we celebrated our success with a supper sent from the hotel opposite, where on a previous visit, when I played the Pavilion,51 John L. Shine,52 the well-known actor gave a supper party to his fellow performers. We suffered a gratuitous insult and extra punishment by being kept in the police station without bail until the trial, a thing that was never done in London, The editors have tried to trace this ‘people’s protest’ but have been unable to identify it. Riots in Bristol were said to have been instrumental in the passing of the Great Reform Act of 1832. Whenever they were criticised for promoting militancy the WSPU reminded politicians, the public and the press of the violence adopted by men in 1832 and 1867 in the battle for male suffrage. 49 General Post Office. 50 ‘dedective’: detective. 51 The Pavilion Theatre, Newcastle, opened in December 1903. 52 John L. Shine (1856–1930), a comedian, theatre and early film actor. 47 48

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so our friends and supporters brought blankets, pillows and other necessaries to make us comfortable. Miss Pethick and I were charged together with having “wilfully and maliciously damaged a plate glass window, valued at £3.17.6 at the General Post Office” tec.53 The former pleaded “not guilty of smashing, but guilty of trying to.” I pleaded guilty to what I had done “in the great cause of women’s freedom” and added that I only practised what Mr. Lloyd-George preached, as quoted in the Sunday paper, “revolt is the only weapon to carry on a cause. The realm of politics is like the Kingdom of Heaven, it suffereth violence and it is the violent that take it by storm.” – One month’s hard labour for me, two weeks for Miss Pethick.

Chapter XL At the prison, they took our records, money and valuables, if any, but we fought against being stripped, bathed and put in prison dress. There were eight of us, including Lady Constance Lytton,54 Mrs. Brailsford,55 Emily Davison,56 who come into my stoty57 again later. I was the last to be taken to a cell, in a different wing to the others and had to wait outside while a woman finished scrubbing it and I protested at once against being put in a damp cell, especially as I was subject to rheumatism. The wardress helped me put the wooden bed plank down on the floor on which I rested while she went in search of another cell. Presently she returned, escorted me to the wing occupied by the others, opened a door, requested the occupant, who happened to be Lady Constance Lytton, to come out, and me to go in. What a horrid sensation to be locked in and not able to see the sky through the high up, opaque window panes. I measured the furniture, bed plank, table and stool with my eyes and concluded I could barricade my cell, provided there was no interruption from the outside. After a visit from the doctor whom I told I did not need his professional assistance, and one from a wardress who asked would I eat my supper if she brought it, the corridor became quiet. I removed my shoes to silence my footsteps on the concrete floor, stealthily placed the table, feet against the door, the stool, feet against the opposite wall and the plank longways, on its side, braced against the top of the stool, leaving a space between plank and table wide enough for the hard, narrow mattress to fit in crossways, with me on it. I had just put the mattress down when I heard footsteps and so that no one ‘tec.’: etc. Lady Constance Lytton (1869–1923) joined the WSPU in 1908. 55 Jane Brailsford (1873–1937) was married to Henry Brailsford, a leading Liberal journalist who supported his wife’s suffragette activities. 56 Emily Wilding Davison (1872–1913), a governess before joining the WSPU in 1906. 57 ‘stoty’: story. 53 54

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should look into the cell, I crumpled up my handkerchief into the “inspection”, a glass peephole in the door, and flung myself onto the mattress, none too soon, for the key grated in the lock, but the door, which ordinarily opened inwards, was prevented from doing so now by the barricade, of which I was part. It was the Matron at the door with a toothbrush and a rug, in case my bed clothes were insufficient, she told me. Of course, I refused to let her in and told her they could not force the door without injuring me. Just then I heard the cheering of our friends outside and the response, in which I joined, from my comrades within. When all was quiet, I drew the blanket over me and tried to sleep but the bright light directly over my head was not conducive, so I read the paper and dozed at intervals. Of course I thought of Houdini and wished I knew his tricks of escape. And Freddy, comparing “what might have been” to my present position, and wondering what he thought about it. I had no idea Freddy had already passed to the great majority. Months later I heard from a mutual friend that he had contracted a disease which killed him. The pity of it! It seemed such a long night and when I heard a clock strike, thinking it must be morning, it was only midnight. At last, I heard footsteps, the rattle of keys, doors being unlocked, women cleaning their cells, breakfast being taken round and doors locked again, while each prisoner, except the hunger striking Suffragettes, partook of her solitary meal. Later the Governor called and I told him I would not move until we had the vote, the government rushed other bills through the House when it suited them. Let them rush a bill to enfranchise women through. Then, the Matron, the Chaplain, the Doctor, the Schoolmistress tried to persuade me to open the door, but I said, “No, not even for Mrs. Pankhurst unless she told me we had the vote.” About midday, they unscrewed the inspection and could see the interior of the cell. Later a man tried to force the door with a crowbar at which I screamed, more in anger than in pain though my side being pressed against the plank did hurt. I asked who had authorized this and, the Governor, who was there, said he had. I told him they could not get in even if they killed me, my body would still be in the way. At last they chiselled the hinges off and lifted the door out, after being kept at bay twenty-four hours. Then several wardresses came in, stripped me, put me into prison clothes and took me to another cell, in another wing, to the accompaniment of hysterical laughter caused by my sarcastic and humorous remarks on human condition and treatment in general, my own, just now, in particular. And again our friends outside cheering and singing

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THE WOMEN’S MARSEILLAISE58 Arise ye daughters of a land that vaunts its liberty, Make reckless rulers understand that women must be free, That women w i l l be free! Hark, hark the bugle’s calling. Who’ll be a laggard in the fight, With victory even now in sight And stubborn foemen backward falling. To Freedom’s cause till death We swear our fealty. March on, march on, face to the dawn The dawn of liberty. Arise, though pain and loss betide, Grudge nought to freedom’s toll, For what they loved the martyrs died. Are we of meaner soul? Are we of meaner soul? Our comrades greatly daring Through prison bars have led the way. Who would not follow in the fray Their glorious struggle proudly sharing. To Freedom’s cause … etc.

Chapter XLI The next morning, my cell door was flung open and an apparently surprised wardress said, “Aren’t you up yet?” “No!” “Don’t you want any gruel?” “No t h a n k you.” There was nothing to get up for. They brought me a book, “The Healthy Home”, which all prisoners are supposed to study during the last month of their incarceration. I opened it at random and the first thing to catch my eye was a dead louse stuck on page nine which I pointed out to the Governor and Matron when they called, “It can’t be” said the former, “I am afraid it is, Governor” said the Matron and took the book away. I told them it was a bit too late to give people “healthy home” instructions when they come to gaol, it should be done in their childhood, when I had mine. And to start with, they needed more ventilation in the cells, the windows of which were just fixtures, no air coming from the outside except a little through ‘The Women’s Marseillaise’, a marching song by schoolteacher Florence Elizabeth Mary Macaulay, was written for the WSPU in 1909.

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a grating. When returning from exercise in the fresh air, which I took some days later, the atmosphere of the cell just struck me as putrid. The Suffragettes changed all that by smashing the windows for which sliding ones were substituted, even in the men’s prisons, so the men gained that much from the women’s actions. The Chaplain called to pray, with and for me, and but for his “white hairs” which I had in childhood been taught to respect, and his kindly, unassuming attitude, I would have told him what I thought of an alleged “Christian” Church that countenanced the government’s brutal treatment of women who demanded justice. Two doctors, the regular prison doctor and another called, tested my heart and pulse and expressed interest in my professional career. They had read my letter which appeared in the “Sunday Chronicle” of October 10th, in a discussion between Anna Held,59 the famous international star, a “W. Forbes” who disagreed with her very truthful statements, myself and others, of “Morals on the Stage”. A Parliamentary Committee had just finished a play censorship discussion, hence my reference to it in the following letter. Editor, The Sunday Chronicle. Sir: Having thoroughly gone “through the mill” as a chorus girl, actress, and music hall artist, and knowing a little more about “morals on the stage” than your correspondent “W. Forbes,” I would suggest that the Parliamentary Committee, having finished “sitting on” the Censor, should hear evidence on the subject of “Morals of the stage”. Maybe the stage would then be cleaned of some of “the powers that be” who object to morality on the stage. Kitty Marion, 353, Strand, W.C. About midday, a wardress brought my dinner and strongly advised me to e a t it. There was a grim note in her voice which sounded very ominous and I felt prepared for the worst. Neither food nor water had passed my lips since Monday lunch time, and this was Wednesday. In the evening two wardresses asked me to come with them, I refused and, struggling all the time, they managed to put some clothes on me and drag me to the top of the stairs where I shook them off, preferring to walk down myself for at the bottom there were several more. They surrounded me and took me to the doctor’s room, where three doctors, two in operating aprons, awaited me. One asked me to drink some milk. I refused and was seized and overpowered by several wardresses, forced into an arm chair, covered by a sheet, each arm held Anna Held (née Helene Anna Held, 1872?–1918), a Polish-born European and Broadway music theatre performer and celebrity. She left her husband and became involved with Florenz Ziegfeld (1867–1932), the ‘man who invented Show Business’. In 1907 she was largely responsible for devising the famous Ziegfeld Follies.

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to the arm of the chair by a wardress, two others holding my shoulders back, two more holding my knees down, a doctor holding my head back. I struggled and screamed all the time. Not knowing the procedure of forcible feeding and thinking it was done through the mouth, I clenched my teeth when they had me in position and helpless, when suddenly I felt something penetrate my right nostril which seemed to cause my head to burst and eyes to bulge. Choking and retching as the tube was forced down to the stomach and the liquid food poured in, most of which was vomitted back especially when the tube was withdrawn. There are no words to describe the horrible revolting sensations. I must have lost consciousness for I found myself flat on the floor, not knowing how I got there. When wardresses were picking me up to carry me back to my cell, I heard one say “Eh, but she’s heavy!” I said, “Of course, I am. put me down, I’ll walk back, they would leave work like this for you women to do.” I called the doctors a lot of dirty, cringing doormats to the government to lend themselves to such outrageous treatment to women. As I was half dragging myself and being assisted by wardresses up the stairs, I suddenly saw the prison doctor on the other side of the banister. I stopped and with all the force and venom possible I cried, “You brute!” “It isn’t my fault, I can’t help it,” he whined. “If you had an ounce of manliness in you, you would protest against doing this,” I said and struck him in the face with the back of my hand. Like father, like daughter, but I inwardly regretted it at once, though it was a relief to have done it. On the way back I shouted “Votes for Women!” “Down with Tyranny!” till I was back in my cell. The wardresses tried to sympathize with and soothe me but I asked them to leave me alone and pushed them out of my cell. I flung myself on the bed and cried with rage and mental agony until I heard screams and knew that someone else was going through the torture. I jumped up and with the aid of the chair, I broke ten panes of glass in the window which was high up in the wall. (This was the nearest approach to “hard labour” I did.) Then I heard some boys voices shouting outside, “Votes for Women” as our friends gathered for our nightly cheer. I stood on the chair, shouting and screaming, trying to tell them what was happening inside, but of course, their voices and the band playing drowned mine, and I could only watch them march away and disappear. Lady Constance Lytton, I heard later, had been released without being forcibly fed. The doctors had found her heart weak. But a few months later when she made a protest in Liverpool as a poor seamstress, Jane Warton, to prove the Home Secretary’s60 duplicity and servility to a title, she was forcibly fed without her heart being even tested.61 Herbert John Gladstone (1864–1930), Home Secretary 1905–10. Constance Lytton as ‘Jane Warton’ protested outside Walton Prison in January 1910. She

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Mrs. Brailsford, the wife of an influential Liberal journalist was also, much to her surprise, found physically unfit for forcible feeding, as genuinely were one or two others, and released before they started on the rest of us.

Chapter XLII Well now, what was to be my next move? I must make some sort of a protest. As I lay there wondering, my eye fell upon the gas jet in a square in the wall, protected on the inside by a thick square of glass. Men had set fire to prisons in their fight with the government, why shouldn’t women? The bedding was all I had to burn, perhaps that was stuffed with straw. It was so hard, the casing made of canvas. How could I get the contents out? I had neither knife nor scissors. The only way was to gnaw a hole large enough to draw the contents out, place them against the door, break the glass and get a light from the gas and, there you are. The light was left on all night and through the inspection I could be observed, so had to work warily. I lay on my bed, gnawing at the pillow which was much more difficult than it sounds, but at last I made a hole large enough and instead of straw, I found coconut fibre. Pulled out loose, it made quite a big heap, large enough to fire the mattress as it was. The next thing was paper for a foundation and a spill to convey the fire from the gas. The only paper I had was the Bible. Was I justified in using what I needed of that in our fight for Freedom and Justice? God’s word stands for both, and a replaceable paper copy could not be used in a better cause. I carefully weighed the pros and cons of outraging some people’s feelings, and came to the conclusion that those who would be the most shocked would be the first to say that I was afraid of hurting myself if I made the Bible my excuse for not making my “fiery” protest. Another consideration was, giving them a chance to turn off the gas and avoid a possible explosion which might have hurt others, so I waited till early morning, near getting up time. When the clock struck five, I got up, placed the mattress by the door, then the loose fibre against it with leaves from the Bible under it, had a spill ready and then tried to break the glass. The leg of a chair was the only thing I could do it with, but the glass being too deep in the wall to be reached without breaking the chair, I had to do that first, which unfortunately made much noise and must have attracted attention too soon. However, I succeeded in breaking the glass, getting the light and applying it to my pile, which roared like a furnace as the flame shot up and filled the cell with smoke. was sentenced to fourteen days’ hard labour and was force fed eight times, in contrast to the privileged treatment she had been shown in Newcastle.

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“Self preservation” being the first law of nature, I tried to get to the window for air but had no chair to stand on now, nor a table, that being a fixture in this cell. Overcome by smoke, I sank to the floor, then heard a voice say “Oh, my God!” and water being dashed about. Then I was dragged out and left on the cold stone floor in the corridor while they put the fire out on the wooden cell floor. I was in a state of collapse and didn’t care what happened. Next, I heard them consult as to what to do with me and someone suggested the padded cell, where they took me at once, right beneath the burnt one. Even the floor was padded and there was no furniture. I lay there, wreck as I felt, seeing the funny side of my friends, my audiences having a view of me now and the girls “envying” me my prison “undies”. What a mistake the authorities make in forcing women into such ugly reflections of their own minds which help to make a prisoner merely unrepentant and vengeful. During the day, I was closely watched and visited by the Governor, Matron and Doctor. The Matron was really most kind and motherly and gave me milk from a feeding cup which I was by then too weak to resist. I felt I could not face the feeding tube again. I have since heard others, eloquent speakers, who have gone through the torture, describe the procedure at meetings, but the most perfect description could not convey the horror and agony I suffered. Later in the day, I was taken to another cell, next to one I had barricaded. I was also permitted to take a bath after promising “on my honour” not to do anything desperate. By now, I was such a physical wreck, I hadn’t the strength to do anything but take it easy. Every night from eight to six a wardress sat outside my cell and spoke to me, to know if I was all right, every time I moved. One night she asked me was I the Kitty Marion who had appeared at the Manchester Hippodrome?62 She had seen and admired me very much, and little dreamed she would ever meet me like this. I stayed in bed and never saw or heard anything of my comrades, but was told they had all “given in”. I was the only one to continue to give so much trouble and was doing the cause more harm than good. The Matron and everybody positively broke my spirit with kindness and coaxing, a thing I was not accustomed to, and found harder to bear than prison discipline. I refused to eat and they fed me liquids with a feeding cup. A visiting magistrate, although expressing dissatisfaction with my heavy sentence (the longest of any, for quoting Lloyd George) thought we were very cowardly to bring our fight into prison and give so much trouble. As a rule prisoners were charged with, and punished for, any damage they did in prison. And though a wardress told me I had done a “terrible lot”, the authorities ignored it. At the end of a fortnight, with the aid of a wardress, I crawled out for air and This would have been in 1907, when KM appeared on the same bill as Marie Lloyd.

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exercise. On returning to the cell, I found it so badly ventilated and cold that they gave me another with a real, comfortable bed and left the door open for air. I also considered my position on being released. I had no immediate work booked and in my present state of health was unfit to look for any. And I could not bear being “fussed over” any longer so put an end to that by taking food, tea, toast, sponge cake, poached eggs, broth, custard, baked apples, though never enough to satisfy the doctor, whom I told I would make up for it outside. To pass the time, they gave me pictures to cut out to make scrap books for prisoners who could not read. As a child I had amused myself that way. I was allowed books but no more Bible, though it would have been perfectly safe. I like the Bible, among other things, for its fine “big sticks” with which to hit “scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites” over the head. St Matthew 23., to mention but a few. The Chaplain did not call again nor did I go to chapel. At last November 10th, the day of my release dawned and at 8 A.M. when the gate opened, flushed with happiness thereat and in accord with my natural impulse, I ran to meet the friends who had come to bid me “welcome out”. The Press had me “looking exceedingly well – bounded out – in contrast with her fellow prisoners, who had been liberated previously, she appeared in robust health and high spirit.” Had they seen me when the excitement of “coming out” was over they would have given a different description. A pleasant change from prison, etc., was the Great Mass Meeting at the Royal Albert Hall on December 9th, to welcome Mrs. Pankhurst back from America,63 and the presentation by her of the Hungerstrike Medals,64 “For Valour”, to those who had undergone the strike and forcible feeding. It was a glorious re-union and a great triumph, honour and privilege to walk in that file of splendid fighters for Woman’s Emancipation, from the boxes at back of that great crowded hall, down the center aisle, onto the platform, to meet Mrs. Pankhurst who made the presentations, to the cheers of that enthusiastic throng, while the organ pealed forth the Women’s Marseillaise, “To Freedom’s Cause till death, we swear our fealty.” We walked alphabetically, so it happened that I followed Lady Constance Lytton, dark, tall, slender, dressed in white, while I was in black, setting each other off to perfection, artistically. And it was indeed an honour in itself, to walk in the footsteps of that great, noble soul, who as the humble seamstress, “Jane Warton”, a few months later, bore all the government’s contumely and torture.

On 13 October 1909 Emmeline Pankhurst, accompanied by Dr Marie Pethick, had sailed to the United States for a six-week lecture tour to raise funds and spread the word about militancy. 64 Hunger-strike medals ‘For Valour’ were awarded to women who had been force fed in prison; they were the suffragettes’ equivalent of the Victoria Cross. 63

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Chapter XLIII After playing three weeks including Christmas in a very good, refined sketch which had no further immediate bookings, prospects looking very bad and neither Parliament nor the L.C.C. apparently making any move towards licensing the agents, I thought I would take a leaf out of the Suffragettes’ book in drawing public attention to stage grievances by getting arrested and making a statement in court. So one night in January I set forth, armed with a couple of half­-brick, procured by Daddy Mac, to break a window at the Moss Empires’ office in Cranbourn Street, not because I had any special grievance against them, but because they were the biggest game to shoot at. To avoid a crowd and possible hurt to anyone by falling glass I went at about 2 o’clock in the night when, barring the police, I should have the stage to myself. I soon found the office windows were too high for me to reach and break, but while I was trying, four or five policemen strolled up from different points in the vicinity, Leicester Square, thinking I was locked out and trying to awaken someone to let me in (think hard and you’ll see something in that point of view.) When I told them the why and wherefore of my action they tried to dissuade me. “What you say is true, we know, but why make a martyr of yourself?” I told them there was no martyrdom in this, but in the insults women received when they asked for work, etc., and if they did not arrest me now, I would have to make another attempt, so, like good sports, they took my intention for the deed, picked up the incriminating evidence and escorted me to Vine Street Police Station. No, I did not wish to communicate with any one, I needed no bail, I preferred to stay until taken to Bow St. in the morning. There, before the magistrate, Sir Albert de Rutzen,65 a policeman told his story of my arrest, after which I made the statement that I had no grievance against Moss Empires but wanted to bring the disgraceful state of the profession to the attention of the public. It was almost impossible for a woman to earn an honest living on the stage. Invariably when she asked for work she was grossly insulted by agents and managers, and if she resented the insults she got no work. “Really, I never heard of anything so absurd,” said Sir Albert, while I continued, “I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to bring one’s grievances before the public without coming in contact with the police. I have written to the papers and given evidence to the London County Council but nothing is being done and things are getting worse.” “Conduct like this could not possibly be allowed. The prisoner would be bound over to be of good behaviour for two months.” Shortly before, I had been nominated for election on the Actors’ Association Council, and my sponsors were delighted with my protest while others were horrified at my “disgraceful conduct”, one lady even prophesying a riot in the Association if I were elected. Vita Spencer,66 one of my sponsors, and Sir Albert de Rutzen (1831–1913), Chief Magistrate at Bow Street Court. Vita Spencer (n.d.) a dramatic actress, comedienne and early radio actor, was an energetic member of the AA from 1907.

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member of the Council, told me of Cecil Raleigh,67 the dramatic author and actor coming into an excited Council meeting, and after listening to the protests against my action said, “Good lord, the woman deserves a crown!” With the exception of reporting the case, the press said nothing vital on the subject. “Trying to smash Mr. Stoll’s window was not the way of asking him for work,” and similar asinine remarks. But “The Performer”, the V.A.F.’s own weekly paper, carried the following on January 13, 1910. “Miss Kitty Marion has lately been taking a prominent part in the strenuous propaganda of the Suffragettes. Now, people who resort to extreme measures are usually capable of expressing extreme views. ‘It is impossible,’ says the fair Kitty, ‘for a respectable girl to be successful on the music hall stage.’ I believe that Kitty has been on the music hall stage for some years, and that she has been admired and respected by many of her sister artistes. I wonder what they think of Kitty’s opinions of them?” To which I replied: “There is only one point on which I can excuse the appearance of a certain paragraph in today’s ‘performer’, and that is, it has been printed in the hope that men and women in the profession, who privately discuss the ‘difficulties’ of getting work, will do so publicly. I have never in my life made use of the words, ‘It is impossible for a respectable girl to be successful on the music hall stage.’ What I have said is, ‘It is almost impossible for a woman to earn an honest living on the stage,’ meaning the stage in general and not the music hall stage in particular. I am not the first and only one to say that, by a long chalk, for I have heard it said more years ago that I care to tell; when I first went on the stage and hardly understood the full meaning of the words. Extreme measures usually are the outcome of extreme views, views created by extreme circumstances and extreme sufferings caused by extreme unfairness and injustice, the moderate protests against which go unnoticed by those who have the power to rectify wrong, but who prefer to do wrong instead of right. A desperate disease requires a desperate remedy, and no one can deny that the profession is suffering from desperate diseases. My opinion of my ‘sister artistes’ is easily disposed of, since the majority I have met, during my six years of music hall experience, express the same ‘extreme views’ as myself, and of those whom I have run across since the sixth instance, the majority have said to me ‘Bravo, Kate!’ as have also my ‘brother artists’. Yours faithfully Kitty Marion.” Cecil Raleigh (né Rowlands, 1856–1914), actor and playwright; he was the author with Henry Hamilton of some of the most popular dramas of the Edwardian era, many of which were adapted for silent film.

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The only public protest against my action I saw, appeared in a letter following mine above, from the Sisters Macarte, acrobats,68 who had “been in the business all our lives, and have not experienced the trouble mentioned.” Of course not, their father and trainer who did all their business for them, stood between them and the “trouble”. “Speak the truth and shame the devil” is glibly quoted, but when it becomes necessary to speak the truth in the cause of human progress and well being, most of her professed champions refrain, from fear of offending his satanic majesty in the shape of political, social, economic and ecclesiastical authorities who hate the truth. And since in my childish innocence I set forth to prove that one could be as good on as off the stage, let me state, speaking for the women with whom I have discussed the question, women faced with economic difficulties and temptations unknown to those who live in the shelter of a father’s or husband’s home, they are not only as good as, but relatively better than, any off the stage. They resent and resist the attempted sex exploitation as I do, but are not imbued with the same fighting spirit to protest publicly. It is not a “nice” subject to discuss, which to me is all the more reason to discuss it publicly out of existence. Though I received plenty of private approbation and a letter from a Mrs. Wiggins in New Westminster, B.C., President of the local Political Equality League and a member of the W.S.P.U.,69 whose niece was on the stage, thanking me for my “courageous stand” etc. etc., no one came to my support publicly, but two weeks later, the girl who had told the “Buenos Aires” story to the L.C.C. committee, and I, were requested to appear before the chairman, Mr. Percy C. Simmons, to confirm our statements. I then asked her if her story was the same which appeared in “The Stage”. It was not, she had not even seen it, and willingly consented to appear as a witness for “The Stage”, against the agents. The latter dropped the case! About this time too, Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.70 crusaded against International White Slave traffic, and with the aid of research workers compiled a pamphlet on the subject to which I contributed some data. Unfortunately I cannot quote from it, my copy having gone the way of other loaned books. From what I learned these days of the white slaver’s modus operandi, I gathered that Mr. Dreck, the two agents and the nice lady and gentleman who invited me to go to Paris with them were nothing but white slavers and procurers, working together, and the lady who asked me to direct her to Waterloo Station was of the same profession. In July I received a copy of the “Report of the Parliamentary Committee, London County Council (General Powers) Bill 1910,” regarding “Employment agencies”. It said, “this part was strongly opposed by certain employment agents, The ‘Sisters Macarte’, Kate, Addie and Blanche, were circus acrobats and ‘wire artistes’; Cecilia Macarte, a music hall artist, lodged in Brixton in 1911. 69 Probably Agnes Wiggins (1880–?), a photographer who had emigrated to British Columbia in 1907. The letter is in the MLSC. 70 John D. Rockefeller Jr (1874–1960), American financier and philanthropist; he became the foreman of the Grand Jury that investigated the ‘White Slave Trade’ in 1910. 68

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a number of whom had signed a petition against the bill, and also by the Home office.” (Italics are mine.) In support of the case in this part of the bill, evidence was given by Mr. P.C. Simmons, late chairman of the Public Control Committee; Mr. (later Sir) George Alexander,71 representing the Society of West-End Theatre Managers and the Actors’ Association. The chief officer of the public control department: Mr. F.C. Bullock, C.S.I., an assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police: Mr. Clemart, chairman of the Variety Artistes’ Federation; and a number of other witnesses, including employment agents and various associations. The opponents did not call evidence on the preamble of this part of the bill, and in the result the Committee decided to grant the licensing powers asked for the Council. – – And so from the following Jan. 1st, theatrical and music-hall agents, as well as others, were licensed. Whether that has had the desired effect I have not been able to check up, since the course of events took me into other channels of activity. I still had a few dates to play and managed to book some direct, including one in June at Kingston with Mr. Peter Davey, who was running his theatre as a music hall now. A pleasant interlude was the great Procession,72 six miles long, which took three hours to pass a given point, from the Thames Embankment to the Albert Hall on June 18, 1910, in which 617 prisoners, including 110 hunger strikers were represented. At the meeting the Earl of Lytton,73 brother of Lady Constance, was the chief speaker, and £5,000 was raised for the war chest.74 The “Conciliation Bill”, so called because it conciliated all political parties and all suffrage organisations on giving the Parliamentary vote to all municipal women voters, was about to be introduced by a private member, Mr. Shackleton.75 The W.S.P.U. declared a truce, dropped all militancy, continued peaceful meetings all over the country including a mass meeting in Hyde Park at which a resolution in support of the Conciliation Bill was passed almost unanimously on July 23rd, the date on which in 1867 men voters had pulled down the railings of Hyde Park in defence of free assembly and free speech, in defiance of government and police. “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God!”76 George Alexander (né George Alexander Gibb Samson, 1858–1914), actor, producer and theatre manager, now best remembered for his production of Oscar Wilde’s plays at St James’s Theatre. 72 The ‘Prison to Citizenship’ march, a cleverly choreographed public relations exercise to lobby for the Conciliation Bill, which promised some women the vote, and which was due to be debated in the House of Commons in July 1910. 73 Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton (1876–1943), a senior member of the Conservative Party and active supporter of women’s suffrage. 74 The WSPU’s campaign fund. 75 David Shackleton (1863–1938), Labour MP for Clitheroe, a trade unionist and the third working man to become an MP. 76 ‘Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God!’ was embroidered on WSPU banners. 71

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Every individual, every group in favour of Women’s Suffrage, supported the Bill. Nearly every Municipal Council, cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and others, County Councils, sent up asking the Government to allow this Bill to be carried into law. At its Second Reading the Bill received a greater majority than the Government’s Budget and Veto resolutions, in spite of Mr. Lloyd George, our professed friend, bringing all his influence to bear against it, though he did bring about the Government’s refusal to grant time for its passage into law. As Parliament was drawing to a close, and Mr. Asquith made no reference to Woman’s Suffrage, Mrs. Pankhurst thought it advisable to find out where we stood, and on November 18th,77 she led another deputation to Mr. Asquith, accompanied by Mrs. Garrett Anderson M.D., twice Mayor of Aldeburgh;78 a pioneer among women doctors, Mrs. Hertha Ayrton;79 a distinguished scientist, Mrs. Saul Solomon80 over 66 years of age, wife of the ex-Premier of Cape Colony, Mrs. Cobden Sanderson,81 daughter of the great Free Trade advocate, Richard Cobden, Miss Neligan,82 Principal of a girl’s High School in Croydon, 78 years of age; the Hon. Mrs. Haverfield, the Princess Sophia Dhuleep Singh,83 and others of similar high standing. Over 300 women, in detachments of twelve each, left Caxton Hall. “The treatment which this deputation received was the worst that has been meted out to any deputation since the conflict between women and the Government began. The orders of the Home Secretary (Mr. Winston Churchill)84 Known as ‘Black Friday’ because of the brutality of both the uniformed and plain-clothes policemen. 78 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, MD (1836–1917), the first woman to practise as a doctor in England. She opened a dispensary for women in London in 1869 and founded the New Hospital for Women in 1872. She was the first woman to be elected as a mayor, in 1908, and was the sister of Millicent Fawcett, the leader of the NUWSS. 79 Hertha Ayrton (née Marks, 1854–1923), engineer, mathematician, physicist and inventor. In 1906 she became the first woman to receive the Royal Society Hughes Medal for research that was exclusively her own. A member of WSPU from 1907. 80 Georgiana Saul Solomon (née Georgiana Margaret Thomson, 1844–1933), a philanthropist and head teacher in South Africa, who with her daughter Daisy joined the WSPU in 1908. She was imprisoned in 1912 for breaking windows in the House of Lords. Between 1902 and 1904, she was instrumental in establishing the South African Women’s [suffrage] Federation. 81 Anne Cobden Sanderson (née Julia Sarah Anne Cobden, 1853–1926), socialist and feminist, joined the WSPU in 1905. She was sentenced to two months in prison for protesting with Mrs Pankhurst, Charlotte Despard (née French, 1844–1939) and Mary Gawthorpe (1881–1973) in the lobby of the House of Commons in October 1906 but was released after a month. 82 Dorinda Neligan (1833–1914), headmistress of Croydon High School, 1875–1901. A moderate suffragist before joining the WSPU in 1909, she was arrested on 29 June 1909 but the case against her was dropped. 83 Princess Sophia Duleep Singh (1876–1948), daughter of Maharajah Duleep Singh; her godmother had been Queen Victoria. To the embarrassment of the authorities, she walked with Mrs Pankhurst to the House of Commons. 84 Winston Spencer Churchill (1874–1956), Conservative MP for Oldham 1900–6, Liberal MP for Manchester North-West 1906–8 and for Dundee 1908–22. He was Home Secretary from 1910 until his appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. 77

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were apparently, that the police were to be present both in uniform and in plain clothes among the crowd and that the women were to be thrown from one to the other. In consequence of these instructions, many of the women were severely hurt and several were knocked down and bruised.” (Votes for Women, November 25, 1910.) Even the Press called it “Black Friday”. 119 arrests were made, including myself, but the Magistrate, Mr. Musket,85 announced that according to the Home Secretary “no public advantage would be gained by proceeding with the persecution,” and we were all discharged. On Monday, we continued our meeting at Caxton Hall, waiting to see what Mr. Asquith would do about our bill. Again on Tuesday we waited for a statement from Mr. Asquith which, when he made it, was equivocal and worthless. The House had risen and Mr. Asquith gone home. Whereupon Mrs. Pankhurst, followed by hundreds of women proceeded at once to Downing Street, the Premier’s official residence. Some of us, including Maud Fussell86 and myself, made our way through St. James’ Park and entered Downing Street at the Parl end while others came in through Whitehall. Maud was armed with a couple of one-pound weights of which she gave me one to hurl at “No. 10’s” windows. Unfortunately the unequal circumferences of the weight caused it to swerve and instead of breaking the window it marked the wall. (The mark remained for quite a long time.) The attack was unexpected and Downing Street was full of women, awaiting Mrs. Pankhurst, before police re-enforcement was rushed from Scotland Yard across Whitehall, and the battle of Downing Street raged like a seething caldron of women trying to reach No. 10 and being forced back by police. I was thankful when at last, breathless and exhausted I was arrested among over 150 others. Again, we were discharged. But the battle of Downing Street gained me a life-long friend in Miss Fussell. On Wednesday some of us tried to enter the House by the Stranger’s entrance87 and I was among the eighteen arrested. It was raining heavily. The police tried their hardest to throw us in the mud. I clung to “my bobby’s” cape while he called me everything but a lady and a decent woman, to let go his cape, until in sheer self defence, he arrested me. And again we were discharged.

Herbert George Muskett (1866–1947), a solicitor who prosecuted dozens of suffragettes on behalf of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. 86 Maud Fussell (1883–1973) and her twin sister, Emily Victoria (her suffragette alias was ‘Georgina Lloyd’, 1883–1922), were active in Bristol, where their father had been a boot manufacturer. Maud was running the WSPU shop in Bristol in 1913. During their suffragette careers the twins were arrested several times; each served at least three prison sentences, went on hunger strike and was force fed. 87 The Strangers’ Entrance to the House of Commons was the scene of regular struggles between suffragettes and the police, and of arrests. 85

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Chapter XLIV Christmas drawing near once more found me with no work in view, but Mr. and Mrs. Bob Baxter (Alma Abrey)88 fellow members of the V.A.F. who also made their home at Ma Mac’s fixed me with a pantomime “Jack and the Beanstalk” in which they were going to play, principal comedian and principal boy, “Jack”. I was to understudy the latter besides retiring into the chorus which was an easy, restful, time for me. We had no understudy rehearsals but on Feb. 7th at the Grand Theatre, Birmingham, where I played so many times with the “Lady Slavey”, I was called upon to play “Jack”, Alma Abrey having gone home in a fit of tantrums. The following and last week of the tour she returned at the Colchester Hippodrome, which was now being run by Cooperative Varieties Ltd. an offshoot from the V.A.F. My landlady, with whom I had stayed on my previous visit, when she heard that I had no immediate bookings, suggested I should stay and put in a few weeks, singing to the soldiers in their canteens. She explained to me that there were several regiments stationed in Colchester, and to keep the Tommies in camp instead of letting them go into the town, entertainment was provided for them in the evening. Many artists, she told me, which I found quite true, filled in that way. Why not try a week, I could easily give it up if I didn’t like it. Well, I didn’t give it up. My first week was such a success that I was glad to continue, canteen after canteen, week after week for four months, in spite of the extreme contrast in the environment as compared to “Empires” and “Palaces”. The canteen was merely a large room with a raised platform with piano at one end. The rest filled with long tables and benches, occupied by the Tommies enjoying their supper of mostly bread, cheese, onions, and beer. Occasionally a pet dog would stroll along on the table and take a lap of beer from his master’s tankard, much to my amusement and appreciation of the perfect understanding and comradery between man and beast. I had an extensive repertoire, including chorus songs, in which the boys joined. “The nicest turn they’d ever had”, I heard was their general opinion. – It was delightful to be comfortably settled for some time with a steady, though small (£2) weekly income and no expenses beyond room and board. And instead of visiting agents’ offices, to roam about the country. Every week too there was the diversion of meeting fellow V.A.F.’s at the Hippodrome and attending our weekly business meetings at the Swan Hotel, the regular Theatrical rendezvous, where mine host A.T. Walstow and his wife made everybody welcome. On March 21 at the Colchester Liberal Unionists Association’s Annual Smoking Concert I was the only lady on the program. Their organizing secretary had asked me to do a turn for them, but not taking him seriously I said, “Yes, I’ll sing ‘The Trumpeter’ and recite ‘Woman This and Woman That’.” I thought no more about it until I received the program with me on it as a “Music Hall Artist and Militant Suffragette”. That was Bob Baxter (Robert Baxter, 1868–1925), comic singer, pantomime dame and comedian; Alma Obrey (sic, 1869–1944?), singer and pantomime boy.

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fine advertising for the cause in conservative Colchester. According to the press, “Some sensation was caused by the appearance of Miss Kitty Marion described as a Militant Suffragette. The awe experienced by the audience was quickly succeeded by delight, for the lady proved a charming vocalist -- fi ­ nely rendered “The Trumpeter”, and was duly encored. Later she gave a recitation.” “WOMAN THIS, AND WOMAN THAT.”89 (Echo of a Barrack-room Ballad, with acknowledgments to Mr. Rudyard Kipling.) By Lawrence Housman.

I. We went up to Saint Stephens with petitions year by year; “Get out!” the politicians cried, “we want no women here!” M.P.’s behind the railings stood and laughed to see the fun, And bold policemen knocked us down, because we would not run. For it’s woman this, and woman that, and “Woman go away!” But it’s “Share and share alike, ma’am!” when the taxes are to pay; When the taxes are to pay, my friends, the taxes are to pay, Oh, it’s “Please to pay up promptly!” when the taxes are to pay! II. We went before a magistrate, who would not hear us speak; To a drunken brute who beat his wife he only gave a week; But we were sent to Holloway a calendar month or more, Because we dared, against his will, to knock at Asquith’s door. For it’s woman this, and woman that, and “Woman, wait outside!” But it’s “Listen to the Ladies!” when it suits your Party’s side; When it suits your Party’s side, my friends, when M.P.’s on the stump Are shaking in their shoes at how the cat is going to jump! III. When women go to work for them the Government engage To give them lots of contract jobs at a low starvation wage; But when it’s men that they employ they always add a note – “Fair wages must be paid” – because the men have got to vote. For it’s woman this, and woman that, and “Woman, learn your place!” But it’s “Help us, of your charity!” when trouble looms apace; When trouble comes apace, my friends, when trouble comes apace, Then it’s “Oh, for woman’s charity!” to help and save the race! ‘Woman This, and Woman That’ was written by the poet and artist Laurence Housman (1856–1959), brother of the poet A.E. Housman, and the artist and novelist Clemence Annie Housman (1861–1955). He also designed the WSPU’s ‘Prison to Citizenship’ banner. In 1909 he and Clemence founded the Suffrage Atelier, producing cartoons, posters and postcards to advance the cause of votes for women.

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IV. You dress yourselves in uniforms to guard your native shores, But those who make the uniforms do work as good as yours; For the soldier bears the rifle, but the woman bears the race And that you’d find no trifle if you had to take her place! Oh, it’s woman this, and woman that, and “Woman cannot fight!” But it’s “Ministering Angel!” when the wounded come in sight; When the wounded come in sight, my friends, the wounded come in sight. It’s a “ministering angel” then who nurses day and night! V. We may not be quite angels – had we been we should have flown! – We are only human beings, who have wants much like your own; And if sometimes our conduct isn’t all your fancy paints, It wasn’t man’s example could have turned us into saints! For it’s woman here, and woman there, and woman on the streets, And it’s how they look at women, with most men that one meets; With most men that one meets, my friends, with most men that one meets It’s the way they look at women that keeps women on the streets! VI. You talk of sanitation, and temperance, and shools,90 And you send your male inspectors to impose your man-made rules; “The woman’s sphere’s the home,” you say? Then prove it to our face; Give us the vote that we may make the home a happier place! For it’s woman this, and woman that, and “Woman, say your say!” But it’s “What’s the woman up to?” when she tries to show the way; When she tries to show the way, my friends, when she tries to show the way – And the woman means to show it – that is why she’s out to-day!

Chapter XLV In the midst of all this tranquillity and comparative happiness, another devastating blow descended upon me. Looking over the morning paper at breakfast, my glance fell upon “Robert Halford J.P.”91 under Wills on Bequests. Why did I not die, without, or because of suffering such excruciating poignant, h ­ eartbreaking, ‘shools’: schools in the original poem. Robert Halford died in September 1910.

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physical, mental and spiritual grief and agony? From the pain at my heart I thought every moment must be my last. There was nothing left to live for. Torrents of tears and sobs were of no avail. Only time could assuage my sorrow, and the hope that from behind the veil our departed might have a clearer perception and understanding of the mundane affairs and conditions they had left. I tried to imagine a meeting and discussion between the spirits of Mr. Halford, Freddy and Sam Bury, who had also joined the great majority. The two latter about my own age, taken in the prime of life. Through recommendation I played the canteens in Aldershot, after which I returned to Colchester, playing the Hippodrome for the Cooperative Varieties, and the canteens again. There was much managerial complaining in the press regarding the enormous salaries music hall artists received. As a matter of fact it was the theatrical stars like Mr. (later Sir) Herbert Beerbohm Tree,92 Mrs. Patrick Campbell,93 Mrs. Langtry, the “Jersey Lily”94 appearing in a sketch “Helping the Cause”, a skit on the Suffragettes and forcible feeding, and others of similar magnitude not legitimate music hall artistes, who received the enormous salaries for appearing on the halls, with the intention of smashing the V.A.F. Another method of smashing, the following, clipped from “The Performer” speaks for itself. “LOOKING FOR TALENT. Our friend the Encore will have to look to its laurels. Its competition is threatened with a serious rival. Here is a copy of a Cranbourn Mansions95 circular which show how the powers that be are finding new talent, with the idea of fostering it, we suppose –­ ‘Cranbourn Mansions Cranbourn Street London, W.C. Dear Sir, I duly received your letter of the…… I am agreeable to hearing your performance at a private audition at the London Coliseum on….. at 11 A.M. You will require to bring your own accompanist, otherwise the performance should be given as if in public. The audition is subject to a small stage fee (to cover stage expenses, etc.) of 2s 6d for a front cloth and 5s for a full set, payable to Mr. Crocker, the Coliseum Stage Manager. Herbert Beerbohm Tree (né Herbert Draper Beerbohm, 1852–1917), an eminent Shakespearean and dramatic actor-manager. 93 Mrs Patrick Campbell (née Beatrice Stella Tanner, 1865–1940), a dramatic actress-manager and celebrity. 94 Lillie Langtry (née Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, 1853–1929), actress, manager, society beauty and sometime mistress to Edward VII. 95 The Head Office for the ‘Co-Operative’ Moss Empires and Stoll Companies, the ‘Greatest Aggregation of Variety Theatres in the World’. All artists and agents seeking employment were instructed that they ‘must’ apply ‘through the Head Office’. 92

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If you will be in attendance please confirm, giving particulars of the number or numbers to be submitted, with duration of each item. At the same time please fill in the salary expected on the enclosed option form, sign the same, and return it to me. Yours faithfully Alan Young.’ (The capital of the Moss’ Empires, Limited, and subsequent Stoll companies is £2,086,000. Further comment would be superfluous – Ed.)” Many of the rank and file being replaced with new talent, were glad to fill in at Picture Palace which were springing up all over the country, mostly operated by local tradespeople, who engaged a turn or two as an extra attraction. I played several myself. In November I once again answered the call of the W.S.P.U. During 1911, Coronation Year, we kept the truce, the government, after much pressure having been brought to bear, promising that full facilities would be given in 1912 to deal with Woman Suffrage, and that that promise would be kept in the spirit as well as the latter.96 But in November Mr. Asquith, at the instigation of Mr. Lloyd George made the statement that a Reform Bill would be introduced in the House of Commons to give Manhood Suffrage (which nobody had asked for) and that as far as women were concerned the case might be met by an amendment, including women in the Bill. The combined Liberal, Conservative Labour and Irish supporters of Woman Suffrage in Parliament would have passed the Conciliation Bill, a non-party measure, but an amendment to a Party measure like Manhood Suffrage to which the Conservatives were unutterably opposed, was out of the question. So the women once more had trusted to the government’s honour and integrity in vain. The W.S.P.U protested on November 1197 with broken windows not only of government but of private property as well. And as if to justify our action, Mr. Lloyd George in a speech he made at Bath on November 24 in which he bragged of having “torpedoed” the Conciliation Bill, said: “I lay down this proposition – democracy has never been a menace to property. I will tell you what has been a menace to property. When power was withheld from the democracy, when they had no voice in the Government, when they were oppressed, and when they had no means of securing redress except by violence – then property has many times been swept away.” (Votes for Women, December 1, 1911). He said our bill was “not liberal enough” yet. Though it was in his power as a Cabinet Minister and professed friend of Women’s Suffrage, to introduce one as liberal as he pleased, he preferred to “torpedo” our bill and leave us without any. We despised him for a false friend, a hypocrite, a traitor, whereas Mr. Asquith we ‘latter’: letter. The window-breaking protest actually took place on 21 November 1911.

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respected as a declared foe to our cause, whom we fought with the only weapons at our disposal, destruction of property, the present day Golden Calf, which governments value far above the bodies and souls of men, women and children. I was charged at Bow Street Police Court with breaking a window in the Home Office. According to the “Daily Telegraph”, November 24, 1911, “In reply to a remark by the defendant, the magistrate said ‘Possibly you women will get votes if you behave properly.’ Miss Marion at once retorted, ‘Men don’t always behave properly and they have the vote.’ She was fined forty shilling and ten shillings, the damage, or 21 days imprisonment. Defendant: ‘If I had millions of pounds, I wouldn’t pay.’ (Cheers).” Sentences being comparatively short, and being granted some privileges such as wearing our own dresses, exercising and speaking together, we did not hunger strike. We were not treated as “political” offenders, as we always demanded to be and should have been, but never were, and protested against ordinary prison treatment in every way by disobeying the rules as it suited us. On my release, December 13th, I was met by the Rev. Rees Webb and Audrey, who took me to their home for a rest. Later another new friend, Lilla Durham,98 invited me to spend Christmas at her charming cottage in the wilds of the country in Hartfield, Sussex, where subsequently, I spent many happy visits and helped Lilla sell “Votes for Women” and later “The Suffragette” at Tunbridge Wells and East Grinstead,99 two most conservative communities. We sold on the streets and did house-to-house canvas, making many friends for the cause. On one occasion, Miss Durham called on a clergyman, and he asked: “Which lot do you belong to, Mrs. Pankhurst’s, or those that go round saying, ‘Please sir, it wasn’t me, it was the other boy’?” which is practically what the nonmilitants did by rushing into print with “disclaimers” every time a Suffragette so-called “outrage” was reported. When Miss Durham called on a leading “anti” in Tunbridge Wells regarding a debate, the latter was quite rude until she heard she was speaking to a daughter of Dr. Durham, House Surgeon of Guys Hospital. We w e r e amused. Those were happy days, doing peaceful propaganda with Lilla, Olive Walton100 and other local workers for the cause.

Lilla Durham joined the WSPU, having been a member of the suffragist East Grinstead Suffrage Society.  99 Tunbridge Wells and East Grinstead had branches of the NUWSS and the WSPU from 1910 and 1913, respectively. 100 Olive Walton (1887–1937), Tunbridge Wells WSPU. She served seven days in Holloway for a protest in 1911, and three months in Aylesbury Gaol for smashing windows in 1912, where she hunger struck and was force fed. She joined the Women Police Volunteers during the war, and continued as a policewoman in Ireland until the end of the Civil War.  98

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Chapter XLVI On February 26, Mr. Lloyd George as principal speaker at an Albert Hall meeting of the National Union of Woman Suffrage Societies, the non-militants, made more evasive promises to which we had a ready answer. A great demonstration with window breaking was to take place on March 4th against which the government prepared its defences. But on March 1st, St. David’s Day, we caught them unprepared. Volunteers for “danger duty”101 were organized secretly. We were asked not to talk about what we were “going to do” until it was an accomplished fact, then talk about it all we liked. Each, separately, in a private room, was given a hammer and told which windows to break at 5:45 P.M. in the twilight and lighting-up time when people had finished shopping and were peacefully wending their way home. I arrived at my scene of action, the Silversmiths’ Association and Sainsbury’s, 134 Regent Street, about five minutes too soon, feeling awful and, looked round for an encouraging, friendly fellow in the fray. But I seemed to be the only one there. Was I going to be the only one? Had I possibly made a mistake in the day or time? Surely not, whatever happens, I must break those windows, those two great ovals at the entrance to Silversmiths and that huge plate glass window of Sainsbury’s. I must not fail. Such and similar were my thoughts, and I found later that others had experienced the same; as I walked round the block to be back just in time to see “one of us” a couple of shops ahead, gazing round furtively as I had done. Our eyes met in silent encouragement just as “Big Ben” started to boom three quarters. “Excuse me” I said to two ladies as I pushed my way between them and the first “oval” and with my hammer ready, I hit low, as we were asked to do, not to have glass falling from above. The glass was shattered as simultaneously, the sound of breaking glass filled the vicinity and electrified everybody. I rushed to the other oval, broke that, then next door, Sainsbury’s window filled with beautiful boxes of chocolates, etc., then on to the next window, but before I could reach that two men rushed out of the shop, attracted by the hubbub outside, and grabbed my hammer just as a policeman, who already had a woman under arrest, came and took me too, greatly to my relief. As we were going to “Vine Street” a lady came up beside me and asked “Suffragettes?” “Rather,” I replied proudly. And she said, “Bravo, good luck!” Our poor “bobbie” was deadly pale, pinched looking and speechless until, turning into Vine Street some boys yelled “Votes for Women”, when he found his tongue and gasped, “I’ve always been in favour, but after this I am against it.” We laughed, and now that the nervous tension was broken and we reached the police station, where they were very busy already taking charges, we explained our action to him and told him of similar things his forefathers had done to get the votes, until we won him over again. The leadership warned WSPU activists on ‘danger duty’ to expect arrest and charges of criminal damage and prison sentences.

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One hundred and twenty-four women were arrested that night in Regent Street, Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Bond Street, Strand and other principal shopping centers. We were all bailed out, but next morning, we all arrived at Bow Street with baggage, ready to go to prison, for most of us were going to refuse bail since our cases were going to be referred to the London Sessions. After a long day at Bow Street Police Court, we were taken in that instrument of torture, Black Maria to Holloway prison, where it took the officials nearly all night to book and put us in cells. Mrs. Pankhurst was already in, “convicted”, and we, the still unconvicted could not exercise together for fear of the latter being corrupted. So the ground floor of our wing and staircases became a milling mass of prisoners and wardresses forcing us back into our cells, where we protested by breaking windows and banging the tin dustpans and utensils on the door to let the outside world know something unusual was happening. The Press said it sounded like a factory in full blast. On Friday, March 8th, we were brought before a committee of visiting magistrates, about 20, sitting in judgement on women who protested against petty tyranny in prison. I was sentenced to seven days solitary confinement and forfeit all special privileges (whatever they were) for breaking eight panes of glass and resisting wardresses. A lot of pompous, meaningless nonsense in any case. A few days later, I went out on bail and, to Lilla Durham’s for a rest and to prepare for my trial at the London Sessions on March 26th. One of 126, all the others having been dealt with in the Police Court, I carefully wrote, memorized and made the following speech in my defence. “Gentlemen of the Jury: “I want you to thoroughly understand that I broke those windows deliberately, as a protest against the Government for not dealing in a fair and straightforward manner with Woman Suffrage. Women have asked for the vote in a perfectly peaceful and womanly manner for over forty years, with little or no results, in spite of some people’s opinion that women would have had the vote long ago but for the militancy of the Suffragettes. From time to time members of the Government have taunted the women with not being as militant nor doing as much damage as the men did when t h e y fought for the vote, thereby inciting the women to further and stronger militancy. If the Government must have damage as a token that women want the vote, damage they shall have, much as I hate damage, and much as I have to suffer from the penalty of the law. And no law except a fair Woman’s Suffrage Bill will stop my militancy. The voice of Woman’s Suffrage that has raised itself through the most eloquent speeches by the best men and women of the country at thousands of dignified meetings has been stifled by the wire-pulled Party Press.

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Gentlemen, women desire to obey the law, in fact they obey it much better than men, judging from criminal statistics, but they also desire a voice in the making of the law, particularly such laws of social reform as the proper protection of women and young girls, especially those who are obliged to face the world, just like men, to earn their own living. No doubt men think we are properly protected, but women, who, like myself, have suffered much from the lack of such protection, are better judges of that than men. Gentlemen, I ask you, is it right that when a woman asks a man for employment he should suggest immorality to her as the only way of her being successful, and on her resenting the insult that he should refuse her employment? Think what it must mean to a woman who is entirely dependent upon herself for her living, and how much worse it must be for one who has others depending upon her, to be refused work simply because she refuses to lend her body to men who have the power to give or withhold work by which she may earn an honest living! Gentlemen, is it right that the conditions under which women live and work should ever force any to be immoral? And yet there are, unfortunately, too many men who make the conditions such as I describe. Speaking from my own personal experience of the stage, it is high time that women were protected against men of that sort and such conditions. I pointed out these things in a letter to Mr. Asquith three years ago. You may judge from his attitude towards Woman’s Suffrage how much he cares about the proper protection of women on the stage or elsewhere. Gentlemen, is it not an everlasting shame and disgrace to the manhood of the British Empire that women should be forced to the lowest depths of degradation by those who pose as the chivalrous protectors of women? Protectors, indeed! The only men worthy of that name – and the name of Man! – are those who would give us the vote for our own self-protection against such evils as underpayment, ‘sweating’ and White Slave Traffic. That is one of the principal reasons why women want the vote and why some men are so bitterly opposed, also some women, because it will deprive them of the role of ‘rescuing angel’, doling out charity to the victims. Suffragists believe that prevention is better than cure, and protection and safety better than rescue. What is glass, – even plate-glass, – that we have broken as a political protest, and which can be replaced, compared to the bodies and souls of women and little girl-children that vicious men have irretrievably broken and ruined for their own unrestrained lust? And which do you think is the most valuable in the sight of God and His Son whose religion you profess to follow in this country? Gentlemen, whatever militant protest the Government have compelled me to make in the past, and whatever m o r e militant protests they may compel me to make in the future, I know that ‘God is with us for our Cause is just!’”

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“White Slave Traffic” was being extensively discussed in Parliament, press and public meetings, hence my reference to it in realizing what I had escaped by declining the invitation to go to Paris in my young days. And being bundled onto a bus and sent home on another occasion. I was sentenced to six months hard labour, and on the following day taken with twenty-three others to Winsin Green Prison,102 Birmingham, where the forcible feeding had started. There was no room for us all in Holloway and so we were drafted to several other prisons. Before we started and on the train we asked the Matron, wardresses and warders who accompanied us where we were going and the answer always was, “I don’t know.” Deliberate lying of that sort seems to me a very bad example to set by any one in authority over others.

Chapter XLVII In Birmingham, we had all the usual tussle against prison dress, rules and regulations, and after a few days, we were allowed “Certain privileges” such as associated labour of sewing and knitting, which latter, I found most soothing to my nerves. We were allowed to write one letter each, left open to be read by someone in authority before sending. I wrote to Lilla Durham and wanted to convey to her that we were going to hungerstrike, which of course, would never have been passed, so I casually remarked, “By the way that sentence is ‘und isst du nicht willig, etc.”103 paraphrasing one work in my Father’s quotation, which Lilla, speaking German would understand as not “eating” willingly instead of not “Being” willing. I took as little food as possible in preparation for our general hungerstrike. As we did our own cell-cleaning, it was easy to smuggle out and throw away the food. On Whitmonday, we started and on Wednesday, we were forcibly fed. I decided not to struggle this time since I had been told how beneficial forcible feeding really is and how invalids and babies submit to it. There’s the rub, “submit”. In spirit, we were not going to “submit” to forcible feeding any more than to disfranchisement. Heart and soul revolted and resisted, but this time I would let the body submit. The doctors’ room was in the hospital, too far from my cell to hear anything, though I had heard several scuffles along the corridor. I felt perfectly resigned to my fate whatever it might be. At last my door opened and three wardresses with “tear stained” faces appeared. I went quietly, and at my destination, I found Dr. Winson Green Prison, built around 1849. ‘Und isst du nicht willig’ – ‘And [if] you do not eat willingly’. KM is paraphrasing a line from Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’, which she refers to in Chapter III: ‘Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch‘ ich Gewalt’ (‘and if you are not willing, then I will use force’), substituting ‘isst du’ (‘you eat’) for ‘bist du’ (‘you are’), knowing that Lilla will add the next threatening line, ‘then I will use force’.

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Ahern,104 the regular prison doctor and another, looking worried, also the matron and more wardresses overcome by the twenty “operations” already performed and weeping. This was terrible. I couldn’t bear to see anyone, even my “torturers” weeping. I sat quietly in the chair, was covered with a sheet and held down as in Newcastle. Dr. Ahern asked would I prefer nasal or throat tube and I replied that it was immaterial to me. The other doctor held my head. I closed my eyes and felt the tube penetrate my right nostril but when it reached my throat something went wrong. I was suffocating and in my involuntary struggle for breath, I raised myself to my feet and gasped, “take tube out” in spite of which they poured food down which mostly came back. When the tube was withdrawn, I collapsed into a chair and could only breathe and talk in short, sharp, painful gasps. Trying to take a deep breath caused the most excruciating agony. They supported me back to my cell where I lay on my plank bed, gradually growing worse. From the waist up, I experienced every pain imaginable. What food had remained down, I coughed and vomitted back now. I grew icy cold and, when soon after a wardress came to see me she went at once for a hot-water bottle to place at my feet. When the doctors had finished in their “slaughter house”, they came and tested heart and temperature and had me removed to hospital. As they were half dragging, half carrying me along, I heard a wardress say, “She looks ten years older.” That was nothing to what I felt. About every half hour the doctors came to examine me until locking-up time. The only redeeming feature was a warm comfortable bed. A mug of water was left beside me which I sipped during the night, painful as were the efforts to lift it to my lips. Early in the morning, before unlocking time, I wanted more water and asked the wardress on night duty to bring me some but she could not come into my cell as she had no key, all she could do was to push a mugful through the bars of the door, for me to get up and get it. That was easier said than done for when I got out of bed, I could not stand up straight. I was bent from the waist and could not lift a foot to walk a step. But I needed the water and reached it by sliding my feet along the floor and back again, an effort which left me all but unconscious. The doctors still looked anxious when they came. A few of our women whom they could not feed were released that morning while the others went through the torture again. I overheard a wardress tell another that I was to be taken out later, which secretly cheered me of course, but fate was against me. And don’t tell m e that I shape my own destiny, or that any of us do. Mrs. Helen Archdale105 arrived from our London headquarters about 2:30 Dr Ahern was medical officer at Winson Green, who joined the prison service in 1902 after working at Warneford Lunatic Asylum. Ahern went on to force feed suffragette prisoners in Holloway in 1914. 105 Helen Archdale (1876–1950) joined the WSPU in 1908 after returning from India with her army officer husband and three children. In October 1909, she and four other suffragettes, 104

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with instructions to stop the hunger strike until our leaders, Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence and Mr. Pethick-Lawrence,106 who was also involved and being prosecuted for “conspiracy” were sentenced and imprisoned, when they were going to hunger strike if “political” treatment were denied them, in which case we were to make it “unanimous” in all the prisons. Parcels of food also arrived and I ate a tomato right away, which was most refreshing. A few moments later a wardress rushed in, hoping I had not eaten anything, my parcel had come to me by mistake. The doctor would be so angry. I answered her that I only had eaten a tomato and felt better for it and the doctor need not know. Milk and soda was my diet the rest of the day. The doctors and the rest of the staff were much more relieved by the break in the strike than we were. They were also relieved and surprised at my speedy recovery. Though still in pain, I wanted to get up on Friday but they would not hear of it. On Saturday, I got up and joined the others at exercise without the doctor’s permission and felt all the better for the fresh air. They kept me another week on hospital treatment and food, after which I went back to my cell, where I remained until my release. During that time a rather tragic thing happened in the next cell. There was a thunderstorm during Saturday night and a woman screaming and shouting. I thought she was frightened by the storm but the wardress on duty told me not to be alarmed at the noise in the next cell, a woman had been brought in late, raving with D.T.’s.107 Tragic as the situation was it had its humorous moments, for she was calling out, “Open the door, there’s a lot o’ people here wanting to get out.” Many a true word spoken in drink, I laughed to myself, and the entertainment continued all through the morning until we went to chapel at eleven o’clock. I never heard so many inflections in which she asked, demanded, begged, coaxed and screamed to be let out, and all “the lot o’ people” with her, banging about in the cell, which was padded, all the time. Never shall I forget the glimpse I caught of the interior and the stench it emitted as I passed it, when a wardress had just opened the door, presumably to let the inmate out to go to chapel. Some of the coconut matting “padding” was torn from the walls, in a heap on the floor, and the woman, face purple and distorted, hands purple, swollen and bleeding tugging at another piece of matting, saying “Look at this mess I got to clean up.” They removed her to the hospital while we were at chapel and later in the day she died. About a month after our hunger strike, our “cheering” friends outside megaincluding Adela Pankhurst, disrupted Winston Churchill’s meeting at Dundee and were sent to prison, hunger struck and were released after four days. Helen Archdale broke a window in Westminster in November 1911 and served two months in Holloway; on her release, she worked as a prisoners’ secretary. 106 Mrs Pankhurst and the Pethick-Lawrences had been charged with ‘conspiracy to incite certain persons to commit malicious damage to property’ and sent to prison for nine months. 107 D.T.’s – delirium tremens, the ‘shaking madness’, caused by alcohol withdrawal.

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phoned us that our leaders were at last sentenced and in prison, and we were prepared now to hear from the same source when to start again. This time, the nasal tube, instead of going down, came out of my mouth and a throat tube was used, which was just as unpleasant and painful. The milk and egg they poured down was more and more curdled at each regurgitation. I lost weight rapidly and was released ten days later having struck two months off my sentence.

Chapter XLVIII After a rest and recuperation at Lilla Durham’s and peaceful propaganda in the vicinity, I went to Wrexham where Mr. Lloyd George was speaking on September 5th at the Welsh National Eisteddfod, the annual, cultural festival. Since Cabinet Ministers guarded themselves at their own meeting against being questioned by women, by keeping the latter out, they went to wherever else a Minister appeared to heckle him with pertinent questions on Women Suffrage. It was my first attempt at interrupting a Cabinet Minister, and within ten minutes I experienced all the concentrated essence of coarse brutalities and indecencies of several hours’ battle in Westminster. At Wrexham a specially built pavilion was packed with nearly 13,000 of Mr. Lloyd George’s admirers and worshippers, barring three Suffragettes, scattered in the best seats near the platform, and a man, a Colonial, on a visit to his Mother country after twenty years absence, who protested against the brutal treatment of the women. For his chivalry, he was thrown out, badly beaten and his eyes blackened. He told the Press, “I have fought for my country but never with such savages as I encountered today.” After the second upheaval, the band playing – the audience singing – “Land of My Fathers”, which was played and sung after each interruption, had subsided, and Mr. Lloyd George seemed singing along nicely, in Welsh, I jumped and shouted, “How dare you have political prisoners fed by force!” Pandemonium reigned once more. I was seized by a steward and policeman who hurried me to an exit while I received blows and abuse from every side, my hat being torn off and hair pulled down. Outside a dense, howling mob almost tore me to pieces. My hair was grabbed and pulled out by the roots.108 Quoting myself from “Votes for Women”, September 13, 1912: “My clothes were ripped back and front, my very undergarments torn to shreds. Being thrown to wild beasts is nothing to being thrown to an infuriated human mob. The former According to the Western Mail, KM parted with ‘a large hank of her auburn hair that had been torn from her scalp’, and in 1933 ‘Miss Marion’s hair [was] still in Cardiff, and for a long time was exhibited in the vestibule of the old Western Mail building … at the outset she declined to part with the hank as she said it would make a most useful “transformation” later on, to cover the bald patch on her bleeding scalp. “Let me have it,” said her interviewer, “and I will give it to Dr Evans Hoyle, Director of the Welsh National Museum, for permanent exhibition at the Museum as a historic relic.’ (5 August 1933)

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might tear you to pieces but draw the line at indecent assaults, and so do I. I don’t mind the cuffs, kicks, blows, aches and pains a man might get in such a struggle.” The police somehow forced a passage from the side of the building to the stage entrance and safety at the back. It was a ghastly, vile experience which each one of us went through. All the veneer of man’s vaunted civilization vanished at woman’s demand for justice and fair play. The same thing happened not only at Wrexham but other Welsh towns where Mr. Lloyd George spoke until even the Press rang with protests against the savage indecencies of the mob. The sympathetic and helpful treatment we received inside the building was a “heavenly” change from what we had just passed through. As I combed my hair, there seemed to be more coming out than remaining on my head. We did of course much propaganda and explaining to police, reporters and others who gathered round us. We tidied up as best we could and in the dusk sympathetic detectives escorted us safely on a train to Shrewsbury, where we spent the night with members of the W.S.P.U. On the way back to London next day, I broke my journey at Maidenhead on Thames to spend a few days with a dear theatrical friend, Donny, of “Kitty Grey” days, whose young daughter, Lillian, hailed me at the station with “Oh, Aunt Kate, you’re all over the town, looking awful!” And there they were outside of all the news dealers, large posters of me between two policemen, laughing at a “lady” who was yelling at me that I was “a disgrace to your sex,” and looking cheerfully towards the safe heaven of the stage door we were approaching. “Undaunted by the jeers of the onlookers” was the graceful caption the “Daily Sketch” gave it. The W.S.P.U. reached a great crisis in the resignation of Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, our Treasurer.109 At our next great Albert Hall Meeting on October 17th,110 we all “sensed” something at the non-appearance of Mr. & Mrs. Pethick Lawrence. Mr. Lawrence had always been there at previous meetings to show the audience, with a counting machine how the contributions were flowing into the militant “war chest”. Mrs. Pankhurst announced the parting of the ways as a diplomatic and strategic necessity. By now some of our women had resorted to arson by way of protest which the Union upheld, since Cabinet Ministers seemed to need that kind of proof that the women were serious in their demands. In those days, Sir Edward Carson111 in opposing Home Rule for Ireland incited his followers to armed rebellion but The Pethick-Lawrences were unhappy with the escalation of militancy and the danger it posed to the women who carried it out. The couple did not resign, but were ‘purged’ from the WSPU in September 1912 by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. They went on to join the United Suffragists. 110 At the meeting in the Albert Hall, the new militant policy was outlined. 111 Sir Edward Carson (1854–1935) was the Unionist MP for Dublin University from 1892 to 1918 and for Belfast, from 1918 to 1921. He was the leader of the anti-Home Rule movement, and founded the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1913. 109

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was not arrested. Mrs. Pankhurst compared the Government’s brutal treatment of the women to their cringing, fawning attitude toward Sir Edward Carson and his men. Mrs. Pankhurst was always magnificent and heroic when hurling defiance at the Government, but on this occasion, she surpassed herself. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” and through all her usual gentle manner, her forceful eloquence, courage and dignity, rang the challenge of the concentrated fury of universal, politically-scorned womanhood: “I incite this meeting to rebellion!” We “Militants” behind her on the platform rose with a mighty “Bravo” and cheers which the whole house kept up for several minutes. “Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God!” Mrs. Pankhurst continued her challenge to the Government: “You have not dared to take the leaders of Ulster for their incitement to rebellion. Take me if you dare and if you do I tell you this, that so long as those who incite to armed rebellion and destruction of human life in Ulster are at liberty, you will not keep me in prison.” The following resolution was carried: “That this meeting pledge itself to continue the militant agitation for Woman Suffrage and declare relentless opposition towards the Government and its allies until they abandon their anti-suffrage policy and introduce a Government measure for the political enfranchisement of Women.” It might interest my readers to know that two of our women “operating” in the North of Ireland, on arriving one night near a large, empty country house they intended to fire, heard traffic approaching. They hid in some bushes and saw guns and munitions being stored in “their” house by Sir Edward Carson’s men. Unfortunately someone remained on guard and the women retreated when all was quiet. While on a visit to Lilla Durham after the meeting, I conceived a new idea for a “protest”. Great indignation was being expressed against Mr. Lloyd George’s Insurance Act,112 which affected voteless women as much as, if not more than, the voters. The Act has since developed into the “Dole” and to all who don’t like it and who could and should have prevented it, I can only say, “Serves you jolly well right.” Under the Act, domestic servants, their employers and the Government were to pay a certain weekly sum for sickness and accident insurance for the former (though they receive no “dole” ­when unemployed) I saw a way of killing several birds with one stone, with three members of the W.S.P.U., who just then were Lloyd George’s Insurance Act was introduced in 1911, providing insurance against sickness and unemployment, paid for by contributions from the state, the employer and the employee. It covered those aged between 16 and 70 but only in industries where unemployment was a recurring problem.

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in need of a housekeeper. They were “working women”, out all day and as I was naturally home loving and domesticated, I took the situation and looked after them until, under the Insurance Act I should have produced an Insurance card and paid the tax, which of course, I refused to do, consequently was obliged to leave, which gave me the opportunity to make a protest against the Act. I chose a fire alarm near Bow Street Police Court. A policeman happened to be conveniently near to see me break the glass with a hammer and pull the alarm. He rushed up saying. “What’s the matter?” I replied, “I want to ‘turn the Government out’,” that being a popular slogan at the time. At my trial, I made the most of my opportunity to draw attention to “grievances” and how they could be eliminated if women had the vote. £25 fine or one month in prison. So once more I retired to the Suffragette’s “town residence”, Holloway, on December 17th. Instead of hungerstriking at once, I petitioned the Home Office for political offender’s treatment, giving them until Christmas Eve for a reply. As “political offenders” we always protested against being treated as “common criminals”, demanding 1st division treatment which entitled us to the visits of friends, books, letters, newspapers, flowers, a bed instead of a plank, meals sent in from outside instead of prison fare, treatment as was accorded Dr. Jamison113 and other political rebels, to some of whom the Right Honourable W.E. Gladstone, the “grand Old Man” said, “You have made your prisons a temple of Honour.” I took breakfast but refused further food. The prison authorities begged that I would at least allow Christmas to pass before I started my hunger strike, but I refused. On Christmas morning, the usual regrets arrived from the Home Office. My petition could not be acceded to. On the following day, I was removed to the hospital and in the evening, as I sat reading, I heard footsteps and the doctor’s voice saying “Are you ready?” A frantic state of fear overcame me, my heart thumping, and feeling quite faint, but I managed to push the bed against the door, and lay on it. The doctor came to the door and said he only wanted to test my heart, but I refused to budge and the door was forced open with a bar, and the bed pushed back, making space to push through singly. When they saw the state of terror I was in they said I was not to be fed that night. Next morning, two doctors examined me and tried to persuade me to eat and study my health. They offered me all sorts of delicacies and oysters and champagne, all of which I refused. Later a doctor from the Home Office came, examined, and argued with me. “What more do you expect than hospital treatment?” he asked. “Government recognition as a political offender,” I replied. We always insisted on that on principle. Sir Leander Starr Jameson (1853–1917), the British colonial politician who led the Jameson Raid in December 1895 to overthrow the Boer government of the Transvaal. Jameson was summoned to London and stood trial in February 1896, and was found guilty of breaching the Foreign Enlistment Act and trying to overthrow the President of the Transvaal Republic. He was sentenced to fifteen months in the first division cells of Holloway Gaol, where other male political prisoners were held.

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At teatime, I heard them go to feed the other suffrage prisoners. Presently my door opened and from the way wardresses streamed in, I knew my turn had come. I was lying on the bed and turned my face to the wall, but they wheeled the bed into the middle of the cell, and after a violent struggle held me down by sitting on my legs. I was fed through a nasal tube and was so sick and exhausted that a wardress remained with me for some time. The next morning when I heard them coming, I jumped up from bed. I felt I could not bear being fed on the bed again, the sense of helplessness seemed so much worse than in a chair. and I ached all over from the struggle, but they overpowered me. On Sunday morning a religious service was in process above my cell and at the end of the first hymn, they came in and fed me. The incongruity, hypocrisy and blasphemy of it all! Torturing women to the cry of “Lord, Lord”. No wonder “Jesus wept”. I was violently sick, but even worse at night when the tube instead of going down to the stomach came out of my mouth, as it had done in Winson Green. It was horribly painful, as if my nose were being pulled off. “After all, it’s only a rubber tube,” said the doctor, but to me it felt more like a crowbar. Thanks to my robust constitution and excellent health, I bore the torture until the expiration of my sentence, January 17th. I was met and taken care of, at her beautiful home, by Miss Louise Collier and her sister,114 two valiant fighters in the cause and charming hostesses to “casualties”, until I was well enough to travel to Lilla Durham’s cozy cottage at Hartfield which had become quite like home to me.

Chapter XLIX After the break with the Pethick Lawrences, the W.S.P.U. moved to new headquarters,115 Lincoln’s Inn House in Kingsway and produced its own new official organ “The Suffragette”, edited by Christabel Pankhurst116 ably assisted by Rachel Barrett,117 Geraldine Lenox,118 Alice Lake,119 and others, while Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence retained their own paper, “Votes for Women”. Louise (1854–1938) and Florence Collier (1852–1950?) used their house in Hampstead as a convalescent home for released prisoners. In 1912 Louise served 13 weeks in Holloway for breaking windows in the West End. 115 The new headquarters of the WSPU were operational by October 1912. The Pethick-Lawrences remained at Clement’s Inn, continuing to edit Votes for Women and campaign for women’s suffrage. 116 The Suffragette was launched in October 1912. Under the strict editorial control of Christabel Pankhurst, the newspaper was more stridently militant than Votes for Women. 117 Rachel Barrett (1875–1953), a school teacher, joined the WSPU in 1907. She studied at the London School of Economics, but left to become a paid WSPU organiser. From 1912, she ran The Suffragette and travelled frequently to take instructions and copy from Christabel Pankhurst, who lived in Paris in self-imposed exile until the outbreak of the First World War. 114

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“The Suffragette” became more and more daring and defiant and was continually being raided, everybody, including the printers, being arrested, but never missing an issue since secret reserves were always ready to “carry on”. Christabel had escaped to Paris about the time of the “Great Window Smash” when all our other leaders were arrested, tried and imprisoned for “conspiracy”. Christabel Pankhurst LL.B., same degree as Mr. Asquith’s, was the brilliant legal mind of the movement, able to function from Paris, which would have been impossible from prison, and from Paris she continued to marshal her faithful forces of the W.S.P.U. through the most stormy period of the campaign. Scandalous to think that with her ability she was not allowed to practice law because she was a woman. There was much talk of “sex war”. It may have been that on the part of “males” who wished to retain domination over “females” politically as well as sexually; to us and to every intelligent, clear-thinking man and woman it was merely a demand by the disfranchised for the legal rights to which every principle of justice entitled us. In the past, we made our protests with the intention of being arrested and sent to prison partly to prove we were willing to suffer that in our cause. The edict now went forth to “do all the damage possible without being caught.” After four successful fires and escapes, something went wrong with my fifth. It happened after Emily Wilding Davison B.A. had tried to stop the King’s Horse in the “Derby” on June 4th, that someone living in the vicinity of Hurst Park race course suggested to Clara (Betty) Giveen120 and me that the Grand Stand there would make a most appropriate beacon, not only as the usual protest but, in honour of our Comrade’s daring deed for which she paid with her life. Betty and I went on a voyage of discovery of a possible entrance to the course but I found no way except to climb a fence the spiked top of which neither of us could reach, tall as we were. About a foot above the spikes were two rows of barbed wire which looked pretty impossible for two long skirted females to negotiate. However, being “unconquerable” Suffragettes, we had to get over somehow. A piece of carpet seemed likely to smooth the way and when I asked Ma Mac, with whom I still made my home, if she had a bit she could spare she told me to help myself in the shed. I selected a piece, rolled and strapped in into a neat looking piece of baggage. I also packed a wicker suitcase with a gallon of oil and 118119

Geraldine Lennox (1883–1958), sub-editor of The Suffragette. She was sentenced to six months in Horfield Gaol, Bristol, hunger struck and was released on a ‘Cat and Mouse’ licence. She escaped, was rearrested, hunger struck, released again on licence, and went on the run to Ireland. 119 Alice Lake (n.d.), business manager of the WSPU, was sentenced to six months in Warwick Gaol. She hunger struck and was released on a ‘Cat and Mouse’ licence. She was rearrested and released several times and spent seven weeks on the run from the police before being returned to prison to complete her sentence. 120 Clara ‘Betty’ Giveen (1887–1967), from Coleraine. After her Hussar father’s death when ‘Betty’ was four, the family moved to Oxford. She joined the WSPU in 1910 after Black Friday. 118

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Figure 7  ‘Levetleigh’, Edward Du Cros’s house, St Leonard’s, following suffragette arson attack, 15 April 1913. This was undoubtedly the work of Kitty Marion and Clara Giveen. fire lighters. On Sunday night about 9 o’clock, Betty Giveen called and we set off, going by train as far as we could, then by tram to the bridge near Hampton Court Palace, which we crossed and walked towards the race track. We met some people on the way but to them we might have appeared as going to one of the houses further along the road. When the coast was clear, we turned off the road at one end of the course, towards the river between which and the course was a cricket field with a tool shed near the “unclimable fence” as the Press called it later, where we had decided to climb over with a foot hold on the tool shed. How we got over and back again beggars description. We both regretted that there was no movie camera to immortalize the comedy of it. We carried our “baggage” through the long grass, wet with dew, to the Grand Stand at the other end of the course where we most conveniently found an open door, leading into a pavilion. We spread our “munitions” including the suitcase and left a piece of candle burning which should have lasted at least an hour to give us time to get away before igniting its oil­-soaked base. However, before we reached our “exit” the whole thing was blazing. “Were we downhearted?” “No!” Like the best-laid schemes of mice and men, the best-laid schemes of

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Suffragettes went oft agley,121 and with the exception of a most successful blazing beacon, they went “agley” wholesale on this occasion. We could hardly climb back for laughing. We were up against a sheer fence, no foothold anywhere. Betty Giveen, another “beautiful blonde”, of good family and independent means was ten years younger, in better athletic trim than I, and the lighter of the two. I could better bear her weight than she mine so I stooped with my hands on my knees as I had done in my childhood days, playing circus, while Betty climbed up, dragged herself over and then pulled me up and over head first. How she did it I don’t know. Anyhow, we were on the “safe side” and walked along the tow path by the Thames towards the bridge which we had to recross to go to Kew Gardens where Betty had arranged with friends122 to put us up instead of our going to London, which from a former, successful experience of mine in that vicinity, would have been the safer thing to do. By the time we reached the bridge, the few people about at that hour, nearly 1 A.M., were running towards the fire. An engine, horse-drawn, came dashing across the bridge. and others from different directions. We strolled across watching the blaze, trying not to look to eager to “get away”. Though it had its humours, I hated the whole wretched business; we all did, and would much rather have had the vote than do this sort of thing to get it, but we did our “duty” as we saw it, much like soldiers on the principle of, “Theirs not to reason why.”

Figure 8  Postcard picture of Hurst Park Race Course grandstand, following the arson attack by Clara Giveen and Kitty Marion, 8 June 1913. A reference to Robert Burns’ famous poem, ‘To a Mouse’: ‘The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, /Gang aft agley …’. 122 The Casey family – Dr Philip Casey, his wife, Isabella, ‘Bella’, and daughter Eileen, ‘Eily’, were all supporters of women’s suffrage. Another daughter, Kitty, who was married and living in Bradford, was also active in the struggle. Bella Casey and Eileen joined the WSPU in 1911 and sold Votes for Women at London’s Victoria station for several years. In 1912 Eileen had smashed windows in Oxford Street and was sent to Holloway for four months, where she went on hunger strike and was force fed. 121

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As we walked towards Richmond and Kew, motor cycle police came dashing along, whom we evaded each time by dodging up side streets until they had passed. We walked through Richmond, past the police station, on to Kew, nearing our destination, where Betty had arranged for us to stay, when she was uncertain of which turning to take, and a policeman offered to direct us, expressing surprise at our being out so late to which, by way of putting him off the scent, I said, “Oh, I am a Music Hall Artiste and often out late.” He asked for our names and addresses, which of course we refused to give, still he directed us to a railway station from which Betty would know her bearings and following us at a distance of about 100 yards, according to his own testimony later.

Chapter L When we reached Dr. and Mrs. Casey’s home, at about 3 o’clock we found another policeman. It seems that as soon as the cause of the fire was discovered from the copy of the “Suffragette” and messages to the Government to “give women the franchise”, which we had left in a safe place, the police covered every house for miles around which they knew to be occupied by Suffragettes. Betty let us in with the latchkey which Mrs. Casey had given her for that purpose. So far so good, though we knew we were trapped. After breakfast, during which we related our strenuous adventures, we lay down again, Betty on a couch downstairs, I on the bed in the spare room. Poor Dr. Casey! He was not such a keen suffragist as were his wife and daughter Eileen, and the happenings, to all of us most unexpected, on this Monday morning at his home were a bit of a shock to him, though he bore it bravely, even seeing the humour of it in the end. At 11:30, the policeman who had followed us arrived with Detective-Inspectors Pride and Pike. One came straight upstairs to tell me I was under arrest while the other “broke the news” to Betty and brought her up to me, to read the warrant to us together, under which we were charged with being “suspected persons found loitering in certain streets with intent to commit a felony.” Both detectives adopted the attitude of trying to put the “fear of the law” in us, which I think is a great mistake under any circumstances. When Inspector Pride brought Betty in he fairly barked at me, “What’s your name?” Mocking his tone, I barked back, “Kitty Marion!” “Oh”, he said. Then in quite a pleasant, friendly manner, “Do you know Mr. Finden?” Trying to place “Mr. Finden” in the Suffrage movement, I hesitated a moment, then said, “Mr. & Mrs. Harold Finden in the Music Halls?123 I’ve played on the same bill with them.” “That’s it,” he said. “What a strange coincidence, I met Mr. Finden at a club last night and in course of conversation, we touched on Women’s Suffrage, he said Mr. and Mrs. Harold Finden, comic actors and ‘popular sketch artists’.

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he knew a Suffragette and mentioned your name. I little dreamed I should arrest you this morning.” That little incident had quite a humanizing effect upon them, and the rest of our business was transacted in a good-humoured spirit. We were taken to Richmond Police Court, before three magistrates, including the Mayor, who after hearing the charges, and our refusing to give any account of ourselves, told Mr. E.B. Knight, the prosecutor, on behalf of the police, that he would have to produce a great deal more evidence than had been put forward that morning and remanded us in £2000 bail each until the following day, in our own recognizance, to do nothing “militant” in the meanwhile. So we were free to attend and enjoy the peaceful, social activities of the W.S.P.U. bazaar,124 which was still in progress at the Empress Rooms, Kensington and where the night before the Derby, Emily Davison, myself and others had discussed the possibility of making a protest on the race course, without apparently coming to any decision. Before we parted that night, Emily gave me a tiny green chamois purse containing a sovereign for “munitions I might need soon.” Next day, the Evening papers told of a woman who in the presence of the King and Queen had dashed from the crowd toward the King’s Horse, the impact with which left her unconscious. At the hospital they found the W.S.P.U. colours under her coat. She was Emily Davison, who without any flourishing announcement to anyone of her intention, except Mrs. Alice Green125 with whom she was staying, had faced this ordeal alone. “Deeds not words!” Without regaining consciousness,126 she passed to the Great Beyond, where unjust Governments cease to function and “Militants” are at Peace, on the following Sunday when, unaware of her death, Betty Giveen and I made good use of the “munitions” Emily had paid for. Emily Davison had always expressed great faith in the dramatic death of a woman arousing public opinion sufficiently to compel the Government to pass the necessary franchise bill to stop further militancy. How that faith was rewarded we all know, and we could only mourn and honour her all the more. Her action penetrated, advertising the cause of “Votes for Women”, in every corner of the globe where the moving pictures of the race and her sacrifice were shown, probably being to many people the first intimation of such a demand. I first met Emily Davison in the Newcastle, and found her to have many views on sex equality, regardless of politics, in common, but she being an English scholar and able to express them so much more strongly and effectively than I, I want to give my readers the benefit of the following. The WSPU London bazaar was a regular fund-raising event. Alice Green, an important WSPU sympathiser about whom little is known. 126 Davison did regain consciousness, but the kick to her head damaged the language area of the brain and she was unable to speak. The surgeon Charles Mansell-Moullin (1841–1940), a founder member of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage and husband of suffragette Edith Ruth Mansell-Moullin (née Thomas, 1859–1941), operated to relieve the pressure in her skull, but she died four days later, on 8 June 1913. 124 125

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From “Daily Sketch” May 28, 1914.127 “The true suffragette is an epitome of determination of women to possess their own souls. The words of the Master are eternally true: ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ And it is the realisation of this ideal that is moving the most advanced of the feminists to stand out at all costs today. Men as a sex have not yet grasped the inevitability of the forging of this last link in the chain of human progress. Ever since history peeps out of the mists of time the male of the race has made it his prerogative to give or deny the whole world to his partner, but has withheld from her that which is above all temporal things – namely, the possession of a soul, the manifestation of the godhead within. THE SOUL OF WOMAN They have beautified and decorated the shrine, but they have kept it empty of the divinity which gave a significance to the paraphernalia of the shrine. Especially is this air noticeable and blameworthy in the latter days of the early Christian Church, when it was seriously discussed whether women even possessed souls, and sufficient doubt on the subject was raised to condemn the sex from that time onward to an inferior position in the community. For centuries people have been groping after the dry bones of humanity, forgetting the mighty spirit which alone could make those dry bones live, till early last century the sons of men saw the need of the vivifying breath, and one man after another, one class after another felt the quick stirring breath, and rose to the wondrous life of civic freedom. Could the partners of men be untouched by this marvelous awakening? Could women any longer remain dry bones merely, or indeed even as a clod of earth in the valley? Could the newly aroused and enlightened race owe its origins to an insensate and unintelligent creature? PEARLS OF GREAT PRICE The wonderful renascence of freedom has to extend its kindly influence to all! In the New Testament the Master reminded his followers that when the merchant had found a Pearl of Great Price, he sold all that he had in order to buy it. That is the parable of Militancy! It is that which women warriors are doing today. Some are truer warriors than others, but the perfect Amazon is she who will sacrifice all, even unto this last, to win the Pearl of Freedom for her sex. Some of the beauteous pearls that women sell to obtain this freedom which is so little appreciated by those who were born free, are the pearls of ‘The Price of Liberty’, was published a year after Davison’s death.

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Friendship, Good Report, Love, and even Life itself, each in itself a priceless boon. Who will gainsay that Friendship is one of the priceless jewels of life? Did not the Elizabethan philosophers remind us that friendship doubles our joys and halves our sorrows? Have not the poets sung the inestimable riches of friendship? Yet this pearl is sacrificed without a moment’s hesitation by the true militant. And, indeed, the sacrifice is inevitable, even as the sun puts out the bright glow of the grate fire. Yet the Lares and Penates128 are valued gods, even if lesser lights, whilst on the sunniest day a bitter frost may necessitate the worship of the lesser but more comfortable flame. Thus the sacrifice involves terrible suffering to the militant – old friends, recently made friends, they all go one by one into the limbo of the burning fiery furnace, a grim holocaust to Liberty. SURRENDER OF GOOD REPORT An even severer part of the price is the surrender of Good Report – one of the brightest and most precious of the gems in a woman’s crown, as anyone can realize who knows how easily her fair fame is sullied. Men have been able to go forward through good report and ill report, and so low has been the standard of morals for them that the breath of scandal but seemed to burnish more brightly their good qualities. But owing to the same double standard the merest whisper of venomous tongues could damn a woman socially and politically, for to be safe she must be like Caesar’s wife. Hence, to women, reputation is often as dear as life itself. Yet even this jewel has been sacrificed by the militant, for she has felt the truth of the Cavalier poet’s song – ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more.’129 – and she has felt in her innermost soul that there was no chance of preserving any ‘honour’ worth the name if she acquiesced in a state of society wherein women’s souls and bodies were bought and sold. ‘Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.’ What possibility for those who knew the existing evil to sit down and suffer it in comfort and peace? Better to be Anathema Maranatha130 for the sake of progress than to sit lapped in ignoble ease in the House of Good Fame! Better that all men should speak evil of her and revile her, fighting the eternal battle of glorious liberty and humanity! THE BLOOD TIE But a more soul-rending sacrifice even than that of friendship and of good report is demanded of the militant, that of the blood tie. ‘She that Roman deities who protect the household and the state. From ‘To Lucasta, Going to the Wars’, by Richard Lovelace. 130 St Paul’s warning to the Corinthians that the Lord’s coming is imminent (Marentha), and that those who do not love the Lord are cursed (anathema) and will be condemned to hell. 128 129

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loveth mother or father, sister or brother, husband or child, dearer than me cannot be my disciple,’ saith the terrible voice of freedom in accents that rend the very heart in twain. ‘Cannot this cup of anguish be spared me?’ cries the militant aloud in agony, yet immediately, as if in repentance for having so nearly lost the Priceless Pearl, in the words of all strivers after progress, she ejaculates: ‘Nevertheless I will pay, even unto this price’; and in her writhing asks what further demand can be exacted from her. – AND LIFE ITSELF The glorious and inscrutable Spirit of Liberty has but one further penalty within its power, the surrender of Life itself. It is the supreme consummation of sacrifice, than which none can be higher or greater. To lay down life for friends, that is glorious, selfless, inspiring! But to re-enact the tragedy of Calvary for generations yet unborn, that is the last consummate sacrifice of the Militant! Nor will she shrink from this Nirvana. She will be faithful “unto this last.”

Chapter LI On Tuesday morning, we duly appeared at Richmond Court. While we were waiting to be called in, one of the detectives, who had been chatting in quite a friendly way, very suddenly and deliberately opened a travelling bag in front of us and there, all alone, at the bottom was my little everyday gray purse which must have slipped out of my coat pocket when I came back over the fence. Neither of us turned a hair. I had told Betty of my loss but we did not know it had been found. The piece of carpet also was brought and as my room at Ma Mac’s had been searched and the carpet on the floor found to correspond, we were ready for the worst. We were lined up among 16 other women and identified by the fireman on night duty at Hampton Court Palace who had seen us with baggage when he was going on duty, and again later without baggage when he stood at the Palace gate watching the distant fire, as we crossed the bridge and turned toward Richmond. Others also identified us, and our lesser charge of “loitering” was now dismissed, and we were rearrested on the charge of wilfully and maliciously setting fire to the Hurst Park Grand Stand and taken to Kingston County Bench in the jurisdiction of which our “crime” had been committed. Here the case was heard and remanded until next day when it assumed larger proportions. Mr. A.H. Bodkin131 and Mr. Comyns Carr132 prosecuted. Mr. Jan Archibald Henry Bodkin (1862–1957) was one of the leading criminal advocates of his day. His attention to detail meant that he had a highly successful prosecution rate. 132 Arthur Comyns Carr (1882–1965) was the barrister son of the dramatist and art critic J[oseph] Comyns Carr and costume designer Alice Comyns Carr. 131

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Macpherson,133 M.P. took up the defence. The story of the fire and our arrest was all gone over again. The detectives told of finding cans of kerosene, suffrage literature giving records of previous fires, correspondence, note books, petty cash accounts and so forth, at our different rooms. The case was again adjourned until Saturday, when new witnesses including our landladies were marshalled against us. As before, the Court and surrounding streets were crowded. Outside, as always on such occasions, some of our members were busy selling “The Suffragette”, “Votes for Women” and doing good propaganda, explaining the situation from our political viewpoint to the crowd. Inside some of the elite of the district including the Mayoress, were present. Dear old Ma Mac, the first to be called, supplied the “comedy relief”. “The witness created considerable amusement by her demeanour in the box. She replied to Mr. Bodkins’ questions in a manner which showed that she was in no way afraid of the famous counsel, and was not in the slightest degree awed by the gravity of the proceedings.” (Evening News). When asked by counsel if my visitor whom I admitted myself on Sunday night was a male or a female, she promptly replied. “Oh! a female.” “How did you know that?” “Miss Marion never has any male visitors.” (Laughter.) For some inscrutable reason this was captioned “The despised Male,” in the Evening News. Why? There was a long cross examination regarding the piece of carpet which she certainly claimed as her own but had not seen me take out of the house. Luckily she only had to answer questions, not volunteer information. And she could not swear to the purse being mine, there were so many small purses about. When Mr. Bodkin asked facetiously, “Isn’t your eyesight very good?” she replied, “No, and my legs aren’t very good either.” (Laughter.) “I am sorry you have had to stand so long,” apologized Mr. Macpherson. “I should think so,” she retorted. (Renewed merriment.) Mrs. Casey, our hostess, was several times cross questioned as to our having a latch key to her house which brought out that she had known Miss Giveen so far over two years as a suffrage acquaintance; me she only knew by sight until we met at breakfast in her house. At the Suffrage Fair Miss Giveen had told her that she and I were going to a party at Richmond and might be too late to return to London; would she let us come to her house? Which was perfectly correct, Betty had kept our real intentions quiet. There was great astonishment at the Freemasonry among suffragettes, for one to trust a mere acquaintance who had never previously been to her house, with a latch key and to bring another, an utter stranger. Neither court nor counsels could grasp the idea. “She was a Suffragette,” said Mrs. Casey, “that was quite good enough for us. We trust anyone who is a suffragette.” We pleaded “Not Guilty” and were committed for trial at the Surrey Assizes at Guildford on July 3rd. Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Potts, two wealthy supporters of the movement, continued our sureties, the former driving us in her car to London in time to attend Emily Davison’s funeral. Ian Macpherson (1880–1937) was a lawyer and Liberal MP for Ross and Cromarty, 1911–35.

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The earthly remains of the Supreme Sacrifice were brought from Epsom to Victoria Station, where over 3,000 women, representing all sections of the Suffrage movement awaited her, and paid their tribute to the memory of Emily Wilding Davison by escorting her through the streets of London lined by enormous, silent, sympathetic crowds, to St. George’s Church, Bloomsbury where the memorial service was held, on to King’s Cross Station from whence, with a guard of honour of militant comrades, the train carried her home to Morpeth near Newcastle. There on the following day she was laid to rest by her sorrowing mother, sister and friends. Betty Giveen and I were regretfully obliged to abandon the escort to Morpeth not knowing beforehand when we should be required at Court to continue our part of the fight, comparatively small, since the whole country was seething with so called “Suffragette outrages”. Lincoln’s Inn House, our headquarters, had been raided again by the police. Mrs. Pankhurst, the office force, and editorial staff of the “Suffragette” were on a long, dragging trial for “conspiracy”. All over the country our members were being arrested, sent to prison, and released after a few days hunger strike (without being forcibly fed). Our license was under the “Cat and Mouse”, as we more appropriately called the Government’s Prisoners Ill Health Temporary Release Act, which they had passed in response to the great protest meetings against forcible feeding. The Medical profession, the Earl of Lytton, George Bernard Shaw, Mr. Johnston Forbes Robertson, the famous actor,134 whose sister135 had endured the torture, were some of the leaders in the protest. So the British Governmental Mountain laboured and its collective intelligence instead of producing a franchise bill, which was the only way of sooner or later, settling the argument, brought forth a “mouse”, the act under which we were released for a few days to recuperate and at their expiration return to prison to continue serving the sentence, hunger strike, be released, recuperate, return and so on indefinitely until the sentence be served. Of course it never worked that way at all. A Suffrage “Mouse” would simply disappear if that suited her purpose, until spotted by a police “cat” and dragged back to prison, and the whole situation was worse instead of better. “Tis an ill wind that blows no one any good.” The re-building of the race stands communed immediately, employing 150 men, some of whom were heard to say “God bless the Suffragettes!” A few days before the trial the witnesses appeared in Court for examination. Pity there was no dictaphone to register Ma Mac’s account and opinions Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853–1937), Shakespearean actor and theatre manager. His wife, the American actor Gertrude Elliott (1874–1950), was President of the AFL, and his niece, Beatrice Forbes-Robertson, was an actor, suffrage activist and feminist pamphleteer. 135 Louise Forbes-Robertson was arrested for breaking a window in Birmingham, protesting at the visit of Prime Minister Asquith. She was imprisoned as ‘Eliza’, having refused to give her name, and force fed. 134

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of the proceedings. The arrival of Mr. Justice Phillimore,136 though she called him ­everything but that, his red “bedgown” with fur trimmings, his chain, the Cinderella coach with its outriders “like a bloody pantomime.” In language more expressive, truthful, and sanguinary, than polite, she expressed her contempt for the “majesty of the law” as she had seen it function in our case. Wasting more money on trying to “bring us to justice”, than the whole damned race stand was worth instead of “doing justice” by giving us the vote. It gave her, like others, quite a lesson in one phase of wasting the taxpayers’ money. And this kind of waste was going on all over the country. The trial was quite an impressive affair, though to the culprits and their friends it was a farce and a travesty, and made a reverse impression to that intended. The damage caused was estimated at £7,000. Among Suffrage literature and messages found near, but safe from the fire, and read in Court, was a postcard addressed to “The Sportsmanlike (?) Government” and worded, “The human race is more important than any other. Why handicap women by disfranchisement? Remove the handicap at once and give us the Vote.” “I always go on till I am stopped, and I am never stopped,” aroused perfectly fiendish glee and chuckling, led by Mr. Bodkin who read the “messages”. His whole attitude was “Oh, stopped you this time.” I wonder what he said when the same message was found at my next fire? The “twelve good men and true” listened attentively and seriously to the old, old story, and after 25 minutes’ absence, pronounced us “guilty”, though our counsel, the best looking man in court, had defended us most valiantly, pointing out how all the evidence was circumstantial and the prosecution having failed to prove that the piece of carpet had been placed on the fence for a criminal purpose. To the question whether we had anything to say before sentence was passed, I replied, “We should like to say that we have been convicted on the flimsiest circumstantial evidence. Had we been men charged with criminal assault on little children and women, we should have been set free on a like amount of evidence. If I go to prison I shall hunger strike.” Miss Giveen said, “I wish to say that I do not think any sentence should be passed upon us, as we have not been tried by our peers. Until women are on the jury, – women should not be tried and sentenced.” Then, with due solemnity, and a speech not worth repeating here, except the end, sentence was passed upon us. “You will each of you go to penal servitude for three years.” “We shall fight and we shall win.” Betty Giveen called, while I shouted “We are out for the vote; and we shall get it, for there is justice in our cause!” An exciting scene followed, women shouting “No surrender”, and singing the “Marseillaise” leaving the court. Outside a great crowd, mostly cheering, a few having followed us to the station where we were taken in a taxi, accompanied by warderesses and warders. Going through the station to the train a group of young “antis” hissed us and Betty remarked, “hark to the geese”. Walter George Frank Phillimore (1845–1928), Lord Justice of Appeal, 1913–16, and 1st Baron Phillimore from 1918.

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Chapter LII Arriving in Holloway I quite naturally refused food and drink. Unlike most others I had never taken water on previous hungerstrikes. Why prolong the agony by drinking water, I thought. Two days, after which I had usually been forcibly fed, had elapsed, and nothing happened except the governor coming to my cell to tell me that since I had refused to take food or liquid he must order me “three days solitary confinement and have all privileges taken from me.” The absurdity of it – I was in solitary, and had no privileges! But authority must indulge in painting the lily. Every day at meal time tempting food and milk was placed beside my bed only to be removed untouched. My physical condition became gradually worse, normal function ceased and from the taste in my mouth disintegration seemed to have set in. Brushing my teeth and rinsing my mouth, without swallowing a drop of water, was a comfort and luxury to my swollen burning tongue. I slept from sheer exhaustion through internal discomfort and pain. On Monday morning, the fourth day, when attempting to rise the cell “spun around” and I had to return to bed. The next day I was unable to rise at all. At about four o’clock Dr. Forward137 took my pulse. Then I had a surprise visit from Mr. Marshall,138 one of the bright legal lights in the movement in general and our own Solicitor, sort of legal Guardian Angel, in particular. He told me of Sir W.H. Lever’s 139 house and others having been burnt last night, which cheered me considerably. I gloried in others’ keeping up the good work. Soon Dr. Forward returned and told me I was to be released and must take some brandy and Brand’s essence.140 They gave me some hot water to drink first which positively tasted like “nectar of the gods”. After taking nourishment two wardresses helped me to dress. Then we had a struggle over finger-prints, weak as I was I resisted and they got nothing but smudges. Walking out to the ambulance, assisted by wardresses, was a real effort. The Governor was waiting for me and handed me my “Cat and Mouse” license, which I promptly started to tear up. A wardress, trying to prevent me, got hold of one side, so we tore it between us. Later I sent the pieces to Mr. McKenna, the Home Secretary. Though I collapsed on the doorstep of a member’s house, temporarily used as a nursing home to which I was taken, it was a joy and comfort to be received and cared for by our own splendid Dr. Flora Murray, and anxious loving friends. My Dr Forward (1867–1934), medical officer at Holloway. Arthur Edward Willoughby Marshall (1871–1954), husband of Kitty (Emily Katherine) Willoughby Marshall (1871–1947), was a partner in the legal firm Bisgood and Marshall of Moorgate, London. Kitty Marshall was Mrs Pankhurst’s bodyguard. Arthur Marshall was a supporter of his wife’s militant career and acted as the WSPU’s solicitor, representing suffragettes in court and visiting them in prison. 139 William Hesketh Lever (1851–1925), the industrialist, philanthropist and founder of the model village of Port Sunlight. Lever’s summer home at Rivington Pike, Lancashire, was attacked in 1913 by Edith Rigby (1872–1950), the founder and organiser of the Preston WSPU. Rigby gave herself up to the police and was sent to prison for nine months. 140 A beef extract. 137 138

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license gave me five days, and as I had no intention of giving myself up or being rearrested “for nothing” I determined to make my protest against the “Cat and Mouse” Act as soon as I felt strong enough to crawl to the Home Office and hurl a stone through a window. An added “incitement to violence” was The Piccadilly flat case,141 which for sometime had appeared in the Press. A woman had been arrested, and, on July 10, was sentenced to 3 months’ imprisonment for keeping a most luxurious brothel. The names of her patrons, men prominent in politics and society, were suppressed, their proud bearers unpunished. If men need the pre and extra-marital and other set142 relations brought out in that case “for their health”, as is generally pleaded, then the women implicated and the ignorant girl victims, should be honoured for the service they render to man’s health, not sent to prison and ostracised by society. The “Daily Sketch” said, “The woman was sentenced, that was all the public heard of the affair. Letters had been found signed by men of high positions, revealing an organization for procuring young girls and little children. The evidence was not produced in the case because the men concerned were persons of importance. The law of libel makes it impossible to give the names of the people mentioned. Other persons also know the names. Some would speak if the law of England would protect them for telling the truth; others are silent because they are guilty.” The Fifth International Congress for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic including the traffic in children had been held at Caxton Hall from June 30th to July 4th, and from a report I saw it was simply tragic the way they “beat about the bush” and “tinkered” at the wrong end of the stick. The only suggestion they made was the licensing of children and young girls under the age of 16 for the stage, as if that could protect them against the man with money, influence, power, entree to back of the stage, who could gain the trust and confidence of any with compliments and presents, until he accomplished his nefarious designs, either to throw his victim aside when tired of her, or boost her onto the public as a “star”. Children on the stage are perfectly safe among their elder brother and sister artists but no licence will protect them from the “beasts” in power, sometimes pillars of Society, Church and Government. Always anxious to stamp it out elsewhere rather than tackle it on their own doorstep. Here was a body of Lords (Spiritual and otherwise) Ladies and Gentlemen who had the power to insist on the letters from the men in the Piccadilly Flat Case being published over the writers’ signatures. That is the only way to stop White Slavery, bring forth the men with the women, or drop the subject, let women as well as men go free, – until, if ever, all humanity evolves The ‘Piccadilly Flat Case’ filled the newspapers in the summer of 1913. A brothel was discovered when police raided Arlington House and the owner of the premises, Queenie Gerald, was charged with living off immoral earnings and keeping a disorderly house. She pleaded guilty, thus avoiding a trial and disclosure of clients’ names. Her three-month sentence was considered too light, especially by Votes for Women and The Suffragette, who compared her offence and sentence to those of the imprisoned suffragettes. 142 Presumably ‘sex’ relations. 141

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to a free, self-respecting manhood and womanhood on an absolute spiritual, political, and economic equality, neither subservient to, nor dominated by, the other. Then that problem like many others, will solve itself. In the meanwhile I am thankful not to have brought children into a world in which such atrocities as white, or any other kind of slavery is possible. Better to fight and help to clean up the mess. And so with printed, appropriate quotations pasted to a sheet of paper, wrapped round a small brick, a label tied to it, addressed to “The Government” on one side, “It’s never too late to mend. Repeal the ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act and give votes to Women”, on the other, I sallied forth after lunch on July 12th and made my protest through a window at the Home Office. Of course I was arrested, taken to Bow Street where I stated the reasons of my protest, including the woman in the Piccadilly Flat Case being sent to prison while the men went free, protected by law. Mr. Graham Campbell, the Magistrate, ordered me to pay a fine of 40 shillings and the damage, £2‑10 or go to prison for 21 days in the second division. I was taken back to the cell I had left 4 days ago and after another 4 1/2 days without food and drink I was carried out to the ambulance on an invalid chair, being unable to walk. Wreck that I was after 5 days and 4 1/2 days hunger and thirst strike I cannot understand how some of our women were able to last longer, 9 days and more in some cases. Was it because I was a “hearty” eater and missed the food more than those who ate less in general? My father had always compelled me to eat what was placed before me whether I liked it or not. I was given no choice in his presence to refuse what I did not care for, and eat more of what I did. I could not be hungry, he said, to refuse certain dishes and unless I partook of them I could not have any of what I liked, so I learned to eat everything and in later years thought it had been good training when I saw how “finicky” some people were over their food, no matter how good and wholesome. Still, I think one’s system feels what it needs and prefers and there is more truth than poetry in Marie Lloyd’s song, “A little o’ what you fancy does you good.” And having anything forced on you against your will is as bad as, perhaps worse than, being deprived of what you want and need. Life seems full of that sort of perversity in most things.

Chapter LIII Physically weak, weary, tired, I was only too glad to rest, sleep and eat to regain my strength for the next move, to even look at my “licence” having in mind what to do with it in due course. On Friday evening, the day after my release, a friend was looking at it and suddenly exclaimed, “Why, you’ve only got two days,” which meant, that on Saturday my time was up, when I could be rearrested and taken back to prison. The house was under police guard day and night. The cat watching the mouse-hole, not only for me but for other mice, and everyone going in and

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out was closely scrutinised. It would never do to be rearrested so soon when there was a better and less painful way for our side of fighting. On Saturday afternoon two friends called, one like me in general appearance but dressed differently to my usual tailor-made style. She removed her coat, hat and veil which I put on while she donned the hat and coat in which the dedectives had lately seen me. Dr. Murray gave me something, strychnine, I think, to brace me up, and my “double” leaning heavily on someone else’s arm went out surrounded by others bidding her farewell, and entered a waiting taxi, which was promptly boarded by the two detectives as it drove off toward High Street Kensington, at right angles from the nursing home. A sentinel at the gate gave the signal “coast clear” when the other caller and I walked out, turned left, and left again at the corner, walked a short distance to Church Street, boarded a bus and were lost in London’s traffic. Later we changed to a bus bound for Croydon. From front seats on top we chuckled at “diddling the cat” as we went down Whitehall, past Downing Street, the Home Office, the Houses of Parliament on our right, Scotland Yard and Cannon Row Police station on the left, where we had spent many a “happy evening” herded in the billiard room waiting for bail after a “raid”, across Westminster Bridge along Kensington Road143 past Ma Mac’s, who little dreamed I was passing the door. At the bus terminus we were picked up by a car in which we drove to a friend’s home in the beautiful Surrey Hills, where Betty Giveen, who had been released after six days’ hunger strike was waiting for me. It was our first meeting since our conviction and she was slowly recovering while I was an utter wreck, all the worse for the strain and excitement of escaping the police, and the jolting bus ride. What heavenly relaxation to be safe away from all the world’s turmoil in general and the Government’s brutal misuse of power in particular; to enjoy the ministrations of kind, admiring friends; to eat conscientiously and appreciate the dainties placed before you, to sleep and rest until strong enough to slowly crawl about the garden, the lanes and hills with the aid of a stick; to bask in the sunshine, listen to the birds, inhale God’s pure fresh air and the fragrance of foliage and flowers, all so strongly and wonderfully accentuated by contrast with prison existence, independent of our struggle therein. At the beginning of August I felt well enough to travel, and visited friends in Bristol whom I helped to “communicate with the Government”,144 after which I went to Liverpool where I evaded the “cat” though having a most interesting, busy time of which I may leave written details to posterity. During my stay in Liverpool I paid short visits to Manchester where a mill girl’s shawl, replacing the hat, proved an efficient disguise to “work” in, and Leeds, at the latter to help in the “reception” given to Premier Asquith in November. During these months militancy became more and more intense. “Mice” were being arrested, often on

Ma Mac lived at Kennington (not Kensington) Park Road, Lambeth. See the Introduction for other possible arson attacks.

143 144

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Figure 9  This studio portrait of Kitty Marion was circulated by the police for surveillance purposes in 1913. It was almost certainly taken when Kitty Marion was several years younger.

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new charges and forcibly fed, like Mary Richardson and Rachel Peace145 while awaiting trial. While in Ulster Sir Edward Carson’s Volunteers were drilling, which was as illegal as our own actions. Lives were lost in riots in Londonderry and an arsenal was discovered in a clergyman’s house, yet no one was arrested. The Government took it all out on the women. In addition to the burning of churches, protests by prayer for the tortured women in prison were made during service and the suppliants ejected. In Liverpool I heard Jim Larkin146 and James Connelly147 (who was executed in the Rebellion of 1916) speak at the Sun Hall after their release from the prison in Dublin. They had been arrested in the Labour riots for “incitement”, having threatened to follow Sir Edward Carson’s example. Sun Hall148 of course was full of detectives, but the few local suffragettes who knew me, themselves being known to the police, were warned to “ignore” me on this occasion. During this year and next Christabel Pankhurst created a terrific sensation and discussion by writing and publishing her book, “The Great Scourge”149 fighting for the most necessary sex education, warning against venereal diseases, white slavery and all their accompanying evils and consequent sufferings of humanity, and insisting upon an absolute equal moral standard between the sexes. A frivolous diversion indulged in by a few friends and myself was a trip down the Mersey to New Brighton, a sort of miniature Coney Island where among other entertainments we had our “fortunes told”. The most important points in mine were that I ought to have married a man whose name commenced with H. a few years ago, and in 1915 I would take a long voyage, have much trouble and unhappiness, separate from all my old associations and friends, do some entirely new work, more important than anything I had ever done. The “oracle” may have been correct regarding the first item, the rest I took with the usual grain of salt and hilarity. But – wait and see. Christmas and New Year 1913–14 I spent with friends on the East Coast not far from London, a rest from strenuous activities on the West, a fertile field to which I was to return. Passing through London in the late afternoon, January 6th, someone from our headquarters met me and took me to Charing Cross Station to leave my suitcase while she phoned headquarters of my safe arrival. Waiting Mary Richardson (1883?–1961); ‘Rachel Peace’ was the alias used by Florence Jane Short (1881–?). She was an embroideress and suffered a series of breakdowns after repeated force feeding. See Appendix II. 146 James ‘Jim’ Larkin (1867–1947), a socialist and Irish Republican involved in the 1913 Dublin ‘Lock-Out.’ 147 James Connelly (1868–1916), a socialist and Irish Republican, was executed in Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin for his part in the Easter Rising. 148 The Sun Hall, Kensington, Liverpool. 149 The Great Scourge and How To End It originated as a series of articles by Christabel Pankhurst on prostitution, venereal disease and the white slave trade in The Suffragette in 1913. Her cure for the triple menace facing society was women’s suffrage – which would bring women economic strength and independence – and ‘chastity for men’. 145

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for her outside the booth I heard a voice say “Hullo, Katie”, at which of course I looked up to find myself face to face with a detective, my own special “shadow” at Emily Davison’s funeral and other occasions. He insisted I was Kitty Marion which I insisted he must prove before I would accompany him to Holloway as he invited me, in spite of showing me his credentials. My friend coming out of the phone booth took in the situation at once and while I continued arguing with the “cat” on my right, I stealthily passed “incriminating evidence” to her from my coat pocket on the left. He wanted me to go to Bow Street or Cannon Row to be identified but I told him he must bring people to me for the purpose. So he asked me to come and wait in the Station master’s office, which, since my pocket was empty and I wanted to get rid of my friend, I was only too glad to do, telling her not to wait but take care of my bag, etc., moused off with the “cat” who left me in charge of a “bobbie” while he phoned for reinforcements. The Station master was most concerned and profusely apologetic, disclaiming all responsibility for my arrest. I reassured and exonerated him from all blame since “I understood the police to take me for a Suffragette”. Soon a whole crowd of “cats” arrived, all declaring “that’s Kitty Marion right enough”. Since it was against Suffragette principles to “go quietly” on such occasions I refused to budge and all the instruments of governmental physical force who could get a hand in, helped to push and drag me to a waiting taxi, while I expended my energy in repeated loud long measured shouts of “VOTES FOR WOMEN”. As they lifted me feet first into the taxi someone said “Mind the glass”. That was too good a cue to miss and “crash” went my left foot through the opposite window, causing the onlooking “cats” to jump as they never did before. Glad no one was hurt though. As many as could, packed into the taxi, others sitting outside, six or eight altogether – all to escort one “defenceless little woman”. The Majesty and Power of the Law! Ugh! Even the detectives saw the joke. They were quite decent lads and we had a regular suffrage discussion en route to Holloway. Of course all were in favour of Votes for Women, but if they refused to arrest us, as I suggested the whole police force ought, they would simply lose their jobs, which others would be only too glad to step into and treat us worse than they did. It was the same argument as that of the prison officials on being told they ought to refuse to forcibly feed us; and perfectly true, feasible and logical under existing conditions of government by force instead of government by justice and representation. Though naturally disappointed at finding myself in “durance vile” once more, I anticipated my release after a few days’ hunger strike, but I certainly reckoned without my host for the Government vindictively “got a bit of its own back” and I went through Hell. During the first night I walked my cell most the time, partly to keep warm – I was too cold to sleep – partly to reduce toward release. In the morning about ten minutes exercise. I only went out in the vain hope of meeting some of my “comrades in arms”. Then fingerprints. They evidently meant to get them right this time with the aid of 9 wardresses and a man, with Dr. Ahern, who had been transferred from Birmingham watching the proceedings. For half an hour it was a regular “catch as catch can” and when my right foot was stepped

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on hard enough to cut through the top of my shoe, I thought I was entitled to the use of my feet for kicking, after which they removed my shoes and the wardresses held me bodily off the ground. The man who did the actual finger-printing was most brutal and in his excitement grabbed and started to operate on the hand of a wardress. “Wrong hand”, “I want the left”, they yelled at each other a couple of times before he discovered he had the wrong “left”, when they seized and thrust mine on him. Bruised and exhausted I was taken to No. 12 cell in the Hospital instead of back to Wing F., where I had spent the night. I went to bed that night and remained there in the morning. When the doctor came and asked me to eat, I of course refused and he said he would have to feed me then, so without any warning and before the usual 48 hours had elapsed they were all ready for me. I begged to be fed sitting in a chair but they forced me down on the bed again, and while I was panting and gasping for breath after the struggle, they had a gag in mouth and a throat tube down before I realized what had happened. I had expected the usual beginning with a nasal tube but no doubt Dr. Ahern who did the “dirty work” this time, remembered his first attempt at feeding me in Winson Green. As fast as they poured the food down it was vomited back, I became possessed of a most furious rage, like wanting to kill someone, so I got up, dressed and smashed every pane of glass in the window and everything else breakable in the cell, the glass over the gas, the wash basin and the jug containing hot water, which ran all over the floor. “Do you feel better now?” said the wardress as she came in to view the damage. “I do,” I said, and I did, in giving vent to my feelings and protesting against forcible feeding brutality. In the afternoon I barricaded my cell with the furniture, which deferred the time of the next struggle somewhat, during and after which I suffered such agony that I found blessed relief to my feelings in screaming, exercising my lungs and throat after the frightful sensation of being held in a vice, choking and suffocating. I had to scream or go mad. Later I noticed the unprotected gas jet and promptly tried to set fire to the bed with pages torn from the “Narrow Way”, another “intellectual” discourse with which to be-devil the mind of a prisoner. Instead of burning, the bed only smouldered and smoked. When they noticed smoke issuing from my cell they came to the rescue with buckets of water. After the mess was cleaned up they left me in the dark but I told them it would be quite safe to light the gas as I would do nothing worse than try to read. Later the doctor came again and wanted to know why I did these things. “As a protest against Government brutality of feeding me by force instead of releasing me,” and at the end of the argument we had I told him he was not a medical man but a brute, a torturer, and from the way he prostituted his profession he was worse that the worst harlot in Piccadilly. Whereat he fled from my cell. Poor governmental tools, as helpless as a hammer in the hands of a Suffragette! The next morning I moved the bed with its head under the window and when I heard them coming I stood on the bed rail, holding on to the window bars. So someone climbed up a ladder outside (I was on the ground floor) and wrenched my fingers loose, while a wardress on each side of me took my hands in carefully,

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to avoid cutting them on the broken glass, pulled me down, and after another struggle the doctors came in to finish the job. Sylvia Pankhurst had been rearrested for the fifth time under the “Cat and Mouse” Act, three days before me and was released after 8 days without being forcibly fed. Yet she as a speaker, telling the masses the truth about the “Liberal” Government, was doing them a great deal more damage than I and others by the destruction of their “Golden Calf”, their great god Property, which to them was of so much more importance and value than their own veracity, honour, integrity and the lives of their fellow human beings. One of the chief medical advisors to the Home Office called that afternoon, as they did periodically to see how safe it was to continue the torture without actually killing us. At night we repeated the scene of the morning and I was so ill I thought surely I should soon be released. Next day, Sunday, an icy wind was blowing through my broken window and everyone including the chaplain, to whom I had to explain the why and wherefore of our militancy in and out of prison, persuaded me to move to another cell, which I did, to No. 8 across the corridor. I settled down there hoping every day would be my last, and beyond the fight against feeding I gave no further trouble than was necessary to the officials. They, after all, were “human” when we became acquainted, and I am a perfectly peaceful person in the ordinary course of events. I wrote “No Surrender” on the wall of my cell in soap, which was invisible at first, but took on colour as the daily dust settled on it, and challenged all comers. Then while out at exercise the whitewash brush would obliterate it only to be rewritten and show itself again in due time. Forcible feeding continued twice a day, and later, because of my losing weight rapidly, three times a day. No words can describe it. Resisting the gag was almost useless, since I had a back tooth missing, by the gap of which they could easily force my mouth open, but I resisted the tube with my throat, until my mouth was full of coiled tube and when swallowing, which happened involuntarily sooner or later, seemed to go down in lumps, uncoiling as it went. Sometimes when using the nasal tube it would come out of the mouth instead of going down, when they would quickly insert the gag and use the throat tube, which was thicker than the nasal. When in my agony I managed to wrench a hand free from a wardress I would snatch the tube out, which meant reprimand for her and repeated torture for me. Sometimes the doctor would even wait for me to regain my breath in my struggle to resist the tube, before continuing. I was always sick during and after feeding, so much so at times that the bed clothes as well as my dress had to be changed. The food was mostly milk and eggs, beef tea, sometimes cocoa and sometimes something of a peculiar salty taste which I later learned was bromide,150 though the authorities denied it, since there was a Bromide – a sedative which was widely used in prisons to calm behaviour, and in the case of the suffragettes, to reduce their resistance to force feeding. See KMA: 194.

150

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great outcry against giving us sedative drugs. Vomiting would continue in small quantities for three hours, eventually tasting bitter. And when being fed three times a day, the remains of the last meal would come back as soon as the tube touched the back of my throat and I started retching, which I always did quite easily. I often felt distracted beyond endurance, like going stark staring mad. At times when my chest and throat ached and I felt like bursting with the amount of food in me, I would throw myself about violently after feeding. Then they would hold me so that I should not hurt myself. Sometimes I seemed to have convulsions, and shake, shudder and tremble dreadfully. For several days at the beginning I felt a numbness all down my left side, as if it were contracted and smaller than my right, but it passed off. I often begged the doctor to put poison down the tube and finish me. In the midst of all this up-to-date inquisition came a visitor, wearing the Symbol of Suffering of the Man whom he professed to serve. On Saturday, February 7th, Phyllis Brady151 and I were strolling in the exercise yard when a wardress came to tell me, “The Governor wants you,” My heart began to race with apprehension and dread of I knew not what. It was a joyful relief and surprise to find it was only the Bishop of London152 to visit me. No wonder he took my ruddy blush as a sign of good health, according to his published report, and misconstruction of my answer to his inquiry regarding my health, “Very well, considering” minimizing my screams of agony into mere protests against forcible feeding. He conceded that I was a “voluble and forceful talker” (which was news to me), and that I seemed to enjoy a good talk; that we discussed many things, imprisonment, forcible feeding, and had a most friendly and spirited debate over Votes for Women and militancy, “in which she held her own quite as well as any of those out of prison whom I have interviewed this week”. (Thank you, my Lord.) But the Bishop did not tell how he offered me my freedom if I would promise to give up militancy. “What would be the use of that,” I remarked quite nonchalantly, “since others would carry it on?” Oh, but it would be quite different to my doing it. I disagreed and told him it would be all the same: what one did, we all did. “You know we are all ‘members of one another’ and if I gave up militancy I would merely be a traitor to the cause, and worse than Judas.” When I blamed Mr. Lloyd George for his treachery to our cause the Bishop of course defended him. “Mr. Lloyd George could not identify himself with your cause or do anything for you while you continue militancy.” So I explained to his Grace that if Mr. Lloyd George had been honest and kept the Government’s promise during the time of truce, instead of “torpedoing” the “Conciliation Bill”, the resulting militancy would have been avoided. Phyllis Brady (Olive Beamish, 1890–1978) joined the WSPU when she was 16. She campaigned in the East End after graduating from Girton College in 1912. In 1914 she was serving an eighteen-month sentence with hard labour for burning down ‘Trevethan’, Lady White’s house at Egham, in March 1913; she hunger struck and was force fed. 152 Arthur Winnington-Ingram (1858–1946), bishop of London 1901–39. 151

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The Bishop was sorry we had not continued our “beautiful processions”. “When you had your beautiful processions you had everybody at your feet,” he said, to which I replied, “Yes, but our beautiful processions didn’t get us the vote, and we don’t want anybody at our feet, we want to vote!” I learned later that the Bishop had been asked by Miss Marion WallaceDunlop and other members of the W.S.P.U. to visit the prisons, witness forcible feeding, and protest against it to the Government, instead of which he came to tempt us with our freedom. “All this will I give thee” if thou wilt foreswear thy principles and cause. After he left me he visited Phyllis who luckily was able to send a message through her lawyer whom she saw on Monday, to our headquarters, refuting the Bishop’s misinterpretation of our conditions in prison. Christabel Pankhurst answered the Bishop in an article in “The Suffragette”, February 13, excoriating him and his Church for condoning the State’s disfranchisement of women, conniving at their torture, and “whitewashing” the Government.

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A few days after the Bishop of London’s visit, a most elegant, handsome, charming woman was shown into my cell by the Matron. “Rather superior for a prison visitor,” I thought, “and she did not get those earrings at the penny bazaar.” They were pearls, “the real thing”, which took my eye at once. I did not ask her name, not caring who was calling since I had been fed about twenty minutes before and was being sick accordingly. However, the lady sat on the bed beside me in the most friendly sympathetic manner, and we discussed the suffrage situation to a vomiting obbligato154 by myself. Of course she was a Suffragist, but opposed the militancy, which I naturally defended. After she left and the Matron came to see how I was, I remarked jocularly, “Who’s your friend?” “The Duchess of Bedford,”155 she replied. “Oh yes?” I laughed skeptically, “Yes, really,” she said, “she is the Dowager Duchess, and visits on behalf of Queen Mary.” Dear, sweet lambs, anxiously tinkering at the wrong end of the stick. On Wednesday, March 4th, another medical expert from the Home Office examined me, which I hoped was a preliminary to my release but on Friday they fed me three times and continued to do so with the exception of two Sundays, until my release. Chapter 54 is missing and the chapter headings change from roman numerals to Western Arabic numbering. 154 Obbligato – musical accompaniment. 155 Adeline Marie Russell, Dowager Duchess of Bedford (1852–1920), widow of the 10th Duke of Bedford. A philanthropist and social reformer, she worked to support poor women and prostitutes in the area of Victoria station, was a prison visitor for many years and an advocate for penal reform. 153

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About the middle of March Mary Richardson, who had slashed the Rokeby “Venus”156 in the National Gallery, joined us on a six months sentence. She was forcibly fed and released in three weeks owing to appendix complications. It was always an event when one of us arrived in, or was released from prison. On arriving in your cell you would shout “Votes for Women” and “No Surrender” out of the window, or close to the door, to those on the opposite side of the corridor, and so exchange news from inside and outside, much against prison rules, regulations and silence. One day I heard an unusual commotion and hurrying footsteps and when I inquired the cause from a wardress who came to my cell, as they did periodically, she cheerfully informed me that a baby had been born. “Poor little mite to be born in prison,” I said, but she laughed. “That’s nothing, we have lots born here. Women will purposely do something to give them a long enough sentence to have their babies in the prison hospital where they know they will get proper care for nothing, which they are too poor to provide otherwise.” That fairly took my breath away in spite of the terrible slums I had seen. What a “Christian Civilization!” And what a queer kind of mother-love that will conceive and condemn an innocent, defenceless little child to such conditions. Like oases in the wilderness I had my perfectly peaceful, happy moments alone in my cell, reading, thinking and listening to the “still small voice”. Thinking over the strange, sudden turns in my life, unpremeditated on my part. Who would ever have thought of me finding myself in the thick of this fight for woman’s enfranchisement? There were people who questioned my right as a German to take part, especially a militant part, in the British movement, but I felt it my right and duty, finding myself on the battlefield, as it were, to “fall in” on the right side, particularly as the British women’s militancy would help the cause the world over, including Germany, so I was, unknown to them, helping my countrywomen. Picturing dramatic stage situations, as I often did, I thought of one in which a German army invading London would open the gates and cell doors of Holloway to free the Suffragettes and be surprised by one of them singing “Die Wacht am Rhein”,157 or some other appropriate song. But the “still small voice” of Peace said “perish the thought”, even in play, of an German army, war between England and Germany is unthinkable. War in general took on a different aspect and my little German war songs, extolling war and victory, which I hummed quietly to myself, struck me as being all wrong psychologically. How could you abolish war, which I vaguely hoped would be done, if you continued to think and sing about it as glorious and great? I for one would cease to sing about it. I did get a laugh though out of my old favourite, “Ich bin ein Preusse”. “I am a Prussian, do you know my The ‘Rokeby Venus’ (1645–51) by Diego Velasquez was one of a number of works of art attacked by suffragettes. 157 Die Wacht am Rhein – ‘The Watch (or Guard) on the Rhine’ – a patriotic German anthem particularly popular during the Franco-Prussian and First World Wars. 156

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colours? My standard floats before me, black and white.” How some of my friends would have cheered the “Black and White” with a dash of seltzer! One source of cheer to me in prison was being weighed and seeing how I was steadily losing, for loss of weight and strength would expedite my release. And one fine morning, Thursday, April 16th, the Governor, Dr. Paton,158 instead of the stern official, made his entrance into my cell like a jolly human being, happy as a sand boy with the joyous, sparkling greeting, “Well, Ginger!” “Ditto Brother Smut,” I returned, he being of the same hue. He had brought my release in a “Cat and Mouse” licence for 6 days. It would take longer than that to repair the damage His Majesty’s Christian Government had done to me. Fourteen weeks and two days, forcibly feed 232 times, for the last 5 weeks and 5 days three times a day. I lost 36 pounds in weight. “There’s one good thing about you, you come up smiling every time,” said the Governor when he bade me “good riddance, and don’t come back.” Friends who came to see me at Miss Pine’s Nursing Home159 to which I was taken, were shocked at my changed appearance. An old woman of seventy, they said I looked. My age was forty-three, though younger looking. Always refusing to give my age to the police, they chivalrously used to guess it at nearly 10 years less. Dr. Flora Murray160 was at the Nursing Home to receive and examine me immediately. In her statement she says of me – “She was obviously very ill – her complexion ashy-gray – her face was lined and the facial muscles, tongue and hands were weak and tremulous. There were bruises and marks of nails on her. She complained of noises in the head and of neuralgia pains. She was markedly anaemic and the action of her heart was unsatisfactory. There was evidence that she had been drugged in prison, for she had a rash on her neck and shoulders and a pathological examination proved her to be excreting bromine”.161 It was like resurrecting from the dead under the tender care of Nurse Pine and her staff, though strange for one so active and agile as I to be so weak and shaky. And what luxury to sit up in bed and “eat”. And oh, the joy of visitors, flowers and letters of “welcome out”. My room was a bower of flowers, including some of the best from Lady Constance Lytton’s own garden and a great bunch of Madonna Lilies from a florist, when he heard that the extra special fine roses a customer ordered, were for me. There were roses and other flowers of every description including a flowering azalea from Mrs. Pankhurst: “With deep appreciation of your self-sacrificing work for the movement.” Dr Paton had replaced Dr James Scott as Governor of Holloway Prison. Nurse Pine’s Nursing Home, opened 1908, in Notting Hill, was run by Catherine Emily Pine (1864–1941) and Gertrude Townend (1874?–1959). They met while working at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. 160 Dr Flora Murray (1869–1923) was the suffragettes’ physician, visiting them in Holloway Prison and attending them on their release. 161 ‘Bromine’ – the chemical element from which bromide is obtained. Rachel Peace and Mary Richardson were among other suffragette prisoners found to have bromide in their system on release from prison. 158 159

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Figure 10  Kitty Marion recuperating following her release on ‘Cat and Mouse’ licence, c. 1914.

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A letter from Christabel Pankhurst in Paris: “My love and thanks to you for your magnificent fight and heroic endurance. You have had a great triumph and we are all proud of you, more proud than words can say. – Think now of getting well. There is so much rejoicing that you are free and out of the clutches of those terribly cruel enemies of our cause.” And a long, beautiful letter from Lady Constance Lytton who, having suffered a stroke, was now a confirmed invalid at her home in Knebworth, Herts:162 “I do not know what to say to you. My reverence for you is of the greatest, and I feel a love for you which I cannot put on paper. I have thought of you incessantly while you were being forcibly fed. – Your splendid courage is greater than anything I can conceive – But you are free! – Oh, what men and women will bless you! The women deep down in their hearts, wronged, oppressed and divided. Always yours truly and reverently Constance Lytton.” One from Annie Kenney: “Just a line to tell you how much I admire the splendid way you stuck to your colours. You have been so wonderfully brave and courageous. I send my love with these flowers.” Then one from Hilda Burkitt163 who had also tasted of what I went through: “I see you are free at last; it is good news indeed. What a glorious fight you have made, and you’ve beaten them all by your indomitable courage and strength of mind. I cannot tell you how relieved I felt, I have only just seen it in the ‘Daily Sketch’.” And letters from those two good friends and close comrades in arms, Maud and Emily Fussell, the twins, and Ada Wright164 with whom the police “wiped up” Parliament Square on “Black Friday”, and then suppressed the pictures, after first editions in the Press,165 and Olive Walton and others too numerous to mention, scattered all over the country, fighting the good fight, who had read of my release in the papers. And visitors bringing loving, admiring and encouraging messages from others.166 What a Heaven after the Hell in Holloway I had gone through! Mary Richardson was there also and another “Mouse” whose name I cannot recall. On Sunday I was allowed to get up and bask in the sun in the garden with Lytton suffered a stroke in 1912 that paralysed her right side. She learned to write with her left hand; her memoir Prisons and Prisoners was published in 1914. 163 Hilda Burkitt (1876–1955) was sentenced to two years in prison in May 1914 for setting fire to two wheat-stacks and the Bath Hotel in Felixstowe with Florence Olivia Tunks (1891–1985), who received nine months. They were also suspected of setting the fire that destroyed the pier at Great Yarmouth. 164 Ada Wright (1862–1939) joined the WSPU in 1906, after donating her savings to the Union in 1905 following the first militant protest at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. By 1914 she had served five prison sentences, hunger struck and been force fed numerous times. She was a generous and regular donor. In 1913 Mrs Pankhurst stayed in her flat in Westminster when released from prison on a Cat and Mouse licence. 165 In the Daily Mirror, 19 November 1910. 166 KM kept all these letters and they are now in the MLSC. 162

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the others. “Piney”, our pet name for Miss Pine, must have read my thoughts, longing for chicken and asparagus, for these were part of our Sunday dinner, the first solids I was allowed to eat. And weren’t they good?!

Chapter 56 I enjoyed my limited respite of peace and comfort to the full. My time was up on Wednesday April 22 when I had to leave the nursing home, which could not lend itself to “smuggling” us away, openly under the eyes of the C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation Department), which was the official label for the “Cat”. The next day they could have arrested me but this day I was still free, only to be looked at. And they tried their hardest to get a good look, for future recognition. I felt sick and faint as I was being assisted down the steps to the taxi and drove off in the evening dusk accompanied by two friends to support me and a third bringing my suitcase, followed by another taxi full of C.I.D.’s to see where I was going and watch there till tomorrow to arrest me. I can’t remember where I was taken but on the way the C.I.D.’s taxi got in front of and stopped mine, the driver of which, at the instigation of the detectives, made some excuse for not being able to go any further, which meant changing to another taxi. That of course was done for them to get a better view of me, which was foiled by my collapsed condition and my friends gathering closely about to support me, moaning painfully all the time. At last we got into another taxi in which I remained a heap on the floor until we reached our destination, another member’s house, where the “Cats” watched closely while I was being assisted up the steps and into the house, and while, for the benefit of the audience outside, my friends performed a “shadow play” of attending to an invalid in a brightly lighted, window­-shaded room, my hostess escorted me to the back of the house, where her son was waiting for me with his motorcycle and side-car, in which five minutes later I crossed the street within hailing distance of the C.I.D.’s who were keeping the house under observation. It was my first and only side-car ride and with the excitement and romance of escaping the police once more, quite enjoyable in spite of my wretched, weak physical condition and the miraculous avoidance of a collision, by timely increase of speed, with a downcoming car at the corner of a hill up which we were turning. A fine, cool-headed driver, my young escort, who at last deposited me safely somewhere in Hampstead, where I made the acquaintance and enjoyed the hospitality of another good member and supporter of the W.S.P.U., Mrs. Anderton,167 a widow who kept a high class boarding house, supporting herself and daughter Irene. Both were exceedingly kind and attentive to their invalid guest. My wild ride had shaken me severely and I was obliged to remain quietly in bed a couple of days, before the doctor would permit me to get up and dine with my fellow guests, who expressed themselves “greatly honoured” to meet a “Militant heroine”. Jessie Gertrude Anderton (1870 –?). Three times widowed by 1911, Jessie Gertrude ran the boarding house in Fellows Road, Hampstead, with her 20-year-old daughter, Irene.

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There were three Americans, Mr. and Mrs. Harrington and their daughter, three Japanese students, two Armenian silk merchants, a Russian, and Mrs. Marguerite Remington Charter,168 a “Militant” whose husband had always paid her fine after a raid rather than let her go to prison, and her two beautiful, charming daughters, Greta and Phyllis, home from school in Belgium. Quite an international crowd, all in favour of Votes for Women, and all loyal and faithful to the cat-hunted Mouse. When I was well enough, Mrs. Williams, that valiant transporter and smuggler of “Mice” including Mrs. Pankhurst, came with her car to take me to Folkstone to recuperate. The drive from Hampstead through London was most enjoyable but on the Thames Embankment, right at the gates of Scotland Yard, I experienced an awful thrill of fear. We were held up by a policeman and for the moment I expected the worst. However, it was a case of breaking the speed limit, which the “bobby” settled with the chauffeur, respectfully ignoring the ladies. What a relief! Once more across Westminster bridge and past “Ma Mac’s” where I pointed out to Mrs. Williams, whence came the famous piece of carpet. On through South London, Surrey, Kent – the garden of England – where we stopped by the wayside, amidst cherry and apple orchards in full bloom, to make a raid on a luncheon basket. The country in its fresh spring beauty was always a joy to me, but after the last “Holloway” it took on a new charm and glamour, struck new chords of satisfaction and gratitude in me at being free to enjoy it all, including the most perfect, sunny weather and Mrs. Williams’ hospitable transportation. At “Travarra”, the boarding house in Folkstone, I remained incog. as “Miss Braddon” to all but my hostess, Miss Key, and a few other trusted members and friends, among them Miss Beatrice Harraden,169 the authoress, who also contributed much towards making my convalescence happy and effective. The genial cooperation of members, supporters and friends of the militant movement in taking care of “Mice” all over the country was one of the social wonders of the period. On Whitsunday, May 31, I was taken to Paris to let Christabel Pankhurst see the result of the Government’s “hospital treatment” on me. Disguised in a dark wig and heavily veiled, in the care of Dr. Violet Jones, Mrs. Alice Green, Mrs. Mary Leigh and Miss Elsie McKenzie,170 Marguerite Remington Charter was a Canadian-born author who demonstrated her support for the WSPU by condemning Arthur Conan Doyle’s calls to lynch suffragettes. 169 Beatrice Harraden (1864–1936), author and dramatist, joined the WSPU in 1906 and the Women Writers’ Suffrage League when it was founded in 1908. She also supported the Women’s Freedom League, the London Graduates’ Union for Women’s Suffrage and the Women’s Tax Resistance League. 170 Elsie Violet McKenzie (1887–?) was born in Wandsworth; her father was a civil engineer. In 1909 she was sentenced for window breaking, and hunger struck for six days in Holloway before being released. She visited the United States on WSPU business in December 1912, and was photographed taking part in a suffragette ‘caravan hike’ from New York to Boston in August 1913 with Jessie Spink (1890–1957, alias Vera Wentworth). Elsie McKenzie returned to New York twice in the 1930s. She was still alive in 1950. 168

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I mingled with the holiday excursionists from Victoria Station to Paris on Sunday night, returning the following night after a busy interesting day in “Gay Paree”. A visit to Paris under any circumstances must be an event in anybody’s life, as it was in mine, independent of visiting “C.P.” and actually to see great places of interest I had read and heard about. Naturally I wondered what my life would have been, had I accepted my first invitation to Paris. There, as in London, I saw women in the evening, some mere children, accosting men, often to be contemptuously flung aside. When first I witnessed such incidents in London I felt shocked, sick and indignant at a state of civilization in which women subjected themselves to such treatment for economic or any other reasons, in the face of so much talk of morality, man’s chivalry, woman’s honour and chastity. Those terms seemed but a trap in which to catch the unwary.

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Chapter 57 War I will pass on now to the first Sunday in August when I was on “danger-duty”1 in Leicester, ready to send another reminder to the Government that women still wanted to vote, when a telegram arrived from headquarters, to stop all activity. We knew then that England was in the war which had been brewing for some time on the Continent. Compared to the destruction of property men would now indulge in, to say nothing of their destruction of human life, the women’s militancy would be as futile as throwing a match into a roaring furnace. I for one was glad to “cease fire” under the circumstances until the war ended, which many people thought and hoped it would in three or four months, the latest. The people of England did not want war but were stampeded into it by lying propaganda like those of the other belligerent countries, and temporarily to sink our interests in those of the nation was the only right, proper and loyal thing to do. For me the situation became doubly tragic with the declaration of war between England and Germany. It seemed impossible, unthinkable. I could not believe it, nor realize it. I was torn between natural love of the Fatherland, and love of the people among whom I had lived for 28 years, 13 years more than in the land of my birth which had “legally” cast me off. After European Governments had released their political prisoners under amnesty, the British Government did likewise, including the Suffragettes, except that the Home Secretary, Mr. McKenna, wanted the “Mice” who were out on licence to return to prison voluntarily and go through the “red tape” of release, to which our leaders in command during the absence abroad of Mrs. Pankhurst and Miss Kenny, objected. They preferred that we should go in a body to the Home Office, see Mr. McKenna and get our papers of release that way. Well, we went, a good number of us, and waited outside while Mrs. Drummond led a small deputation into the Home Office, but soon came out “under arrest”, to be taken across to Cannon Row. That would not do for me at all. I could not be arrested and have my action misconstrued into German aggression, which I feared, under the circumstances it would have been, and seized upon as a weapon against the W.S.P.U. by our enemies. Maud Fussell and a few others whom I consulted quietly, agreed with me, and as they saw nothing gained by being arrested themselves, we considered discretion the better part of valour and returned to headquarters, where those who had been arrested and released, soon followed us. After some consultation we agreed to take our release for granted and do no more about it. Though my German birth was not known to the public I had never made a secret of it to friends, acquaintances and the authorities in prison. I always gave my ‘Danger duty’ suggests that KM was in Leicester on 2 August 1914 to commit further militant acts.

 1

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Figure 11  Kitty Marion as a German maid in The Sphinx at the Court Theatre, October 1914. place of birth as Germany.2 And on one occasion when writing to Mr. McKenna, protesting against forcible feeding etc., to break my spirit as well as my body, out of sheer bravado I told him that I was German, and my spirit as strong as that of the British Lion and German Eagle combined.3 I could have become a naturalized The 1901 census, when she was in Portsmouth, gives KM’s birthplace as London, but this might have been an error on the census recorder’s part.  3 See Appendix III.  2

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British subject now as many Germans did, but refrained because of publication in the press, which I wished to avoid. To “lie low” seemed the best thing to do until the war be over. There was much dissatisfaction and withdrawal from the W.S.P.U. on the part of many members at militancy and suffrage propaganda being suspended in favour of war propaganda and work, which Mrs. Pankhurst, Christabel, Mrs. Drummond and others took up with great gusto to help win the war, for which I, in the face of danger of invasion, etc. according to the Press, could not blame them. I saw the situation from a German angle too, but if what the Press said about the German “atrocities”4 regarding women and children in Belgium and France were true, I was in favour of preventing a German invasion of England at all costs, even the temporary cessation of the Suffrage fight. Opinions were sharply divided between militarism and pacifism. I had not then developed into a pacifist and could not understand that attitude in the midst of such a terrific struggle, though I deplored the slaughter of the flower of each country’s manhood. That the English people in general were not anti­-German at that time may be gathered from the fact that I played a German part in a play “The Sphinx” at the Court Theatre in October. The Authoress, Miss Janette Steer,5 and I, had been fellow prisoners and when I heard she was going to produce a play for a short trial run of nine days, I asked her for a part. She told me they were all filled but a small part, a German maid, all spoken in German. “That will do me,” I said. “Do you speak German?” she asked. “I am,” I replied. Miss Steer had lived in Germany and through associations felt towards Germany as I did towards England. So I played the part and no one objected.6 Through Miss Steer I met Mr. F.L. Rawson,7 the leader of the religious cult of “Right Thinking”. As an electrical engineer he brought the whole material universe down to electrical vibrations, and human thoughts to “High Tension electrical currents” which can and should be controlled like any other. “Think right and right must follow”, and vice versa. Mr. Rawson considered the “miracles” of Jesus as divinely natural, Jesus being an expert in right thinking, knowing the truth, goodness instead of evil, health instead of sickness, universal love instead of fear and hate, and so forth, I attended many of his meetings and derived much spiritual sustenance from his teachings, especially as I had practically ceased to believe in the God of the Theologians who credited “His will” with the ungodly mess of human affairs, and to whom each warring “Christian” nation was now praying for victory over the enemy. The incongruous hypocrisy! All things considered I was having a fairly good time. Friends remained unchanged and true. Like others who were more or less invalids, the W.S.P.U. provided me with the necessary maintenance Allegations about the rape of Belgian nuns and the crucifixion of babies filled the newspapers at this time.  5 Janette Steer (n.d.), an American actor, manager, dramatist and lecturer on psychology, came to London in 1893; she was a militant and active member of the AFL. The Sphinx, in which she also starred, was marketed as ‘a strong emotional drama’ but received mixed reviews.  6 The Stage described KM’s performance as ‘the German speaking and singing, though Frenchnamed, scrubber, Lisette’ as ‘blithe and bonny’. (8 October 1914: 18)  7 Frederick Lawson Rawson (1859–1923), a well-known Christian Scientist.  4

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out of the funds, a great proportion of which had been contributed by wealthy people “in honour of” the militant acts they were not capable of doing themselves. They “taxed” themselves for a “war” they approved of much as a government taxes the people to pay for a war they do no want. In my weakened condition from forcible feeding, thyroid trouble developed and I was ordered complete rest. In December Mrs. Mary Leigh, I and a few others with good voices formed a choir, and during Christmas week, under dominoes and masks, sang carols on the streets in the evening to raise money for the poor East End children Sylvia Pankhurst had undertaken to look after. Christmas I spent at Folkestone with Col. and Mrs. “True-Blue”, as I will call them in place of their own name. True-Blue they were in every best British sense of the term. The Colonel was giving his regiment a dinner with entertainment to follow on Christmas Day, and as I had many of the latest songs, including “Tipperary”,8 it was my pleasure and privilege to contribute towards the afternoon’s cheer. At night there was a dinner to the officers and their wives at home. They little dreamed of the “alien enemy” in their midst, and my host and hostess, a fellow guest, a French lady, and I, were greatly amused at one of the ladies expressing her anti-German animus. She emphatically would never speak to a German again, all the time being particularly nice to me. The next morning while Col. and Mrs. True-Blue attended to their regimental and hospital duties, my fellow guest and I drove to Dover in the Colonel’s car. It was quite thrilling to be on sacred, forbidden ground, challenged by the guard between Folkestone and Dover, and allowed to pass. How we laughed at the hysterics certain jingos in and out of office would have worked themselves into had they known. Thank God there were people who retained their mental and spiritual equilibrium, even in the Army.

Chapter 58 On New Years Day, Hylda Cross9 came to see me. Hylda had been one of our prison secretaries whose duty it was to look after the prisoners, forward their letters, send books, clothing or any thing they were permitted to have “inside”, and see that they were comfortably housed and taken care of outside. Since her ministrations in that direction were no longer required she was engaged in playing the piano in a cinema at Arnold, near Nottingham, and now suggested that I should stay with her until the war was over and militancy be resumed. An excellent arrangement, especially since Hylda and I had already become fast friends. She had a severe attack of “hero worship”, having heard “all about me” from theatrical people she had met, and then “actually meeting me”! Hylda was ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’ (1912), presumably the popular British music hall song written by  Jack Judge and Henry James ‘Harry’ Williams, rather than the earlier ‘Irish’ love song, ‘Tipperary’ of 1907.  9 Florence Hylda Cross (1892–1928) went to prison several times for the Cause; her name, like those of all prisoners, appears on the Suffragette Roll of Honour, 1905–14.  8

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an excellent pianist, played anything on sight and extemporised most soul-feeding harmony out of a piano. Hylda was then 24 years of age, tall, slender, with dark hair, deep blue eyes, keen intellect, a ready wit, a cheerful disposition, a good speaker and organizer, and had no superstitions. How she laughed at me for mine, and the poor pros who played at the cinema with a “dressing-room full of golliwogs and mascots and an empty date book”. Of course I played her hall. “Kathleen Meredith” I was in those days, a name suggested by Ethel Ford when I “filled in” at Picture houses in my struggling music-hall days. Being well known as an entertainer and political speaker in the vicinity of Derby, her home, Hylda was able to book me several cinema dates. Out there in the country the war did not touch us, except through the newspaper, but my perfect peace and harmony was too good to last. In February I had occasion to go to London where I heard from several Suffrage friends with whom I had stayed to the knowledge of the police, that the latter had enquired as to my whereabouts, and asked did they know that I was a German spy? “Absurd”, they replied, and had not the slightest idea where I was. Dear old Ma Mac having died after a stoke10 a few months ago, and Daddy Mac taken to “Bedlam” where he was happy as a “wealthy rancher in Canada” until his death later, I called on Madame Louise Roger,11 a neighbour and bosom friend of Ma Mac, to hear all the local news. “Oh, my Katie, my Katie, be careful, the police are looking for you,” she exclaimed anxiously in her excited broken English. “Let ‘em look”, I replied, pacifying her and eliciting her story. Her husband, an Englishman to whom she had married nearly fifty years ago, was “keeping a woman” somewhere, so she engaged a detective who followed Mr. Roger to a house in Kensington Park Road. There in conversation with the landlady’s daughter, one item leading to another, he heard that she had been on the stage with me in the “Lady Slavery” Company, that she had always thought me a “nice girl” and liked me until I joined the Suffragettes, and that I was German. So the police had interrogated Madame Roger, who was sure I was English. The morning after my return to Arnold I received a note, forwarded from our headquarters, from a girl, another German, whom I had casually met and talked to in agents offices, and not seen for years. “Dear Kitty, I wonder if you will remember me. I should like to see you. Can you come for tea on Friday 5 p.m. Leicester Square Tube. I want to ask you something. Best wishes Flo...............” Hylda and I looked at each other and simultaneously expressed the same thought. “C.I.D.”, with hearty laughter at their being “diddled” once more, as they so often were. Poor Flo, they evidently had her and tried to trap me through her.12 I had my reply posted in London, that I was recuperating from the effects of forcible feeding and could not meet her. Would she send her question to headquarters? ‘stoke’: stroke. Louise Roger (1876/67–?). Her husband, Victor Jacob H. Roger (1853–1919), was a painter and decorator. KM is mis-remembering – in 1915 the Rogers could not have been married for 50 years. 12 See Appendix III for further examples of police surveillance. 10 11

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I heard no more. Humorous as the situation struck Hylda and me I realized its serious side, especially as the war dragged on and the anti­-German attitude which was negligible at the beginning, gradually increased, and the Government being urged to arrest and deport all Germans. When the latter were ordered to report and register with the police, I took no notice, but when everybody was ordered to register I felt as good as caught and wondered the best road to pursue. If I could have remained hidden without involving others I would have done so. And I did not care to risk complicating matters by registering under a false name, etc. So I wrote to Christabel Pankhurst, putting my case before her. She advised me to go Scotland Yard and make a clean breast of it to Superintendent Quinn, who knew me from the old suffrage fight, and was quite a friendly enemy. All my friends with whom I was in close touch these days advised me to try to get exemption from deportation and become naturalized. The W.S.P.U.’s loyalty and patriotism were by now sufficiently established with the powers that be, not to be affected by now sufficiently established on those qualities at the beginning of the war. Superintendent Quinn13 was glad to see me. He and Mr. Bingham,14 a higher official in the Criminal Investigation Department, listened most courteously and sympathetically to my story, the latter promising to place the matter before the Home Secretary,15 upon whom exemption and naturalization depended. A policeman accompanied me to Chelsea where I was staying with a good friend and fellow Suffragette, Mrs. Theresa Gough.16 I wrote a statement of my movements,17 and “travels abroad” since living in England, my trip to Paris to visit Miss Pankhurst being the only one. I registered with the police in Chelsea and in Nottingham on my return to Arnold. I found sureties in Harry and Bernard Halford who were the most important people, socially, financially and politically, of those who had known me the longest. They behaved splendidly, Harry even invoking the help of his friend and parliamentary representative, Sir John Rees,18 who was strongly anti-German and opposed to making any exceptions, though he would do what he could to oblige a friend. The most surprised person was our landlady at “the Cottage” Arnold when the police came to verify my living there, etc. Her sympathy was all on my side. Everything that friends could do was done to keep me in England but the Home Secretary decreed that I should be deported to Germany. Superintendent Quinn was head of Special Branch’s surveillance of the suffragettes from 1908. Sir Trevor Bingham (1876–1954), Assistant Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police Force 1914–31. 15 Reginald McKenna (1863–1943), banker and Liberal politician; Home Secretary 1911–27 May 1915. 16 Theresa Gough, an active speaker for the WPSU between 1912 and 1914. A journalist (music critic for Tribune and Household Words) and writer whose nom de plume was ‘Karmie M.T. Kranich’, she wrote the foreword for Holloway Jingles (1912), a collection of poems and pieces written in Holloway Prison in March and April 1912. 17 See Appendix III for material relating to KM’s application to stay in England. 18 Sir John Rees (1854–1922), colonial administrator and Liberal MP for Montgomeryshire 1912–22. 13 14

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Considering how British-born women, married to Germans, were deported, what could I expect? However, I objected to returning to Germany under such circumstances and, much as I dreaded a trip across the “herring pond”, not being a good sailor, I decided on the advice of friends who offered to defray my expenses to go to America, to which the Home Secretary, after more bombardments by letters from myself and friends, consented. What a wretched, anxious, harassing time I had, and I was only one of thousands during the war, going through similar hell through no fault of their own. Though the temporary official representative of the “British Lion” tried his best to crush a defenceless “Mouse”, many of his spiritual units sustained and supported her. It is impossible to express my appreciation of the true, helpful comradeship of all who made life worth living during those last few weeks in London, by entertaining me and raising my fare to America, for which latter, Mrs. Alice Green, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Lady Constance Lytton, Mrs. Rose Lamartine Yates, Mrs. Williams, Miss Ada Wright, Miss Lal Forsyth, Miss Peggie Fletcher, as far as I know, were responsible. Miss Elsie McKenzie who had visited America several times and was about to go again, helped in booking my passage, choosing a cabin and filling out that awful American Questionnaire, some questions of which nobody in his or her right senses would answer truthfully in the affirmative. Luckily none but “Have you ever been in Prison?” concerned me, which I proudly answered “Yes, for Women Suffrage”. Coming home from Christian Science Church one evening I saw the first Zeppelin over London,19 floating like a huge silvery electric blue cigar, at intervals dropping bombs. I felt a thrill of exultation at my countrymen having created this graceful, majestic thing, and deep revulsion at their prostituting it in the destruction of their fellow creatures,20 which it was brought home to me very forcibly, women possessing political power would never countenance. Having time on my hands while making preparations for sailing, etc., I listened to recruiting meeting in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square, and was impressed with the apparent listless indifference and apathy of most men in the crowd even to the pleading of the wounded, to “go over and finish the job”. “I’ll give five quid to any man goes over and finds my dook for me,” cheerfully urged a young Australian, waving his handless right arm at the crowd, without apparently making impressions, except perhaps to emphasize in the hearts of his listeners the futility of the cause in which he lost his hand. I went about quite freely, but in crowds I soon found C.I.D.’s whom I knew by sight, sidle up and listen carefully to any remarks of mine in the general conversation. On one occasion while a recruiting sergeant was persuading a young man near me to join, the latter thinking he’d like to, if he could be in the Guards, for which he was not tall enough, a C.I.D. nearly knocked down the people between him and me to get near enough to hear what I was saying which was, “What does it matter whether you are in the Guards or any other regiment as long as your are 31 May 1915. Seven people were killed and thirty-five wounded.

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doing your bit.” That was the principle in which each of us had done our bit for the vote. The C.I.D.’s face was a study which I enjoyed hugely, though apparently unconscious of his existence. On Sunday, October 24, my friends gave me a farewell tea at the “Emily Davison Club” at 144 High Holborn,21 which Mary Leigh had organized in honour and memory of our late comrade, Emily Wilding Davison. On the following Wednesday many of them gathered at the Station to bid me God Speed, “Till the war is over, it can’t last much longer, and then you’ll come home”. “Blood is thicker than water”, I heard quoted very extensively during the war, but always found the spirit of friendship, love, justice, truth, and so forth, “thicker”, stronger and more sustaining than “blood”. In the evening at Liverpool I embarked on the “Cymric”,22 escorted by police who met the train and “washed England’s hands” of me with the necessary papers which would admit me into the United States of America.

The Emily Wilding Davison Club was founded by Mary Leigh, who also led a pilgrimage to Davison’s grave in Morpeth every year on the anniversary of her death. 22 SS Cymric, the White Star Line ship, sailed for New York on 27 October 1915. 21

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Chapter 59 HAIL COLUMBIA! After a rough voyage during the first five days of which I was more dead than alive, I landed in New York on Saturday, Nov. 6th, 1915, breathing the ardent, heartfelt prayer, “Thank God, no more fights with the police!” Would that the brilliant sunshine which greeted me, had been an omen of as brilliant a future. Though I was supposed to be travelling alone as a suspected spy, Elsie McKenzie, my fellow Militant, and a friend of hers were with me, and showed me round New York until they went to Canada a week later. The Immigration Inspector was very anxious to know where I intended to stay. “The Martha Washington,”1 I told him, until I could get in touch with two ladies to whom I had introductions, which seemed to increase his anxiety until he saw they were from Lady Constance Lytton, to Miss Madeline Doty,2 an Assistant Prison Commissioner, and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence to Miss Lilian Wald3 of the Henry Street Settlement. In reply to my communications with these ladies, Miss Wald asked me to call on her at 11 o’clock one morning, but when I arrived she had gone to a Peace meeting. Miss Doty invited me to tea, was very charming, but could suggest nothing by way of work for me, which Lady Constance Lytton and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence had been sure either of these ladies could have put me in touch with. Other friends also had been certain I would easily find something in the Suffrage Movement or on the Stage. Considering how “Notorious Characters” have been welcomed by theatrical and vaudeville enterprise, they thought my militant suffrage notoriety would help me, whereas it went against me. As I meandered about New York trying to find my bearings, admiring sky scrapers and other individual features of the city, I wished that all my friends in England could be here to share my new experiences, and my wish increased to a hope of substituting war with the friendly visits of nations to each other; of governments, instead of visiting destructive armies and navies upon each other, to interchange schools of young men and women the world over, to become acquainted and learn to understand each other, to cooperate in the well-being of all humanity, and abolish war. The Martha Washington Hotel in central Manhattan opened in 1903 as a women-only hotel, which it remained into the twenty-first century. 2 Madeleine Zabriskie Doty (1879–1963), an American lawyer and educator with a special interest in juvenile crime and women’s prisons. Doty was a committed pacifist and prominent member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. 3 Lillian Wald (1867–1940), an American nurse, civil rights activist, public health reformer and feminist. In 1893 she established what became the Henry Street Settlement, offering social services, arts programmes and health care services to the poor of New York’s East Side. She also helped to establish the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. 1

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I was surprised and amused at the apparent stock question with which some people greeted me. “How do you like America; don’t you like American better than England?” All in one breath. How could I, knowing and loving England as I did, and feeling wounded and sad at the parting, “like” America better after but a few hours, even days, trying to acclimatize myself to New York, which, I am told, is not America. Looking round Times Square one day, trying to locate some theatrical agents’ addresses, I heard a voice say, “Hello, Miss Marion, what are you doing here?” “I might ask you the same,” I replied when I recognized Mr. Barry, an assistant secretary in the V.A.F. It was a joy to see a familiar face so unexpectedly, and exchange news. Mr. Barry gave me much useful information regarding theatrical and vaudeville managers and agents with whom to get in touch, also recommended, in fact introduced me, to Mr. and Mrs. Mourey, the proprietors of a comfortable and reasonable theatrical boarding house in 42nd Street, where the Times Square Theatre now stands. A room and three good meals a day at $8.00 per week in the centre of theatre land was a great advantage over a club I had moved to, on East 10th Street, to be temporarily with Gertrude Loew,4 one of the Militants, who was here on a visit. Mr. Mourey was of French birth, Mrs. Mourey of German, and neither had any use for the war. The house was full of English and Australian vaudeville artists, who knew me by name. Everything was most pleasant and gemütlich.5 If only I could have landed an engagement life would have been perfect. I did the whole, weary round, taking photos and press notices which latter I was told would help me considerably, but wherever I went they had so many English artists, one agent said he had over 500 on his books, he couldn’t do with any more. My connection with suffrage prejudiced some managers, who were most facetiously afraid I might smash their windows or burn the theatre. Others were anti-German I found, when I told them why I had left England. The American stage was more than over-crowded with artists who had flocked over from all European countries since the beginning of the war. I tried the pictures too, wrote and sent photos to different producers in Hollywood and called at studios, in and about the city. Not having any experience in pictures was always given as a reason for not engaging me. How do people gain experience in pictures? In the meanwhile I had met some of the suffrage workers, at Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont’s6 headquarters, and found her secretary Miss Florence Harmon7 most congenial, friendly, and a genuine admirer of the Militants. I always enjoyed her weekly meetings, learning Gertrude Lowy (later Salamon, 1870–1982) was one of four sisters (Ethel, Lina, and Ruth) who became members of the WSPU after 1908. She was imprisoned in 1912 for window smashing. 5 Gemütlich – cosy. 6 Mrs O[liver] H[azard] P[erry] Belmont (née Alva Erskine Smith, then Alva Vanderbilt, 1853– 1933), a wealthy socialite and suffragist. She was known for her intelligence and combative personality, particularly her ‘aristocratic’ manner. 7 Florence Harmon (n.d.), Alva Belmont’s secretary and active in the Political Equality Association. 4

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the American side of the struggle and on one occasion when her speaker of the evening disappointed, I stepped into the breach, after much persuasion, by telling of my prison experience. Speaking is not my forte; I don’t feel at home at it. Still Miss Harmon thought I might be useful to the movement and arranged an appointment for me with Mrs. Belmont. “Like a bit of dirt”, is the best description of that lady’s treatment of me. She thought she might find something for me to do, but “Forget that you have ever been militant, we don’t want that kind of militancy here.” Though I controlled my tongue and my temper, I heard nothing further from Mrs. Belmont. I had a pleasant reunion with another Militant, Elizabeth Freeman8 who, with her mother had settled down in New York. She reminded me of how we became acquainted at a meeting at the Queen’s Hall London, when she and her mother, sitting next to me, had remarked on my fine voice, joining in some militant songs, and I answered, “Oh yes, I earn my living with it, I am on the stage.” Dear, dead days, beyond recall, and the future looking black. Here was the beginning of May and though I had met all sorts of nice people and tried others, as well as theatrical agencies nobody seemed to have work for me. My money had almost come to an end and I owed Mrs. Mourey several weeks board, when one fine, sunny Saturday I tried the studios at Englewood once more, without success. Wanderlust, the sunny, balmy weather, Spring again, giving promise of new life and hope in her tender, green, young shoots on trees and shrubs, tempted me to stroll in the woods. The world as God made it was so beautiful and peaceful compared to the human dog-eat-dog civilization and struggle for existence. Oh, to get away from it all, to walk on until I dropped dead, fade out of existence, out of this futility, anywhere! I walked on, deeper into the woods until the setting sun warned me that I ought to return. I was tired, hungry, not having eaten since breakfast, and sat down, leaning against a tree to rest a while. Utterly weary and discouraged, I fell asleep waking up in the dark, stiff and chilly, wondering for the moment where I was. No use trying to get out of the woods now, so I curled up on part of a newspaper I had, covering the rest over me, and tried to sleep again, feeling utterly crushed, wishing never to wake. I dozed fitfully until the awakening birds proclaimed the approaching dawn, which was slow, damp and chilly; no sun to dispel the mists, which later developed into a drizzle. Cheerful outlook! I hated the idea of going back to Mrs. Mourey’s, I seemed to have got into a rut of bad luck there, though Mr. and Mrs. Mourey had been most kind and considerate, I felt I must make a break. I retraced my steps, coming at last on to a road which led to Dyckman St. Ferry. I knew that would take me back to New York. My last nickel Elisabeth Freeman (1876–1942) was born in England but moved to the United States as a child. Returning to England with her mother, she became involved in the militant suffrage movement. Around 1911 she went back to the United States and joined the suffrage movement there, and in 1912 she took part in the ‘Suffrage Hike’ from New York to Washington DC. She was also a peace campaigner and civil rights activist who wrote an important report on the 1916 lynching of a teenage black worker, Jesse Washington, in Waco, Texas.

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took me across, then I had to break into the gold dollar which a friend in England had given me “for luck”. Feeling in a God Help Me sort of mood, I thought of a Christian Science Practitioner, Mrs. Lucy B. Carmody, whom I had met at suffrage meetings and found most friendly. Having been on the stage herself she understood my position. Though shocked at my drowned-rat appearance, she was most sympathetic and sure that God would show a way out of my difficulties. She put me up for the night and in the morning phoned a friend, Miss Tournier another practitioner, who since I was anxious for any kind of work, knew the very place where I should be most useful. Mr. and Mrs. George de Weendt, friends of Miss Tournier, who kept a boarding house and restaurant on West 126th Street, had bought the next house and were having doorways built to connect the two, which made much extra work, and Mrs. de Weerdt needed extra help to set the new home in order. I was received as a friend, and made one of the family. To see Mr. & Mrs. de Weerdt, George Jr. and Blanche, the only daughter, work, was an incentive in itself to me to do likewise. It was a relief to be doing something to take me out of myself and earn $5.00 a week in addition to room and board on more elaborate scale than at Mrs. Mourey’s. I neglected to tell Mrs. Mourey of my whereabouts immediately, waiting until somewhat adjusted to my new circumstances, but she became worried, communicated with Florence Harmon, and the press published the “Disappearance of Famous Militant”. To stop further publicity I phoned Miss Harmon and Mrs. Mourey that I was alive but preferred to remain incommunicado for a time.9 So I settled down to a period of domesticity which had its advantages and humours. The work was comparatively easy and if there were two jobs to be done, Mrs. de Weerdt would choose the harder of the two because she was accustomed to it. If the cook or dishwasher quit, she would do the cooking, I the dish washing, or any other washing. One night, about 10 o’clock a policeman passed through the kitchen to see that all was safe after a fire which had broken out in a yard backing on ours, while Mrs. de Weerdt was washing a cloth at the sink, and he turned to me very scornfully, “A nice employer you are, letting your help do washing at this hour”. “She’s the boss, and washes when she likes,” I told him amid hearty laughter from Mrs. de Weerdt, Blanche and myself at his discomfiture. Though her oldest son, George, after first meeting me had warned his mother. “She’s no working woman she’s a lady,” I proved to be both, and a “godsend”. George Jr. seemed to forget that his own father was a member of the Belgian aristocracy, who worked after losing all his money. At a movie one evening Mr. de Weerdt saw the ruins caused by the German bombardment, of the chateau which had been his home at Courtray, but he never expressed any bitterness towards the Germans, as did so many Americans whom the war had not touched at all. Mrs. de Weerdt possessing the instincts of true nobility which many a “lady” who does not work This was the first of two ‘disappearances’ by KM which were reported in the newspapers. The second was in June/July 1920.

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might envy, endeared herself to me by her appreciation of my efforts, capability, initiative, methods, suggestions and general co­operation. I soon paid my debts to Mrs. Mourey and resumed associations with the outer-­world. The Press too “found” me, and carried interviews, articles and picture. A theatrical producer, with offices in the Haymarket, London, called on me with the intention of “rescuing an English Actress and Suffragette from her menial position”, until I told him that I was of German Birth. Crush!

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BIRTH CONTROL

Chapter 60 Settling down to waiting till the war should end, and saving my fare back to England, I was quite unconsciously being drawn into the vortex of another “cause”. I read in the Press of Mrs. Margaret Sanger,1 her sister, Mrs. Ethel Byne,2 both trained nurses, and Miss Famia Mindell,3 an interpreter, being arrested for operating a clinic in Brownsville, the most thickly populated and poverty-stricken section of Brooklyn, at which Mrs. Sanger instructed poor mothers who had too many children, in how to prevent having more, thereby the law. “Section 1142 of the Penal Code”, designed to prevent the dissemination of information or prevention of conception, or “Birth Control” as Mrs. Sanger called it. The whole question was “Greek” to me beyond that many women limited their family by abortions and some used methods of prevention. It was a very personal matter and not openly discussed in England, to my knowledge. As I followed the case in the Press, I realized more and more that there was the most fundamental plank, even more important than Woman’s Suffrage, in the abolition and prevention of future poverty, over-crowding, unemployment, war, all the unspeakable misery they bring in their wake. This was the “Ark” by which the fit and useful members of society could save themselves from the “Deluge” of the unfit, the unwanted, the useless and unnecessary. “This is what England needs to abolish her over-crowded slums”, I thought, “instruct the poor in prevention of conception and limit their families to their ability to provide decently for them.” I was perfectly ignorant of Malthus,4

Margaret Higgins Sanger (née Margaret Louise Higgins, 1879–1966) trained as a nurse, then became leader of the American birth control movement. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, the Brownsville Clinic in Brooklyn, New York, in 1916 and continued to work nationally and internationally for ‘planned parenthood’ and reproductive rights until just before her death in 1966.  2 Ethel Higgins Byrne (1883–1955), younger sister of Margaret Sanger. Byrne trained as a nurse, and was also a birth control activist and co-founder of the Brownsville Clinic. KM regularly mistyped Byrne’s surname.  3 Fania Esiah Mindell (1894–1969), feminist, political activist, translator and costume designer for Broadway theatres. Mindell was born in Minsk in the Russian Empire (now in Belarus) and emigrated to the United States with her parents in 1906; she became involved with Sanger and Byrne in 1916 and was a co-founder of the Brownsville Clinic. She also ran a shop called ‘Little Russia’ in Greenwich Village.  4 Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), cleric, political economist and demographer. His influential book, An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), looked at the relationship between economic advance and population growth. He argued that ‘preventative checks’ which lower the birth rate would lead to a higher standard of living and greater economic stability.  1

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Bradlaugh,5 and Mrs. Annie Besant,6 as pioneers in the movement, only knowing of the latter in connection with Theosophy. There seemed to be a great agitation afoot in America, judging from the names of many important people appearing in the Press, as supporting Mrs. Sanger, who had evidently broken the law, deliberately, as had the Suffragettes in England, to draw public attention to a great grievance and injustice. I naturally felt a great sympathy with her, though never dreaming that I could be of any help in her great army of supporters, including medical men and women, even millionairesses. At last a Carnegie Hall Mass Meeting, with Mrs. Sanger as the principal speaker, was advertised to take place on January 29, and the least I could do was to go and applaud. So I called up the Birth Control Headquarters at 104 Fifth Avenue to reserve seats for Mrs. de Weerdt who was also enthusiastic, Blanche and myself, and the voice on the phone replied, “Kitty Marion? We’ve heard of you, won’t you come and help us, we’ve so much work to do.” Of course I would, should there be any work I was capable of doing. As soon as convenient, I went down and met Dr. Frederick A. Blossom, Business Manager, and Managing Editor of the forthcoming “Birth Control Review”,7 Miss Elizabeth Stuyvesant,8 Secretary-Treasurer, Miss Anna Lifshitz,9 stenographer, and some volunteer workers whom I joined in addressing envelopes, paper wrappers for the “Review”, folding letters, etc. I had pictured a large organization with large offices and staff of the usual American “great size” as compared to European, whereas there was but a small outer office on the 20th floor and an inner sanctum which was shared with someone else. And the movement, I found, was practically in its infancy instead of nearing a victorious end. Charles Bradlaugh (1833–91), MP, social reformer and secularist. In 1876 he and Annie Besant published The Fruits of Philosophy, or the Private Companion of Young Married People, a pamphlet advocating birth control by the American Charles Knowlton. Bradlaugh and Besant were convicted of obscenity and sentenced to six months in prison, although the conviction was overturned. Out of the controversy, the Malthusian League was formed.  6 Annie Besant (née Wood, 1847–1933), women’s rights activist, socialist, theosophist, supporter of Irish and Indian self-rule. An outstanding orator, she was a leading member of the National Secular Society and a columnist for the National Reformer. She was involved in the 1888 Match Girls’ Strike and 1889 London Dock Strike (see Chapter IX), so it is a little surprising that KM associated her only with Theosophy before going to America.  7 Frederick A. Blossom (n.d.) was hired to organise the New York Birth Control League (NYBCL) in early 1917 and to edit the Birth Control Review. He had extensive experience as a fund raiser, writer and propagandist. He ‘sucked in volunteers from near and far … like a vacuum cleaner’, Sanger wrote in her autobiography. The pair fell out only months later and Sanger accused Blossom of financial irregularities (of which he was cleared), but the NYBCL disbanded in 1918.  8 Elizabeth Stuyvesant (n.d.), a professional dancer, suffragist and social reformer. She became State Organizer of the National Women’s Party and an activist in the birth control movement.  9 Anna Lifschitz (1900–?), joined the office of the Birth Control League in 1918 as a stenographer but soon became, according to Sanger, ‘more a co-worker than a secretary’. She continued as Sanger’s secretary until the early 1920s. KM spells Lifschitz, ‘Lifshitz’; Sanger’s autobiography spells it ‘Lifshiz’.  5

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Figure 12  The office of the American Birth Control League; Margaret Sanger, seated centre, Kitty Marion standing to her right, c. 1925. At the Carnegie Hall Meeting the “Birth Control Review” made its debut, Elizabeth Freeman and I helping to sell it in true British Suffragette style, among the audience. Margaret Sanger with her quiet, forceful, determined way of presenting her argument won my heart at once. “She ought to have been in the W.S.P.U.”, I thought, than which I could not pay her a greater compliment. “Shall we break this Law” stared me in the face from the cover of the “Review”. “Law” indeed! That was no law, but a tyranny forced upon voteless women by a “morality” fanatic, Anthony Comstock,10 in 1887, and so far its constitutionality had not been challenged. When I read Mrs. Sanger’s article on the subject I decided “of course, this is one of the ‘laws’ better honoured by the breach than the observance” and as if to carry it “unanimously” on the opposite page appeared the following: “No one has over given me a good reason why we should obey unjust laws. But the reason why we should resist them is obvious. Our resist Anthony Comstock (1844–1915), the United States Postal Inspector and conservative politician.

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ance proves our manhood and womanhood. The dignity of human nature compels us to resist what we believe wrong and a stumbling block to our fellowmen.” - Helen Keller.11 It was a glorious evening, reminiscent of defiant W.S.P.U. meetings. Mrs. Ethel Bysne12 was already in prison and hunger-striking. I, being interviewed by the Press, protested against her being forcibly fed, pointing out its results on my neck which had been getting worse lately, through the strain of unaccustomed physical work. That ardent fighter in the cause, Dr. Mary Halton,13 whose professional eye noticed it, prescribed a few weeks complete rest, whereupon I returned to Mrs. Mourey on 42nd Street and devoted all my time to Birth Control office work, the change being a rest in itself. I forget how many thousand copies of the “Birth Control Review” we sent out, but addressing wrappers, folding, wrapping, stamping and carrying huge bundles of them to the Post Office, Station 8, West 18th Street, seemed principally to fall to me. The clerks there wondered “what it was all about” and I gave them copies of the Review and other leaflets to read, also explained the meaning of Birth Control, gradually winning their sympathy, for some, being Catholics, were opposed, though they saw the logic of being able to bring up two or three children better than double their number, on a stationary income. I was receiving a very liberal, perhaps even radical education these days. Mrs. Sanger was serving her month in jail and I learned how the Society for the Suppression of Vice and the Catholic Church were opposed to Birth Control, and that there was a Neo-Malthusian movement, etc., in England where there was no law, nor ever had been, against Birth Control, that is prevention of conception. I had often read of prosecutions for abortions, which struck me as unjust since no one was to blame, it seemed to me, but the woman who was seeking relief, which it should be her right to receive. I wondered why some of the Birth Control enthusiasts did not sell the “Review” on the streets to bring the question before the “masses”, whom, after all, it principally concerned. Being a stranger, I did not care to take the initiative, besides being fully occupied in the office, though I always carried an armful of Reviews very conspicuously on my way to work and back, often to be asked “Are those for sale?” which of course they were. Mrs. de Weerdt, bless her, gave me the first subscription and has continued it ever since. On March 6, Mrs. Sanger was released from Queens County Jail and while a little group of us were waiting in the snow outside to welcome her, I improved the shining hour by singing the Women’s Marseillaise – “Arise ye daughters of a Land that vaunts its liberty!” How appropriate! I was in my element and sang other songs until Mrs. Sanger appeared and drove off among Helen Keller (1880–1968), deaf-blind political activist, author and lecturer. ‘Bysne’: Byrne. 13 Mary Halton (n.d.), a physician, birth control researcher and pioneer of the intrauterine device in the United States. 11 12

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cheers, with a select group of friends, to breakfast, while Anna Lifshitz and I went to the office. On the following evening Commissioner of Correction Burdette C. Lewis14 addressed a meeting of the Civic Forum at the Carnegie Hall. It was suggested to me that I heckle him. It was a great meeting with John A. Kingsbury,15 Commissioner of Public Charities; William J. Doherty, Deputy; David I. Kelly and Dr. Katherine Bement Davis,16 Chairman of the Parole Commission, as the other speakers. How these people could speak on Public Charities, Prison, Parole and so forth without advocating Birth Control was beyond me, but I held my peace until Commissioner Lewis, speaking on “The Poor and the Prisoner” mentioned “so-called political prisoners”. That was my cue. “Why do you forcibly feed political prisoners?” I called from the floor of the Hall, while Mr. Robert Lescher and a friend, both from Columbia, showered Birth Control leaflets from the gallery. The meeting, which had been listening very attentively to the Commissioner was now electrified. Commissioner Lewis and I were developing an argument when the chairman Mr. Adolph Lewisohn17 intervened, saying I could speak when the program was finished, while at the same time a very large, imposing-looking “chucker-out” came to escort me to the door. “Every word uttered here tonight is an argument in favor of Birth Control,” I called out as I walked up the aisle. In the vestibule my companions in crime and a group of reporters awaited me, and judging from the latter’s reports next day, this might have been a Birth Control meeting. Mrs. Sanger’s splendid Birth Control film,18 telling her own story, which would have converted the public, was barred by the police from being shown at the Park Theatre, the latter being threatened with loss of licence. Almost immediately after, a picture, THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE,19 appeared at the Broadway Theatre, just below W.41st Street “Some sloppy sentimentality”, I thought, feeling sore at the fate of Mrs. Sanger’s picture, and just to wallow in disgust I went in to see it when lo and behold, I found a perfectly fine Birth Control story, similar to Mrs. Sanger’s. I rushed home, snatched all the Reviews I had, nearly 100, and got back to the Theatre just in time to catch the audience coming out. The psychological moment – “The Birth Control Review, 15 cents a copy!” I called out, holding it aloft for Burdette G. Lewis (n.d.), Commissioner of Charities and Correction for the city of New York and author of The Offender (1917), a liberal analysis of prison conditions. 15 John Adams Kingsbury (1876–1956), a social worker and reformer. 16 Katherine Bement Davis (1860–1935) was a social reformer and criminologist with a special interest in prison reform and women’s rights. In 1914 she became the first woman to head a major New York City agency, the Correction Commission. 17 Adolph Lewisohn (1849–1938), investment banker, ‘copper king’, art lover and philanthropist. 18 The New World, the 1917 film written and directed by Margaret Sanger, documenting her birth control work. It was the first film to be banned under the 1915 Supreme Court ruling that the showing of films did not constitute free speech, and thus Sanger’s film was banned in the interests of ‘morality, decency, and public safety and welfare’. 19 The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, a silent film released in 1917. It was written and directed by and starred Lois Weber (1879–1939) and her husband, Wendell Phillips Smalley (1865–1939), and was loosely based on the Sanger trial. 14

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people to see, and they bought it like hot cakes. The picture ran three weeks, the management having had the foresight to procure an injunction restraining the police from interfering, though they did prevent it from being shown in the future in New York. Every night I sold outside the theatre, doing exceedingly good business, to the delight of Dr. Blossom and the rest of the “office”. Policemen, both traffic and patrol, questioned the legality of the Review and my selling it, but were satisfied with my explanations. From my accent they, like everybody else, concluded I was English, and I let it go at that, considering the general public anti-German attitude at the time. One policeman did suggest I ought to get a licence so I’d have something to show when others asked me, and directed me to the Licensing Bureau. “Are you a citizen?” was the first question put to me there. “Well, go and get your first papers, and then come back,” As it seemed now that I might be doing Birth Control work until the law was amended, instead of returning to England at the end of the war; and to avoid war complications here that I had experienced in England, I thought it a wise thing to do. When I returned to the Licensing Bureau, and upon request explained the meaning of the paper as propaganda to amend the Birth Control Laws, I was refused a licence. Instead of saying “You don’t need a licence”, as I found later to be the fact, the official said “You can’t have a licence for that.” Still, I continued selling, and office work, until the end of my savings made it necessary that I should find paying work again.

Chapter 61 Dr. Blossom, who transacted all business, Mrs. Sanger seldom coming to the office as she was busy writing her book, THE CASE FOR BIRTH CONTROL, was very disappointed. He thought my work was too valuable to be discontinued, and after talking it over with Mrs. Sanger, suggested my taking half the money of the Review Sales, if I could manage on that. I was willing to try, and felt quite rich when he returned to me half the money I had brought in already. It seemed as if no wealthy volunteers would come forward to sell the Review, and that some power outside of me insisted on taking me by the scruff of the neck saying – “This is your job, you do it!” To curtail expenses and save time in getting to the office I took a room on West 18th Street, just off Fifth Ave. and settled down to work in earnest. In April America entered the war which rather distracted general public attention from Birth Control, though my sales outside the Broadway theatre, where I felt at home, and the management was sympathetic, increased. Many passers-by indulged in offensive remarks. “You ought to be arrested.” “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” “You ought to be in jail.” “You ought to be hanged.” “You ought to be shot.” “It’s disgusting, disgraceful, scandalous”, etc. I had heard all that in the old suffrage days, so it was rather like meeting old friends. But I received compliments and encouragement too. “Good for you!” “Well, of all the sensible things.” “I admire your pluck.” “Doesn’t it take some courage

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Figure 13  Kitty Marion selling the Birth Control Review, in New York, n.d. to do this?” “Well, if you have the courage to stand there and sell, I’ll have the courage to buy it.” “Bravo, I approve of it!” “Some good work you are doing.” And so on, from men and women, many who knew Margaret Sanger and others who had only read about her, but were anxious to learn more of her work. I had made myself a bag with a strap to sling over my shoulder and some people expressed concern the heavy load I was carrying, which always gave me the opportunity of comparing my load with that of parents whose load of children was considerably heavier, and how my load would lighten that of future parents.

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When the Rev. Billy Sunday20 “saved souls” on Broadway and 186th Street, I took all the Reviews I could carry and stood outside his Tabernacle, doing a roaring trade. There for the first time a policeman started an argument wanting me to go away, which I refused to do. Then he asked me to see the Captain who was in a nearby police booth. “You leave her alone, she’s been poking about for some time”, said the Captain who evidently understood what I was doing, bless him. One of Billy Sunday’s men came, towering above me, and whining “Take that thing away, Madam, it isn’t decent.” “It’s the most decent thing in the vicinity,” I retorted sharply, and he went. What a purifying change came from the clean, young mind of a group urchins who called out, “Aw lookit the statya of libarty!” Towards the end of June, Miss Stuyvesant, who had volunteered to help the National Woman’s Party to picket the White House on July 4th, invited me to accompany her to Washington. We stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Harry Rappaport (Anna Wexler), both ardent supporters of Birth Control, the latter being secretary of the local B.C. League. I renewed my acquaintance with three old W.S.P.U. comrades with whom I had come but in slight touch in the old days, Miss Alice Paul,21 Miss Lucy Burns22 and Miss Anne Martin.23 Naturally I had to help the cause, by selling their paper “The Suffragist” on the street. On Independence Day, while members of the Party were picketing and I selling the paper at the White House, a man snatched a copy, tore it up most angrily and threw it to the ground. I couldn’t let a man get away with that, and by the time I had said, “Here, that costs you a nickle,24 come on, pay up and look smiling,” we were both under arrest, as were most of the pickets already, just for “standing pretty” with banners, to remind President Wilson that American women wanted the vote. And that is what they called “Military”, for which they were sentenced to prison and forcibly fed, when they hunger struck. We got a better run for our money in England. Though the American women brag that their men treat them so much better than the English men treat their women, therefore need not resort to the latters’ militant tactics, I haven’t noticed it. They seem to me six of one and half William Ashley ‘Billy’ Sunday (1862–1935), an evangelist who attracted massive crowds with his populist conservative services in the first decades of the twentieth century. 21 Alice Paul (1885–1977) a Quaker-born women’s rights activist. Between 1906 and 1909, Paul was in England where she joined the women’s suffrage movement. On her return to America, she was a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association before establishing the militant Congressional Union for Women’s Suffrage with Lucy Burns; this became the National Woman’s Party (NWP). Between January 1917 and June 1919, until the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, which effectively gave women the vote in all states, the NWP organised the ‘Silent Sentinels’, an all-women vigil, outside the White House. 22 Lucy Burns (1879–1966), women’s rights activist and close friend and colleague of Alice Paul. She was a co-founder of the NWP and organiser of the Silent Sentinels and other militant activity. 23 Anne Henrietta Martin (1875–1951), suffragist, pacifist, academic and writer, and the first woman to run for Senate, albeit unsuccessfully, in 1918 and 1920. 24 Nickle – nickel, a 5-cent coin. 20

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Figure 14  ‘Urchin: Aw! Look the Statya of Liberty!’ Cartoon of Kitty Marion from an unknown source.

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a dozen of the other in their bad and indifferent treatment of women. I spent the night in the house of detention, which had been the headquarters of the German Turnverein,25 in the goodly company of twelve other militants, including Mrs. Helena Hill Weed,26 Miss Vida Milholland,27 Miss Lucy Burns, Miss Elizabeth Stuyvesant and others. We had quite a merry dinner party, music, singing and visitors, including a Senator. Though all this was very pleasant I had my personal qualms when a police matron came for records, since I was a sort of semi-alien enemy, technically, and on forbidden ground once more, like Folkestone and Dover. But the matron, bless her good heart, good sense, initiative and diplomacy, after listening attentively to my story, put me down as an American citizen. In court my antagonist, Charles E. Morgan, a clerk in the War Department, and I, were charged with “disorderly conduct” but discharged after each telling our story. The following day I was selling the “Suffragist” on Pennsylvania Ave., when Mr. Morgan came and apologized, bought a copy and paid for the one he tore. He told me that being arrested had created quite some propaganda for our cause in his boarding house and his department. After three most delightful, enjoyable weeks in Washington, thanks to my host and hostess, I returned to New York, leaving Miss Stuyvesant in “durance vile”.

Chapter 62 Our Birth Control Headquarters was somewhat disrupted, partly on account of the war. Dr. Blossom had left, publication of the “Birth Control Review” was suspended, to be resumed as soon as possible. The rush of work was over and Anna Lifshitz was left as Mrs. Sanger’s sole office assistant. Anna, a little Jewish girl in her early twenties, whose family had escaped from Russian pogroms to America, was devoted to Mrs. Sanger and the work. She started as a volunteer some months before me and became well versed in the details of the work, as stenographer to Dr. Blossom, and now began her development into Mrs. Sanger’s secretary. I did some volunteer war work, dropping in occasionally to see how Anna was progressing. One day, while she was out I found Mrs. Sanger there and Mr. Walter Roberts,28 one of the co-­editors of the Review. Once more it was the psychological moment for me, as they were hunting for data, the whereabouts of which only Anna and I knew. Also the following day Mrs. Sanger was going to Monticello, N.Y., where Miss Elizabeth Worth Muller29 of Castle Hill, whose Turnverein – gymnastics club. Helena Hill Weed (1875–1958), suffragist and member of the NWP; she was also one of the first women geologists in America. 27 Vida Milholland (1888–1952), suffragist and member of the NWP; she took part in the Silent Sentinels protest. 28 Walter Adolphe Roberts (1886–1962), the Jamaican-born journalist, editor and poet. For a time, Roberts was Sanger’s lover, and he remained a life-long friend. 29 Elizabeth Worth Muller (n.d.), active suffragist and philanthropist. Her husband, Rudolph, 25 26

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guest she was to be, had arranged a meeting, and invited me to come along and take care of the literature. Delighted! It was indeed a great pleasure and privilege to be so closely associated with, and help in any way possible, this gallant, brave little woman in her great battle for the emancipation of humanity from its worst slavery; that of burdening itself with unlimited, unwanted, useless progenity. I had met Mrs. Muller doing volunteer work, and this visit to her home with Mrs. Sanger was quite an event for me. Her daughter, Phyllis, aged 15, drove us from the station to the Castle, a small copy of one in the Black Forest, and I was lost in admiration at the perfect way in which Phyllis handled the Buick. Though deprived of the opportunity of indulging in certain accomplishments myself, I glory in others of my sex excelling in them. Monticello and vicinity was quite stirred up at the idea of a Birth Control meeting, which the local authorities, mostly Catholic, tried to prevent. As fast as Mrs. Muller had hung up placards in the stores of sympathizers, a policeman had gone after her and taken them down. Remembering the Broadway picture, I suggested an injunction, restraining the authorities from closing the hall, as they had threatened to do, and the next day a local attorney, Mr. Joseph Stahl, made all the necessary arrangements by phone, with Judge Gilbert D.B. Hasbrook,30 of Kingston. In the evening we drove over, Mrs. Muller, Mrs. Sanger, Mr. Stahl, myself, and Phyllis at the wheel, arriving at the Judge’s home just as he returned from the theatre. He knew nothing of Birth Control, but signed the injunction on principle of Free Speech, for which he deserves special commendation and admiration in those days of reaction, oppression and suppression. The drive home through the moonlit night was heavenly; through the natural harmony of the insects’ hum, the night birds’ cry, the mixed perfumes of earth, forest, trees, shrubs, flowers and skunk, which latter was sweet in the nostrils, compared to the mental skunkish opposition to Birth Control and to every new God-­given revelation from the round earth and revolving constellations, down to Woman’s Suffrage, but which, praise be to the Eternal Spirit of All Good, has sooner or later been converted to the truth, fact and reason of each good cause. The following day I distributed leaflets on the street, and from house to house, advertising the night’s meeting, while the authorities ‘phoned everyone reachable in the vicinity, that the meeting was called off. Unfortunately it also came on to rain, but still there were more than “two or three gathered together”, and though a financial loss to Mrs. Muller, who paid for the hall, it was a great moral victory in the face of such an unfair fight and “hitting below the belt”. Such is but a small example of the tactics Mrs. Sanger and her co-worker in the cause of Birth Control were up against. Having nothing to hurry back to the city for, Mr. and Mrs. Muller invited me to remain longer while Mrs. Sanger returned to town. was a real-estate magnate, and both her daughters, Alma and Phyllis, shared their mother’s commitment to women’s rights. 30 Gilbert D.B. Hasbrouk (1860–1942).

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This was but a prelude to many a happy, hospitable vacation at Muller’s Castle, and the glorious surrounding country. On my return to the city I resumed my office work, and with the December number of the Review my street selling, with great success. People had missed the Review and were glad it was being published again. Soldiers and sailors from all parts of the States who had “heard Margaret Sanger speak in my home town” bought it “to take across” with them. I gradually increased the hours of selling to early evening and afternoon, often selling over 100 a day. I had many interesting talks and arguments with the open-minded, as well as “spurts” with objectors. One angry woman bought it to send to Mayor Hylan31 with a protest and I thanked her for the good propaganda she would be doing. Another climaxed her torrent of abuse with, “You’re as bad as Emma Goldman!”32 Now I had no idea how “good, ‘bad’ or indifferent” Emma Goldman was or anything about her except that she was fighting the cause of the oppressed and poor, so I answered, “I wish I were half as good as Emma Goldman”, which seemed like pouring oil on the fire and I was thankful when the friendly policeman on traffic duty threatened my antagonist with arrest, and dispersed the crowd she had collected. One evening a man fairly jumped as he said, “What do you mean, amend the law?” when I had started to explain the purpose of the Review and our work, but he calmed down as he continued to listen, though expressing no opinion on Birth Control. He thought births were very expensive these days; his daughter had just had a baby which cost $2000.00. “It cost my mother $2.00 when I was born,” he said, “and quite enough too,” I replied jocularly, at which he laughed heartily as he departed. Then a man came up and asked, “Do you know who that was talking to you?” I didn’t and he said, “That was Assistant District Attorney ---------”, and he was a good Catholic, who later became a Judge. Some doctors and nurses remonstrated with me. What would become of their professions and their living if no more babies were born? While others, who truly wished to lessen the human sufferings they witnessed daily, applauded me and expressed the greatest admiration for Mrs. Sanger’s courage and her fine work. Some doctors expressed surprise at Mrs. Sanger’s arrest. They had always given contraceptive advice to their patients where they thought it necessary, unconscious of breaking a law, and would continue to do so. That’s the right spirit!

Chapter 63 With the May, 1918, number the Birth Control Review was entered at the Post Office as Second Class mail matter, and taken over by the New York Women’s

John Francis Hylan (1868–1936), lawyer and Democrat; Mayor of New York City, 1918–25. Emma Goldman (1869–1940), a notorious Russian-born ‘free-thinker’, anarchist, political activist and author.

31 32

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Publishing Company,33 a group of fine, public-spirited women and men from all over the country, financially confirming their faith and enthusiasm in Birth Control. They also, particularly Mrs. Sanger, Mrs. Mary Knoblauch,34 Managing Editor, and the Treasurer Mrs. Francis B. Ackermann,35 approved of, and appreciated the street selling in the face of criticism as to its being unladylike, unscientific, undignified and an excuse for “nice” people and the medical profession to keep aloof. As if some of the latter needed any excuse. Anyhow, as long as Mrs. Ackermann who appreciated the financial help, and Mrs. Sanger the contacts made from “the four corners of the earth” with people whom I directed to her, nobody else’s adverse opinion counted in my estimation. I was out to help abolish human misery and establish “health, wealth and happiness” for all, and if any super-sensitive, wellprovided-for persons were shocked, it was the lesser of two evils compared to the avoidable shocks suffered by millions of men and women in an over-crowded world and labor market. The price of the Review was raised to 25 cts., which for a propaganda paper, seemed to me a mistake, and eventually, lowered to 20 cts. About this time, through the instrumentality of Mrs. Sanger, “Married Love”, by Dr. Marie C. Stopes36 was first published by Dr. William J. Robinson,37 one of the pioneers of Birth Control in America, after other publishers had refused to touch it. I am glad that through the Review on the street many copies of this instructive book reached, and readjusted the lives of married couples who were about to part through sheer misunderstanding. I remember one man in particular, who, after buying the Review from me, called at the office to buy other literature. From his well-groomed appearance and general air of importance Anna and I at first suspected him of being a high official in “New York’s Finest”, but he was merely the proprietor of a hotel in Gloversville, New York, and we lost count of the number of copies he bought, and recommended friends to buy, for wedding presents, to “start the young folks right”. Of course it was suppressed by the U.S. postal authorities as “obscene” though in England it was “pure” enough to pass through the post. And the August number of the Birth Control Review was excluded from the mails because it contained a review of “Married Love”, though The New York Women’s Publishing Company was established in February 1918. Mary ‘May’ Knoblaugh (née Mary E. Bookstaver, 1875–1950), a feminist activist, editor and translator. Gertrude Stein’s first lover, she was instrumental in getting Stein’s work published. 35 Frances Brooks Ackermann (1875–1935) was described by Sanger as ‘exceptionally able’ and ‘one of the bulwarks’ of the Birth Control Review, 1917–28. 36 Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (1880–1958), the sex reformer, birth control activist and author. She founded Britain’s first birth control clinic in 1921 in Holloway, North London (following Margaret Sanger’s visit to Britain and unrealised proposal to found the first birth control clinic in 1920). Stopes also made important contributions to palaeontology and the classification of coal, relinquishing an academic career to commit herself to birth control education and the promotion of eugenics. She wrote several feminist plays. 37 William Josephus Robinson (1867–1936), physician, sexologist and birth control advocate. He was head of the department of Genito-Urinary Diseases at Bronx Hospital Dispensary. 33 34

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the October number of “The Survey”, which also contained one, was not interfered with. One afternoon a young woman was “attracted by my English accent”, calling my wares. She was an actress, Juliette Lane, and had visited England with “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch”.38 Of course we “compared notes” and she told me of a prosecution in which she was interested, and trying to gather more evidence against the “accused”, a theatrical agent who had invited a woman to his office and assaulted her. His name was Arthur Hunter, in England he called himself Arthur Hampel. – Good Lord! Well, I looked up his Brixton case at the Public Library and copied it for Mr. Harold Clark Barber, Superintendent of the Society of the Prevention of Crime, and Assistant District Attorney James E. Smith, the prosecutor, at whose office our visit developed into a Birth Control argument. Mr. Smith was violently opposed like so many others, and his confrères in this case, because “all the young girls would take advantage of it”. It was “bad enough now with so many little factory girls, 14 and 15 years of age pregnant”. I explained the meaning of Birth Control and pointed out that it was not, or ever would be the cause of factory girls or others being pregnant. He must have a very low opinion of girls, and I was sure the above named factory girls would not be in that state if men would practice their much-vaunted “self-control”. I contended that girls at that age had no business working in factories; how would he like daughters of his own of that age working in factories instead of being at school, properly protected, and instructed in self-protection against the possibility of meeting creatures like Hunter. Of course daughters of his would never work in a factory, as if that were a disgrace, and the only sex danger spot for women, young girls, and children. Man-made law for the protection of women being as it was, “technicality” once more protected Hunter or Hampel, against conviction and punishment. I’d hate to suspect that this incident led up to the speedy future events, enmeshing me in the law, but soon after a man called at the office while Anna was on her vacation. He said he was a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Sanger. He had lent his copy of Mrs. Sanger’s pamphlet “Family Limitation” which gives contraceptive instructions, to a friend, and he would like to get another copy. I knew it was dangerous to give that pamphlet, having heard and read of Mr. Sanger being trapped by an agent of the Society of the Suppression of Vice,39 who had wormed himself into the good graces of the former, as a friend, to give him a copy, and railroaded him to jail for it. To make a long story short, on his third visit I gave him the treasured pamphlet, thinking no more about it. A few days later, August 18th, he came and placed a contribution of a dollar bill on the desk, which I thought generous, as he already had subscribed to the Birth Control Review. I thanked him; when he opened the door, inviting two men to enter and arrest me “for giving Birth The 1904 adaptation by Alice Hegan Rice of the popular novel published in 1901. It toured extensively and was made into a film in 1914 and 1919. 39 The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice was founded in 1873 by Anthony Comstock, and its agents were granted powers of search, seizure and arrest by New York State. 38

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Control information”. To say Anna, who had returned, and I, were surprised, is putting it mildly. Anna’s “kid-sister” Ida, aged nine, was folding circulars in the inner office, her first appearance there, giving it an air of childish innocence while the detectives searched for “incriminating evidence”, not finding any, though it almost “bit” them, which has caused Anna, me and others, many a hearty laugh since. On the way to Jefferson Market Court the two detectives, who were exceedingly courteous and in sympathy with Birth Control, apologized for arresting me, telling me it was being done at the instigation of the Society of the Suppression of Vice, and the man to whom I had given “Family Limitation” was the same who had trapped Mr. Sanger, Mr. Jonah J. Goldstein,40 that valiant defender of Birth Control law breakers, bailed me out, $1500.00, and took up the case, which after preliminary hearing at Jefferson Market was transferred to Special Sessions.

Chapter 64 Three days after my arrest, and before I had regained my breath, as it were, two men walked into the office, asked for Kitty Marion, flashed their badges, and requested me to come to headquarters with them. The situation was so similar to those Hylda Cross and I used to laugh at in the American movies, that I felt like laughing in their faces, but they were taking themselves so seriously, that I merely asked “what for”. “You’ll see when you get there,” they replied mysteriously, and I couldn’t think what to suspect myself of. This time the inner office was occupied by Miss Gertrude Nafe41 who was helping with the editorial work for the Review, and she elicited the information that it was Federal Headquarters, 14 Park Row, I was bound for, and while I was being driven down in a taxi, she went by elevated42 and met us there. “Mr. Finch” who evidently required my presence, and a stenographer, had gone to my lodgings, 13 West 18th Street, where we all followed him, by elevated this time. There, with much bluster, which no official should be permitted to use even to a convicted criminal, Mr. Finch told me I was a German spy and ordered me to pack every piece of printed and written matter to bring with me to headquarters. I owned to being German, but not a spy, and I objected to his manner of speech. “These gentlemen,” I told him, indicating the detectives who had arrested me, “have been perfectly courteous and treated me as a lady, and I expect you to do the same. I am not a spy, and have nothing to hide, and you are welcome to read every printed and written word in my possession.” Mr. Finch apologized and became quite sociable. And so I filled a cabin trunk with Jonah J. Goldstein (1886–1967), a lawyer who became a sessions judge in New York and was active in welfare organisations and Jewish institutions across the city. According to Sanger, his Jewish background and adolescent experience with the settlement houses run by Mary Simkhovich and Lillian Wald made him ‘more sympathetic than other lawyers, even the most liberal’ to ‘social service’. 41 Gertrude E. Nafe (1883–1971), a teacher, essayist and communist; friend of Emma Goldman. 42 ‘elevated’: refers to New York’s ‘Elevated’ or overhead railway system. 40

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old copies of “Votes for Women”, “The Suffragette”, theatrical and other clippings and letters, old and up to date. I only hoped he would read them all, for the good of his mind. Gertrude Nafe, new to our office, and practically a stranger to me “stood by” all the time and very thankful I felt for her presence and moral support. Federal Headquarters looked suggestive of inquisition – anxious, worriedlooking suspects waiting about, some of whom I had seen pass me on the street; officials appearing very busy, the whole place seething with suppressed nervous excitement. At last Mr. Finch, who I learned was a “special investigator” and Mr. Davis, his stenographer, much too nice a youth for that environment, were ready to examine me – when and why had I come to America, what had been my activities since, did I know any radicals and anarchists like Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman,43 Roger Baldwin,44 Elizabeth Gurley Flynn,45 Dr. Ben Reitman46 and others, none of whom I had met except Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, quite casually, when I was out with Mrs. Sanger buying office furniture. “What did they talk about?” asked Mr. Finch. “Their children,” I replied, which was all of their “radical” secrets they let me in on. And Dr. Ben Reitman I had met at an Anarchist meeting at Carnegie Hall, where I had gone to sell the Birth Control Review. On the suggestion of Dr. Blossom I attended all sorts of radical meetings for the same purpose, and Dr. Ben Reitman was the only one who invited me to go through the audience before the meeting started. At all the others I had to wait until the end, although the Review did not conflict with any of their literature, they seemed most capitalistically afraid that the struggling cause of Birth Control might “make a bit” before they had had their own innings. Dr. Ben Reitman had been imprisoned in Cleveland, Ohio, for giving birth control information. A copy of the “Red Flag” looked very “incriminating” and Mr. Finch thought it was clipped from the N.Y. Call, whereas it was cut from the London “Daily Herald”, to learn the words, in the days when Socialist members of the W.S.P.U. sang it among other songs, when marching round Holloway to cheer those inside. I resented the tune of: “Oh, Tannenbaum”47 being used when I heard it as I approached a street meeting near the Camden Theatre and Cobden Statue one evening, and found they were “Socialists” singing “We’ll keep the Red Flag flying here”. My social and political mind has broadened considerably since then.

Alexander Berkman (1870–1936), a Russian-born anarchist and political activist, who emigrated to the United States in 1888. 44 Roger Nash Baldwin (1884–1981), a social worker and reformer, and co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. 45 Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890–1964), a labour leader and political activist. 46 Ben Reitman (1879–1942), a physician, anarchist and one of Emma Goldman’s partners. 47 ‘Oh Fir Tree’ – a traditional German folk song associated with Christmas from the end of the nineteenth century. 43

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Chapter 65 When Mr. Finch turned to reading correspondence, it so happened that the first batch of letters he picked up were those of a “welcome out” of prison and the first letter he chose to read began: “You dirty dog! why did you do it?”48 at which of course I chuckled heartily. “What is the meaning of this?” inquired Mr. Finch, surprised and trying to be severe. So I explained that “dirty dog” though ordinarily an expression of opprobrium, was a term of great endearment and respect among certain groups of familiar spirits in my old theatrical days, and this was my friend, Mrs. Kitty Goldsack’s way of expressing her concern over my last sojourn in Holloway. Patiently he waded through all the other welcome-out letters and was favourably impressed. Then current correspondence among which was a recent letter from Bee Buckell telling of H.S. being brought home so smashed up that the surgeons wondered why he was alive at all. “Well, these don’t read like spy letters,” Mr. Finch remarked when he had finished this one. “Of course, they don’t, not being spy letters,” I replied. But I had to go into the history of the writers thereof. Mrs. Buckell employed in the War Office while her husband, handsome H.S., an ardent cricketer, football player and an officer in a reserve regiments, Territorials, I think, was at the front. Then a letter from Ethel Ford, now Mrs. Frank Saker, who reported “no news of Frank”. Frank Saker was a Captain in the Connaught Rangers as well as an actor and stage manager who had just settled down to stage management at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London, when the War broke out, and was one of the first to go. His remains were never found.49 Having taken out my first papers and bought three Liberty Bonds was in my favour.50 Also having gone to Federal Marshall McCarthy and asked for exemption, when I read in the press that everybody of German birth, not citizen, had to register. Marshall McCarthy was most kind and sympathetic but could do nothing except advise me to see the President, who was the only one to grant exemption, whereupon I had rushed to Washington, interviewed official after official at the White House and the Department of Justice, all of whom were very courteous and passed me on to some other official. Passing the buck, as it were, I returned to New York the same day, thinking – well, they know where to find me if they want me – and although with the lapse of time I concluded nothing further would happen, I took this arrest as an outcome, which Mr. Finch denied, this being the first he had heard of my visit to Washington. He refused to tell me the source of his information, that I was German, and I was mystified for I could not think of anyone who would betray me. My “grilling” lasted from about 3 P.M. until nearly This undated letter, from ‘Kittie to my dear Kate’, is now in the Museum of London (MLSC: 50.82/1122). 49 Frank Harrison Saker (1880–1914) was killed in Flanders in October 1914. He and Ethel had married in 1908. 50 Liberty Bonds were issued in the United States in 1917 to support the Allied cause. They were seen as a secure investment by buyers, and as a sign of patriotism by the authorities. 48

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11, excepting dinner, which was quite a friendly affair, cocktails and all, at which I talked very freely, having nothing to conceal. Gertrude Nafe, and Miss Ellen A. Kennan,51 another newcomer to our headquarters, were waiting to ascertain my fate, and as Mr. Finch could find no reason for detaining me under arrest, he let me go, keeping my trunk and its contents for further examination, of which he had barely broken the ice. As I was worn to a frazzle and hardly fit for my own company, Ellen Kennan took me home to her place for the night and was a real good Samaritan all through. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Ellen and Gertrude, both teachers, were bosom friends of Emma Goldman, of whom the Government seemed to live in fear and trembling. I continued selling the Review as if nothing had happened and a few evenings later Mr. Finch came along with his wife to whom he introduced me as “the worst Bolshevik in the country”. The storm seemed to have abated in his direction until the beginning of October, when I received a letter from John Lord O’Brien,52 the Special Assistant to the Attorney General for War Work, which said in part: “You are advised that the definition of the Term German Alien is statutory and includes all persons who are natives, citizens, denizens or subjects of the German Empire. As it appears that you are a native of Germany and have not become fully naturalized as an American citizen, this Department is obliged to state that you are within the statutory definition above referred to, and therefore required to comply with all the Rules and Regulations governing the registration of German aliens. You should not however, consider this registration any reflection upon you but should understand that in registering you are giving further proof of your loyalty and willingness to conform to the laws of the United States.” This was evidently the answer to my visit to Washington, and negotiations by mail, to which I answered: “In reply to your favour for which I thank you, I beg to state that I am being investigated by Mr. Finch of the U.S. Department of Investigation of this city. On receipt of his report I trust you will find me worthy of placing your recommendation for exemption before the President.” Was there anything so cock-eyed? For over twenty years I had, according to German law, ceased to be German, yet in America, Land of the Free, where I had my first papers, which should have entitled me to the mere courtesy of being looked upon as more American than German, they wanted me to register as a German Alien. The dumb-driven-cattle psychology and governmental attitude in my case (and many more like it no doubt) was all wrong, and I for one would not submit to it quietly. A few months later I met Mr. Finch on Fifth Ave. and in course of conversation he told me how he discovered I was German, quite by accident. “You know one of your militant suffrage friends working in a certain Radical organization here?” “Yes,” I said, wondering, for I knew she would not betray Ellen A. Kennan (1871–c. 1950), a teacher, and friend of Goldman, Berkman and Reitman. She taught at the Bryn Mawr summer school for Women Workers between 1925 and 1938. 52 John Lord O’Brian (sic, 1874–1973), lawyer and civil administrator. 51

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me. “Well, the day after you were arrested for giving birth control information, she read it in a paper and remarked, ‘Oh poor Kitty Marion, arrested again, and Emmeline Pankhurst in the country; if she sees this, she’ll tell the authorities that Kitty is German’.” Walls having ears, and dictaphones, in those days, that speech registered and sent Mr. Finch after a blank, blankety, blank, blank!, wasting the people’s taxes under the pretence of protecting them against “alien enemies”, which exist only in the minds of those who have enmity towards “aliens”.

Chapter 66 On October 14th my final trial for violation of Section 1141 took place at Special Sessions, where I was convicted, and sentenced to a fine of $500 or thirty days in the “Tombs”.53 Judge Freschi54 favoured a fine of $250 but Judges Murphy and Kernochan55 overruled him, the latter being particularly insistent on punishment for women who “dare to break the law”. According to Huxley, “a violated law never could be and never had been a law”.56 What are laws, man-made laws, but false gods, idols, set up by some individuals, by which to hold control and dominion over others? On Sunday our lawmakers and administrators go to church to worship the Law-giver of the Golden Rule, disobeying the latter all through the week by enforcing their own unjust laws upon others, which they themselves are the first to break. Setting the evil example of wholesale murder in war, they execute the man who kills in passion. After robbing the people wholesale in unjust taxes and tariffs they jail a starving man for stealing a loaf of bread. They bear false witness by lying propaganda, and imprison those who protest against it. They avail themselves of all the latest scientific revelations for human benefit and make it illegal to instruct those who need such help most, punishing the Keeper of the Golden, and Breaker of the idolatrous, legal, rule. “Woe unto you, ye lawyers! For ye lade men with heavy burdens, grievous to be borne but ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.” – St Luke. II – 46. Naturally I went to the Tombs and the $500 went to help the Birth Control Review. I could write a long volume on the Tombs but suffice it to say that bad as The notorious Manhattan Detention Centre, popularly known as the ‘Tombs’. In 1917 Judge John J. Freschi had been one of three judges at Sanger’s trial for violation of the Penal Code designed to prevent the dissemination of contraception information; she assessed him as ‘a rather young man’ on whom Sanger and her supporters pinned their hopes of acquittal. 55 Joseph Federic Kernochan (1842–1929). 56 Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95), nicknamed ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ for his defence of Darwin’s theories. This quotation seems to be from his book Hume (1887). 53 54

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conditions were there, I congratulated myself on not being sent to Blackwell’s Island where, I heard from those who had been, I should have had to share a cell with three others, under sanitary, or rather unsanitary conditions too putrid for words. Here I did have a cell to myself except for the bed­bugs which infested the iron beds and walls the first night but were promptly exterminated by saturating them with kerosene which is there for cleaning purposes, and setting fire to them. The free associations of prisoners, especially first offenders and hardened cases, discussions of their crimes, arrests, etc., seem to me a great mistake, leading to organizations of criminals outside, which accounts to a great extent for the increase of crime in America. The English way of keeping them apart, in separate cells, not allowing them to speak to each other, exchanging confidences and so forth, is the kinder and safer way in the long run. It was an interesting experience to me to hear how some had been “framed”, which sounded doubtful to me at that time but has been proved correct during the investigation of “stoolpigeons” in 1930. All these “prostitutes” and drunks in my section seemed more sinned against than sinning. They swore by Major Hylan as a good man since he was responsible for five days remission per month, but Dr. Katherine Bement Davis, the indefinite sentence and probation they hated like poison. The former had a better effect on them than the latter. They were mostly Catholics and ready to tear me up when first I mentioned Birth Control but I converted them and told them to pass on our address to all their friends. In another section of the Tombs I met the widow of a physician, who had been presented at Queen Victoria’s court while her husband was attached to the American Embassy in London. She was awaiting trial over some check trouble, but through clerical influence, was removed to Bellevue Hospital. Also little Molly Steimer, aged 16, the Russian “Bolshevik and anarchist”, awaiting trial for distributing leaflets, protesting against America attacking Russia without Congress declaring war.57 And Agnes Smedley,58 whom I knew already, an American who was interested in “Freedom for India”, as well as Birth Control, and arrested to oblige the British Government. We three wept together for joy when “Peace” was declared on November 11th. It seems I was a bit previous when I thanked god for “no more fights with police” on my arrival in America, the third anniversary of which I was here celebrating. No wonder Hylda Cross used to find me “full of unconscious humour”. The food, except bread and milk, was mostly uneatable and the restaurant from which a waiter called for orders did quite a good trade. Different to England where everything, including money, is taken from a prisoner Mollie Steimer (1897–1980), Russian-born anarchist, trades unionist and anti-war campaigner. She was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, and was deported to Russia in 1921. 58 Agnes Smedley (1892–1950), radical foreign and war correspondent, writer, women’s and children’s rights and birth control advocate, and supporter of Indian independence and revolutionary China. She wrote about her experience of the ‘Tombs’ in her autobiography, Daughter of Earth (1929), and a portrait of KM, ‘My Cell Mate: No.4’, The Call, 14 March 1920: 2. 57

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upon arrival. But there the food is better, no maggots visible, as here. Receiving and answering letters is a good idea, also newspapers. From all the previous letters I received I will quote just one paragraph from one of Mrs. Sanger’s: “Mrs. Ackerman missed your income last Saturday. Perhaps your absence will make them realize how important it is for the movement to go out and do this necessary work.” What seemed of more importance to me than the income, necessary and useful, of course, was the spreading the good gospel of Birth Control among the masses, and it was cheering to hear that a group was being formed to go and sell the Review on the street but when on Saturday, Nov. 2, Ellen Kerman visited me, and nothing had been done, I begged her not to wait for anybody but go out herself that night, which she did, brave soul, accompanied by Anna, and they sold 41 in little over an hour. The prison matrons were less official and more sociable than their English prototypes, with “ordinary” prisoners. I never missed an opportunity of discussing birth control and in pointing out to one how it would eventually eliminate prisons she eagerly exclaimed, “But what about our jobs?” I suggested schools instead of prisons, and teachers instead of matrons and keepers, training all children into self-respecting citizens who would scorn to be “stool pigeons” for instance. Prisons serve no good purpose whatsoever. It depends upon the individual character and disposition whether one comes out docile, crushed, hopeless, or vindictively revengeful. Those imprisoned for Cause or conscience, go in a spark and come out a living flame, determined to consume the spiritual wickedness in high places, which seeps down through every stratum of society and is responsible for the world’s political, financial, economic and moral chaos and crime. Extracting the legal “pound of flesh” from me in no way enhanced my respect for the Birth Control laws of the land. On Nov. 12th I was released and on the 14th the New York Women’s Publishing Co. welcomed me with a dinner at the Civic Club. Mrs. Eugene P. Stone (The Rev. Percy Stickney Grant’s59 sister) was chairman, Mrs. Sanger, Miss Helen Todd,60 Mr. Scott Nearing61 and Dr. Mary Halton spoke, the latter bringing a bag of 500 one cent pieces, collected by women who visited The East Side Clinic, towards the $500 “fine”. Also a resolution protesting against the Post Office holding up the November number, was passed unanimously, though the issue had since been permitted to go through the mails.

Percy Stickney Grant (1860–1967), an Episcopalian priest known for his socialist views and support of the labour movement. 60 Helen Todd (n.d.), the Chairman of the Birth Control Review, was described by Sanger as ‘a grand person’ with ‘a lank swarthy picturesqueness which attracted attention’, and who had been trained under Jane Addams, the ‘mother’ of American social work and pioneer of the settlement movement. 61 Scott Nearing (1883–1983), a socialist college teacher who was fired from his post in 1932 for his political views. He and his wife moved to Vermont and set up as self-sufficient small-holders. 59

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Chapter 67 Since the resumption of publication I had sold 700 copies of the Review, and after my release the sales doubled and trebled. Many of my Broadway friends had wondered at my absence and were indignant when they heard the reason. Mrs. Sanger, Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett,62 Miss Jessie Ashley,63 a lawyer, and her sister Anita64 had joined me before my arrest on several Saturday afternoons round Macy’s Corner, Broadway and 34th St. to experience the thrill and encourage others to come out. At last I found a recruit in Mrs. Genevieve Grandcount who lived in the same house and “admired my courage”, but thought she could never pluck up sufficient to follow my example. So one Saturday night as she stood beside me, doing nothing, I gave her a handful of Reviews, daring her to move until she had sold out, while I crossed Broadway and stood on the other side. Very soon she came over for more, very pleased with herself, having sold out, 13, lucky number. So she became a regular seller for a few years, and had the same pleasant and unpleasant experiences as myself. The December number contained an article “Birth Control or Abortion”, by Margaret Sanger, explaining the difference, since there was much confusion on the subject. With the exception of reserve copies for binding, the issue was sold out and on December 31st came to our office Sergeant Charles P. Mooney65 from West 30th St. Police Station, who had bought a copy from me and had a long, friendly chat, to arrest Mrs. Sanger for writing and publishing, and me for selling the Review containing an “obscene” article. Anna ‘phoned Mrs. Sanger at her home that she was “wanted”. Nobody would have suspected her and me of being under arrest, as we walked to Jefferson Market Court, accompanied by a benevolent, kindly, tall, elderly gentleman, Sergeant Mooney in private clothes, who did not relish the part forced upon him by anonymous complaints against the sale of the Review on the street and its display on news-stands. The hearings took place before magistrate Jacob Eilpern. Mr. Jonah J. Goldstein in defence, submitted pamphlets on venereal diseases and sex, issued by the War Department, the Navy Department, The United States Public Health Service, the Y.M.C.A., and Y.W.C.A. and the American Social Hygiene Association, and distributed by the millions among young men, women and their parents during the war. Some of them discussed sex matters much more frankly than Mrs. Sanger’s article which had caused our arrest. Others might have been rewritten from Mrs. Sanger’s own book “What Every Girl Should Know”. After Mary Coffin Ware Dennett (1872–1947), women’s rights activist, pacifist, homeopathic advocate and pioneer in the areas of birth control, sex education and women’s suffrage. Dennett was Sanger’s principal rival for leadership of the American birth control movement. 63 Jessie Ashley (1861–1919), a wealthy lawyer, suffragist, feminist and labour activist. ‘A Socialist in practice as well as theory’ (Sanger). She was a founder of the National Birth Control League. 64 Anita C. Ashley (1863–1924?), artist. 65 Charles P. Mooney (1879–1952) retired as an Inspector and Commander of the 8th District in the Bronx. 62

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the third hearing Magistrate Eilpern dismissed the charges on legal ground, “I am not passing upon the merits of Birth Control propaganda. The Appellate Division held in the Mindell case that Margaret Sanger’s book ‘What Every Girl Should Know’, was not obscene, reversing the decision of the Court of Special Sessions which had convicted. This is the same matter that is involved in the present article. On that ground I dismiss the charges.” A great victory! But two days later, January 20th, a great blow fell upon us in the death of Jessie Ashley, from pneumonia. Miss Ashley had been particularly keen on street selling, which would have fared better had she lived. I had introduced the Review to a few newsstands near where I stood on Broadway, whose sales encouraged greater distribution. The larger distributors who could have covered the United States with it, refused to touch the Review, but a small local company covered some of the independent newsstands in Manhattan and Brooklyn. For some time all went well but gradually their sales decreased because more and more news dealers were intimidated by priests, police and others, into taking the Review down and putting it out of sight. Naturally, people not seeing the Review displayed for sale and not knowing such a magazine existed, would not ask for it. So we discontinued the newsstands until in the summer of 1926 on the suggestion of some of our subscribers that it should be on the newsstands, Mrs. Sanger asked me to try to cover as many as I could myself from 14th to 42nd Streets, which I did for three or four months. Some of the dealers refused to take it, having been threatened with the loss of their licence if they sold it, on previous occasions. Returned copies were never wasted. I stamped them “Please read and pass on to your friends”, and gave them away or left them about anywhere for people to pick up, which they eagerly did. So every bullet found its billet that way. If anybody thought that the arrest and dismissal of Mrs. Sanger and me had settled the street selling question, they had another guess coming. In April Mrs. Grandcourt was arrested for selling in a “restricted district”, and dismissed, after which Mr. Goldstein elicited from Police Commissioner Richard E. Enright66 the information that there was no restricted district as regards the selling of magazines. Care should be taken to stand near the curb or the building line, not to obstruct traffic. Also, according to the opinion of Judge Mulqueen, of the Court of Special Sessions no licence is necessary to sell a magazine. Policemen had been asking to “let me see your licence”. So we carried a copy of Mr. Goldstein’s letter on the subject, though that did not always satisfy an officer, who stopped to argue and collect a crowd, charging us with having done so. Nobody ever stopped to listen to a friendly conversation with a policeman. And if at times a cranky anti caused a crowd to collect, as a little old Irish woman did by attacking me with an umbrella, or throwing eggs, which missed, the police would soon disperse them. On one occasion an officer asked her why Richard Edward Enright (1871–1953), New York Police Department police commissioner 1918–25, the first to hold the office having risen through the ‘rank and file’.

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she attacked me and she answered “The priest told me to”; when he asked her the name of the priest, she ran away. On another occasion it did my heart good to hear an officer with a lovely, rich brogue, disperse a small crowd with “Ye’ve no right to interfere with her; she’s the law on her side; the law upholds her.”

Chapter 68 Mr. George Swasey,67 a Californian who had just returned from a lecture tour in England, where Mrs. Sanger’s fame was spreading, called on her and arranged to speak at street meetings, while I sold the Review. After several quite successful ones up and downtown, we were both arrested by Sergeant Patrick Hickey on Saturday, August 9th at Second Ave. and 5th Street, close to the Police Station, from whence we were taken straight to the Night Court at East 58th Street where some of our crowd followed us, and two total strangers, Jacob Pooplin and Harry B. Dennar, furnished our bail, $50 each. Our case was tried at Essex Market Court on August 15th before Magistrate Chas. T. Harris, Mr. Swasey charged with disorderly conduct, I with selling the Review. After Mr. Goldstein explained the legality of my action, the Magistrate most reluctantly dismissed the charge against me. Quoting from the September 1919 Birth Control Review, “Two policemen making the charges, performed miracles of memory feats, Sergeant Hickey repeated Swasey’s entire speech, from memory, talking steadily for 5 to 10 minutes! The second policeman went through the same performance. His notes on the case, he said, had been typewritten by a friend whose name, address or business he didn’t know.” The original had been destroyed. The testimony revealed a policeman’s vocabulary, not the vocabulary of speakers for Birth Control. But despite the blatant falsity of the policemen’s testimony, and the testimony of six witnesses against them, George Swasey was convicted, and sentenced to 10 days in jail or to pay a fine of $50. The Judge gave as a reason for the conviction the fact that children were in the audience, that Swasey was discussing a subject, birth control, which was open to debate, and had used the word prostitute! An appeal was immediately taken. Magistrate Harris’s opinion was later reversed by Judge William H. Wadhams68 at the Court of General Sessions in the ruling that Birth Control advocates are within their rights in advocating the repeal of the laws, in street meetings. While Swasey was under sentence, street meetings were continued by Dr. Mary Halton of Gouverneur Hospital, Ellen Kennan, Gertrude Nafe and Agnes Smedley, giving all of their spare time, as well as writing splendid articles for the Review. The regular office staff of Anna and myself was increased too by George Swasey. Margaret Sanger describes Swazey (sic) as a ‘friendly Englishman’, but gives no further details. He may have been George R. Swasey, who was a syndicalist organiser who established the Industrial Workers of the World (or ‘Wobblies’) in Great Britain in 1913. 68 William Henderson Wadhams (1873–1952). 67

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Mrs. Anne Kennedy,69 as Executive Secretary, upon whom I always called to ring up Police Headquarters officially to complain against police interference, which was then temporarily curbed. Mrs. Grandcourt had broken new ground at the Pulitzer Building, which was quite good, and sometimes covered by me. I also went further downtown, Broadway and Fulton Street, outside Loft’s Candy Store, where on Saturdays during the midday rush I often sold 100 copies. On September 27th a policeman came just after my arrival and immediate sale of a copy, and told me I could not stand there, as Broadway was restricted. Of course I showed him Mr. Goldstein’s letter from Commissioner Enright whereupon he went into Loft’s, brought out the manager who, he said, objected to my being there. Now I had been in Loft’s Saturday after Saturday for refreshment and change, talked to the manager who never made any objection, but evidently had been prevailed upon to do so now, for, if tenants of premises objected I could not sell there. The officer would not let me remain on that block and as I had a bag full of magazines and no time for arrest I went further up, outside the City Hall Theatre and sold out. Arguments with police always caused me most excruciating pain, as if I had been physically thrashed, and my backbone crumbling. In the November number Mrs. Sanger published a splendid article – “A LAWBREAKING POLICEMAN” – protesting against such un-warranted interference, but to no avail, for during that same month Mrs. Grandcourt and I were arrested on Broadway at 44th Street. I crossed over when I saw her in altercation with a policeman who told her she could not stand there, as it was a restricted district. I showed him the copy of Commissioner Enright’s letter, but he insisted that we go away, or go to the station. I asked him on what charge. “Selling in a restricted district,” he replied. Next morning in Court, West 54th Street, Mrs. Grandcourt on the stand, cross-examined by the prosecuting attorney, defended by Mr. Jonah J. Goldstein, the latter proving that there is no restricted district, when the policeman brought another charge against her, that of using obscene language. “Repeat the obscene language,” said Mr. Goldstein, and the policeman repeated some of our conversation on the way to the station, trying to enlighten him on the meaning of Birth Control, when Mrs. Grandcourt lost patience with him and said very emphatically, “Oh, don’t be so stupid!” That was his idea of obscene language, which caused laughter in court and “Case dismissed”. We hoped that had settled the argument, but no, persecution increased. Mr. Nathaniel Freier, who had been selling the “Matrimonial News”, took up the Birth Control Review when the M.N. expired. All who had approved of the street selling were very glad, for many men would buy from, and discuss the subject with, a man, where they would not with a woman. Personally it was immaterial to us who sold the Review or with whom we discussed it, including Anne Kennedy was in her thirties when she joined the Review in 1920; she was a Californian with two children, about whom Sanger felt ‘you could lay your head on her bosom and tell her the story of your life’. She was a woman to be relied on to sort out a problem.

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priests and police, as long as they were intelligently receptive and did not make it a cause for insult and abuse. In February, Miss Ruth Albert, a newcomer to our office staff, and I, went to Washington to cover the National Woman’s Party Convention with Birth Control Reviews and other literature, and arouse the delegates from all over the United States to take an interest in Birth Control, which to me seemed more fundamental and important than the Suffrage. On the night of the unveiling of statues to Susan B. Anthony, Lucrecia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the Capitol,70 while I, as a member and delegate, attended the very impressive ceremony inside, Ruth sold Reviews among the crowds outside until a policeman saw her and said “You can’t sell magazines here, on Government property.” “But I have,” said Ruth, proving it could be done, though she desisted, having nearly sold out. We also sold on the street on the spot where I had sold the Suffragist in 1917. Another newcomer to our staff was Mrs. Dixie Tavis, engaged to address envelopes for a large circularization, and retained for regular work, which was increasing by leaps and bounds in subscriptions to the Review and sale of books, etc. While the majority of police officers were sympathetic and law abiding, others continued to persecute Mrs. Grandcourt, Mr. Freier and me mercilessly, especially on the block between 44th and 45th Street which was the most profitable district with theatregoers, and since we were within the law, we were just as insistent to remain there as our persecutors were to drive us away. One night in July when the theatre rush was over a policeman came and told me to move on, that I was obstructing traffic, which was a physical impossibility, since I was standing on a step in a doorway of a store which was closed for the night. In court next morning I was fined $5 for refusing to move, like dumb driven cattle, when the policeman told me to. In comparison to street selling of Suffrage papers in England, where the police never interfered, the injustice of it here so preyed on my mind that I felt death would be preferable and I went away, leaving a note for Mrs. Kennedy which gave the idea that I had committed suicide, though when I arrived at Liberty, N.Y., the name of which had attracted me as a symbol to die for, I had recovered from my terrible mental depression and walked to Monticello, where I engaged a room and rested for a few days. When I felt better I called on Mrs. Muller and heard that my friends in New York were anxious about me and the police were searching for me.71 One would think that after that the This group portrait (from originals sculpted by Adelaide Johnson) of the three pioneers of women’s rights, Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906), Lucrecia Mott (1793–1880) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902), was presented to the people of America by the NWP and accepted by Congress. The unveiling took place on 15 February 1921 and was attended by representatives of seventy women’s organisations. 71 The headline in the New York Times (26 June 1920) read: ‘KITTY MARION IS MISSING Employers, The Birth Control Review, Dubious of Suicide Threat’; the New York Tribune headline was ‘Police Are Asked To Aid Search for Miss Kitty Marion: Advocate of Birth Control Missing Since June 13 Left Note Behind Which Aroused Fears of Friends’, reporting that ‘The police have hounded Kitty Marion to her death, Friends … believe’. On 26 July, the 70

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police would leave the Review sellers alone, but no, the ignorance and intolerance which some of them personified, abated not one jot.

Chapter 69 One Saturday in October about 8 o’clock, when business was humming, a policeman wanted to see my permit or licence. I explained that neither was necessary, nor was there a restricted area. Most policemen when they were merely doubtful, took my word for it, backed by the official correspondence. But this one was of the other sort and insisted I should go to the Station to verify the facts. On the way to West 47th Street he spoke to another officer, as ignorant as himself, on the subject. He then ‘phoned his Station and was informed that it was legal to sell the Review, but he warned me to “get a written permit or I would be arrested and taken before a judge who would not let me out”. I took the numbers of both officers as Mr. Goldstein had advised me to do, so they could be instructed officially on the rights of selling the Review. In contrast to these it does make one appreciate the intelligent policeman who knows and does his duty without becoming officious, hectoring and insulting. In the Spring of 1921, at a Parade on Fifth Avenue to raise funds for milk for underfed babies in the richest city on earth, Mrs. May Bell Morgan, an ardent suffrage-worker, a recent acquisition to our office force, Miss Dastre, a volunteer, and I, faced the crowds with the Birth Control Review, explaining how Birth Control would prevent underfed babies. With the exception of a few understanding souls, including the police on this occasion, who listened to our explanations, we received a hostile reception, which almost culminated in a free-for-all when the Milk Drive Committee,72 stationed on the Public Library steps, spied us, and brought a policeman to arrest us. While explaining the legality of the Review and its sale, several people bought it, while others jeered at me: “Socialist”, and “English”, mobbing and hustling me down Fifth Avenue, when a young man, a student, came to my rescue by offering to help me sell the Review; whereupon the crowd turned on him. For his own safety he was arrested but released when out of the danger zone. I had better luck on Police Parades. Every year the New York’s “Finest”, marched up Fifth Avenue, led by Major Hylan and commissioner Enright, and to show them that Birth Control was here, I stood on the curb near 34th Street holding the Review high in both hands. It was interesting to notice the different reactions as the parading men caught sight of it. Some just guffawed, others shouted approving, encouraging remarks, or “Burn it!” or “He needs that, he’s just married” recommending it to a pal. There were always familiar, friendly faces among them, whose owners would pass Tribune reported that ‘Miss Kitty Marion Is Alive and Well’ and was ‘eating three meals a day, sleeping at night and enjoying the natural products of a restful world’. 72 This is probably one of the charitable initiatives to bring milk, as the most complete form of nourishment, to underprivileged children in the 1920s.

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with a wave of the hand, or call out, “Good luck!”; “Good for you”; “Keep it up” – etc. Mrs. Sanger used to credit me with having educated the Police Department, but I must share that credit with others. Mrs. Morgan circularized the police and fire stations of New York City with copies of the Review, we paying the postage between us. It surely was good, educational propaganda for the men. But Mrs. Kennedy, our Executive Secretary, ordered it discontinued. Strange! That reminds me, I was arrested one evening and taken to West 30th Street station. Wondering whom to appeal to for bail I decided on Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, she being a Board Member of the N.Y. Women’s Publishing Co., able to get in touch with others. I knew Mrs. Sanger was going out to dinner and it would be useless to call her apartment. To say that I was surprised, shocked and disappointed when told that Mrs. Dennett would have nothing to do with the case, is putting it mildly. I knew “diplomatic relations” were strained between her and Mrs. Sanger, but why leave me and the Review behind the bars? – after my cooperating with her by lending her our subscribers’ file to circularize towards starting her Voluntary Parenthood League,73 the difference between which and Mrs. Sanger’s group I had to continually explain to people who wondered at the “split” between those two ladies. I waited until I thought Mrs. Sanger might have arrived home. She had, and came immediately bringing our attorney, Mr. Goldstein, and two other friends with her. The desk sergeant at once expressed his surprise at my asking to have Mrs. Dennett and her refusing to do anything for me. Her excuse to me later was that she “hadn’t felt very well”. There are some things I am too “dumb” to understand and this is one of them, in the face of what I and others have done when we didn’t “feel very well”. Here’s another strange experience. Mrs. Pankhurst was in New York and I pictured a joyous meeting, should she come along and see me selling the Birth Control Review. I felt sure that with her knowledge of the unspeakable poverty-stricken, overcrowded slum conditions in England she would be delighted with my present activities. One afternoon at Macy’s corner she did appear with Miss Pine, dear old “Piney” who, in her Nursing Home had been such a good, Ministering Angel to me and other hunger strikers. I saw them crossing Broadway and my heart beat high in anticipation of our mutual pleasure of a reunion. I stood ready to “pounce on them”, like a cat on two mice, at the moment of recognition. But oh, what a crashing of castles upon my unwary head when they did see me! Their faces hardened, their heads went up and they passed me, staring stonily in front of them. I felt stunned, hurt to the quick, but remembered Mrs. Pankhurst’s anti-German attitude during the war. I saw the humor and tragedy of such an apparently levelheaded woman as Mrs. Pankhurst being swayed by war hysteria from fundamental human principles and courtesy. I felt sad at my shattered idol, but separated, preserved and continued to revere the spirit of the great, wonderful The Voluntary Parenthood League was formed in 1919 by Mary Dennett and merged with Sanger’s American Birth Control League in 1925.

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Suffrage leader, from which subsequent events could detract nothing. I learned later that Mrs. Pankhurst developed a strong anti-German complex as a child in school in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–1871. Another good reason why war should be abolished from the earth, and the minds and emotions of future generations saved from its distorting, devastating influences. The tremendous growth of the Birth Control movement manifested itself in the inauguration of the American Birth Control League, in November 1921. The N.Y. Women’s Publishing Company was dissolved and the Birth Control Review became the official organ of the League, which held its first Birth Control Conference at the Plaza Hotel on November 11th and 12th, to culminate in a Mass Meeting at the Town Hall on Sunday night November 13th, with Harold Cox, M.P.74 from London, as its principal speaker. At the Plaza all sessions were an uninterrupted and phenomenal success, but at the Town Hall we found the civic police, dominated by “ecclesiastical police” all over the hall, headed by Mgr. Joseph P. Dineen, secretary to Rt. Rev. Patrick J. Hayes,75 Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York, in possession to suppress the meeting. Without regard for the constitutional rights of citizens to free assembly, free speech or warrant, they arrested Mrs. Sanger and Miss Mary Winsor76 when, in the great uproar of an insistent audience they tried to open the meeting. It was an inspiring sight as the cheering crowd followed them across and up Broadway to West 47th Street Station, so familiar to me by now. No charge was brought against them in court the next morning, the case was dismissed, but the Press the world over published the Archbishop’s raid on Birth Control, thus bringing it to the notice of millions of people who had not previously heard the term. On the following Friday night the postponed Mass Meeting took place at the Park Theatre, Columbus Circle, with enormous, disappointed crowds outside unable to get in. “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform” by using as advertising media, the opponents with limited vision of His truths, to spread them. What “the priest said last Sunday” against Birth Control was a fruitful source of thirst for more knowledge on the subject, and the Review on the street a useful, opportune connecting link with the latter of which there should have been a seller on each street corner. Most of the objections to birth control were from a religious viewpoint. “What will you do when you have to face your Maker, your God?” or, “Aren’t you afraid of going to Hell when you die?” or “You are the instrument of the Devil”, or, “What is birth control?” or, “The priest said -----” are some of the opening remarks to conversations, made by Roman Catholics and others. Harold Cox (1859–1936) was Liberal MP for Preston from 1906 to 1909, and thus not an MP when he visited New York in 1921. Described by Asquith as ‘an incorrigible individualist’, he was editor of the influential Edinburgh Review during the 1920s. 75 Patrick Joseph Hayes (1867–1938), archbishop of New York 1919–38, was made a cardinal in 1924. 76 Mary Winsor (1869–1956), Quaker and tenacious suffragist. She was the founder and president of the Limited Suffrage Society. 74

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That on the principle of “perfect love casteth out fear”, I was not afraid to die, nor go to Hell, there being no Hell to go to; and facing God always, “even when looking at you”, seemed to surprise many and give them a new slant on direct, intelligent human relationship with “God”, Good – minus the intervention of priests. Many only needed the difference between preventive birth control and abortion explained to them, to be converted. Some insisted that interference with nature is a “sin”, and I would point out that wearing clothes, cooking food, using soap, shaving, haircutting, operations, curing sickness, and so forth, were an interference with nature, and every progressive step in civilization, even the use of forks, had at first been called a “sin” by theologians.

Chapter 70 1922 was an eventful year. Mrs. Sanger visited Japan and China on her way to the International Birth Control Conference to be held in London in July, to which she invited Anna Lifshitz and me. Imagine my joy, to say nothing of Anna’s. But oh, the obstacles in the way of my getting a passport! Anna, being a citizen, had no difficulties. Impossible to get an American passport, not having my second papers, though I petitioned the Naturalization Service of the Department of Labor to expedite the matter as a special case. I tried the British Consulate, including Harold Cox, M.P. and Lady Constance Lytton, who received most politely coached77 “regrets” which they forwarded to me. I wrote to the Foreign Office as advised by the British Consul, only to have my letter forwarded to him by the direction of the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston.78 Mrs. Jones, of the W.S.P.U. with whom Anna and I were going to stay in London,79 wrote to the Foreign Office, and at the direction of the Earl of Balfour80 was sent the “copy of a leaflet explaining the procedure in the case of foreigners desirous of coming to the United Kingdom”. In the meanwhile our date of sailing, June 24th, drew nearer and I applied to the German Consulate where it was explained to me that I had ceased to be German, so could not have a German passport. At last through the influence of one of our directors of the American Birth Control League who was also going to the London Conference, and the services of an important firm of lawyers who sent someone with me to interview various individual at the American Passport Department and the English and German Consulates, I procured a German emergency passport and a visa to England. What was denied ‘coached’: couched. George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925), Conservative politician; he was Viceroy of India 1899–1905 and Foreign Secretary 1919–24. 79 At 11 Parkhurst Road, London N7. Ironically, this is next door to Holloway Prison, and at first the editors thought it was a ‘joke’ address which KM and Anna Lifschitz had given on the SS Aquitania passenger manifest as their UK residence. 80 Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848–1930), Conservative politician; he was Prime Minister 1902–5, and Foreign Secretary 1916–19. 77 78

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me as a Woman without a country, influence and pull produced for me. Such is DEMOCRACY! So far so good. My three Liberty Bonds which had been doing “bail” duty for radicals arrested for their political opinions, came in very useful now. Our trip on the Adriatic was delightful and I had learned by this time how to overcome seasickness. Every day everybody had to fill in all sorts of official papers, giving particulars as to the why and wherefore of our existence, so to speak. On the last day, Sunday, nearing Liverpool, and landing cards being issued, the young official looked helpless and flabbergasted on comparing the papers I had filled in, with his record of me, according to which I was to land at Liverpool, take train to Harwich and embark for Germany. He was mystified also at Anna and me giving the same London address to stay at. “But you are going to Germany,” he said. “No, I’m not. I’ve nothing to go to Germany for. I am going to London.” I said and explained the whole situation to him. He seemed relieved at my being “well known to the police” and the address at which I was to stay but a few doors from “Holloway”. So on promising to report to the police at Bow St. first thing on Monday morning, and call at the Home Office to extend my visa, he gave me a temporary one to London. What thrilling heartfelt joy to be on English soil once more, on a train going to London over a familiar old route! At Bow Street some of the police remembered and recognized me, were glad to see me again, and sympathetic over my predicament. At the Home Office, where I had given no details they were very official and abrupt, only granting me a visa to the day after the Conference, July 15th. However, through the kind intervention of Mr. Harold Cox, a friend of his at the Home Office extended it for another two months, though I only needed it for a “jolly old six weeks”, which I enjoyed to the full. How happy Anna and I were to meet Mrs. Sanger and hear of her wonderful trip to Japan and China, the interesting people she had met and the meetings she had held in spite of the opposition of the Japanese Government. I was particularly pleased, amused and gratified at her telling us that she had been asked out there if she were connected with the Birth Control Review which was being sold on Broadway, and a stewardess on one of the boats she travelled on told her how interested she had been to see the Review sold in New York, but had felt “ashamed to buy one”. I felt a great pride and satisfaction to be cooperating with such an indomitable little fighter as Margaret Sanger in doing something with such far-reaching results for the ultimate benefit of all humanity. So many Japanese and Chinese students and visitors, including a Police official from Tokio, had bought the Review, visited our office and bought all the books they could, to take back with them. The four days sessions at the Kingsway Hall, right opposite to the old W.S.P.U. Headquarters, were most instructive, inspiring and suggestive of a speedy, universal practice of Birth Control among the poor who need it most, though now eleven years later, it seems the wish was but father to the thought. The social

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side of the Conference was delightful. A reception given by Mr. and Mrs. H.G. Wells81 at their home, overlooking the Thames Embankment, a ride in charabancs to historic Penshurst in Kent, luncheon at the local hotel, tea at Mr. Harold Cox’s flower-surrounded cottage where Mrs. Cox82 received us on the return trip. Dinner at the Holborn Restaurant, where a toastmaster with a stentorian voice and perfect enunciation proposed the toasts. First “His Majesty, the King! – God bless him!” – then all the speakers in their turn, the most thrilling of which was “Mrs. Margaret Sanger!” And “believe you me”, we toasted everyone in real good wet wine, while America was hypocritically “dry”. Anna had a special thrill in seeing the King one evening. We were on our way home from a movie and saw two royal motor cars waiting at Daly’s Theatre. We joined the gathering crowd and little Anna was fortunate in creeping up to the side of a large “Bobbie”, whom she importuned to let her see the King as “we have none in America”. (Really having considerably more – commercial, crime, etc. kings than England.) Soon the King and some members of his family appeared and while they were walking to and entering the cars, the crowd cheered and shouted “Good night, George”, which was courteously acknowledged with smiles and waves of the hat by the King. Anna was deeply impressed. “If the Czar had gone about like that instead of surrounded by Cossacks driving the people back, he might still be on the throne,” she declared, comparing royal methods – noblesse oblige. Meeting Havelock Ellis83 was an event to Anna and me. As he was not going to attend the Conference, Mrs. Sanger let us carry her gifts from China to him at his home in Brixton. As for myself, I felt much like a ghost haunting the scenes of my “life”, but I revelled in meeting some of my old pals again. Maud Fussell, with whose friends we were staying, came to town and stayed a few days. Also Hylda Cross, who had the future so “organized”, that as soon as Birth Control was legal in the United States I was to come “home” and we would write the books on Woman Suffrage and other subjects on which we had decided to collaborate, before I left England. The Goldsacks and other friends were away on their summer holidays and I had but hasty visits with them. Dear old Mrs. Hillier and all her family, which her son Charles had increased by seven offspring, and which Margaret Sanger’s “Family Limitation” stopped right there. A copy was also sent to his eldest son in Canada, whose wife had just had her first baby, a girl, and they “didn’t want any more just yet”. They had another eight years later, when they wanted it and were prepared to take proper care of it in addition to the first. Speed the day when all parents will space and care for their children as intelligently. H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866–1946), a prolific writer and progressive thinker, and Amy Catherine ‘Jane’ Wells (née Robbins, 1895–1927). Wells had a relationship with Margaret Sanger. 82 Helen Cox (née Clegg, 1861–1930), an accountant. The Coxes lived at Kennards Cottage in Leigh, Kent and played a role in developing affordable housing in the village known as the ‘Garden Cottages.’ 83 Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), the British sexologist, progressive thinker and social reformer. He had a short affair with Sanger in 1915 and remained a close friend and influential mentor. 81

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On August 12th Anna and I reluctantly bade farewell to London and England, returning to America on the Aquitania.

Chapter 71 Soon after I “broke out” in a new spot, Grand Central Station, corner of 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, a most fertile and prosperous field, also battlefield with police and others. So many Bostonians deplored not being able to buy the Review in Boston, while I deplored their “Tea Party” ancestors having dumpt the revolutionary spirit into the harbor along with the tea, but told them they could subscribe to the Review and get it by mail. Speaking of Boston, one night during the war a gentleman slightly the worse for drink, created quite a scene by saying he was from the Department of Justice and objected to my spreading “German propaganda”. Luckily two friendly policemen came along, examined the badge the man flashed and found he was a magistrate from “dry” Massachusetts. It is surprising how many people read it as “British Control”, and objected to it. Some just snorted “British Control” as they passed. Others came up saying “We don’t want British Control here”, whereupon I explained. Even an Army officer bought it to “see what this British Control is about”. I let him go to discover his mistake himself. In September I was summoned to appear with character witnesses before a Special Examiner to prepare for the receipt of my Citizenship Papers. Miss Nan Higgins, a Bible student, Mrs. Sanger’s sister, and Anna Lifshitz, being able, of those who had known me five years, to spare the time to accompany me, gave me quite a good character. After answering the Examiner’s usual questions satisfactorily he asked, “Have you had any trouble with the police since you came to this country?” “Plenty!” I replied, and forthwith explained once more. He asked to be supplied with all the data on my arrests, etc. I took him all the Birth Control Reviews in which articles of my experiences of selling in the street, and other references to me appeared, also the minutes of cases which Mr. Jonah J. Goldstein was kind enough to supply. Also the copy of “The Suffragist” and “The Story of the Woman’s Party” by Inez Haynes Irwin,84 in which reference was made to my arrest in Washington. In due time I was notified that I might call for the material, it being no longer needed. The Reviews did good work again, for the Examiner asked if he might keep them to take home to his wife, as she was interested in the subject. On October 6th I appeared before the County Clerk James A. Donegan, at the Supreme Court. Mrs. Frances B. Ackermann, our Treasurer, and Mrs. Anne Kennedy, our Executive Secretary, were my witnesses. My case was left till the last when the Court was cleared of all but officials, and the ceremony of making Inez Haynes Irwin (1873–1970), a prolific writer, journalist, feminist and active suffragist. The Story of the Women’s Party was published in 1921.

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me a full­-blown American citizen developed into a three-to-one Birth Control debate. Mr. Donegan was strongly prejudiced and at first declined to grant me citizenship unless I gave up my Birth Control work. My witnesses and I pleaded, that would merely deprive me of my livelihood, but not prevent Birth Control from spreading. He wanted to know particulars of my work: was I a speaker? did I address meetings? I was and did neither. I minimised my work to what anyone might do in an office except stenography.85 I forgot about selling the Review, which was just as well, for Mr. Donegan was quite excited enough. He paraded all the stock objections of the prejudiced and ignorant on the subject, especially the one of “all the young girls taking advantage of it”, which were all answered and annihilated by us. At last he relented and told me to take the oath. That part of the proceeding was most reassuring and elevating compared to what had gone before. The old Irishman by the flag gripped my hand in its folds, and in a beautiful rich brogue said “Good luck to ye, Miss Marion.” He had heard all the argument and was evidently “on my side”. And so I left the Supreme Court, the proud possessor of a certificate of naturalization.86 A few months later I was selling the Review at Grand Central when a furious voice fell on my ears. “I thought you had promised me not to do this?” I looked up and realized that I was facing Mr. Donegan. I stood perfectly dense and said, “The Birth Control Review was never mentioned,” and repeated it when he said, “I’ll get your citizenship revoked.” As he went away, a man, evidently of some importance judging from his appearance, came up and asked, “Who was that speaking to you in such a manner?” When I had finished telling my story he said, “Revoke your citizenship, will he? We’ll see about that.” He evidently did, for I heard nothing more from Mr. Donegan and I am still an American citizen. The following summer I tried Coney Island and soon found that Sunday and holidays were the best for business. Many people hailed me, “Hello, Macy’s”, “Hello World Building”, while to others the Review was new and strange, but welcome. So many foreigners, speaking very broken English but understanding the term – birth control – were glad to get it. The police were mostly friendly and sympathetic, as “uptown”, but some were just as officious and threatening and, though I was never actually arrested, I often had to go to the Police Station just round the corner from Surf Avenue to explain the legality of my work to the man at the desk or the Captain if he was there, and ask them to refrain their men from interfering. In Coney Island with its squirming masses of all sorts and conditions of humanity, its smells, noise and music, Dante’s Inferno has a first class rival. In January 1925 we had our Third Annual Meeting and all reports from the different departments highly satisfactory. Mrs. Sanger complimented and encouraged me by characterizing the street sales as “The greatest single effort for Birth Control carried on throughout the years, and an effort that made for the League invaluable American and foreign contact”. 16,000 Reviews had been sold on the In the 1922 census, KM is described as an office worker. 6 October 1922.

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street during the previous year, my own sales alone having increased by 600 over earlier years. Since it was considered “courageous” to sell the Review I want to give credit to others not yet mentioned, who sold occasionally, like the two medical students, Pedro Fernandez and his brother, Mr. Charles Smith, who later became the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism,87 Mrs. Green, Mrs. Louise Hyde, Mrs. Orleans, and Miss Mount Clemons, the latter selling for more than a year.

Chapter 72 In March from the 25th to the 31st we held the Sixth International NeoMalthusian and Birth Control Conference at the Hotel McAlpin, a most impressive and learned affair which gave the Birth Control Movement a tremendous impetus. Mrs. Sanger invited me to make a little speech at the dinner and tell the guests some of my selling experiences. I also mentioned the slums of Merry England which first opened my eyes to the necessity of birth control. At the last session I had a most pleasant surprise when in addition to Mrs. Sanger and Mrs. Anne Kennedy I was presented with a bouquet by Dr. Charles V. Drysdale,88 President of the Neo­Malthusian League of England. Our office and staff had grown too. We had moved to the floor below and gradually increased from one to four rooms, with an office force of twelve, not counting executives. I always welcomed additional workers though hated to see them leave, either of their own initiative or the slackening of work. On May 13th – lucky day – Miss Grace Feeney, a volunteer who often helped with others, when we worked overtime in the office, to send out thousands of circulars, came to me at Grand Central with the cheerful news that she and her sister, Win, were sailing for England on June 18th, tourist, on the Pittsburgh. “Why don’t you come along?” said she. “How can I?” said I. “Why can’t you?” said she. “No money,” said I. “Will you come if I pay your fare both ways?” said she. “Will a duck swim?” said I. “That settles it,” said she, and it did. The office rejoiced at my good fortune and everybody “chipped in” for pocket money. Mrs. Sanger who was always generous, with $50.00, the Board with extra vacation money and so forth up to $300.00. This time I got an American passport. We landed in Plymouth Harbor at daybreak, watching the coastline and tiny Charles Lee Smith (1887–1964), the founder of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism in 1925, was a theology (not medical) student. His belief in eugenics led him to advocate anti-Semitism and white supremacy. No information is available on his ‘brother’ Pedro Fernandez. 88 Charles Vickery Drysdale (1874–1961), British electrical engineer and social reformer. His mother, Alice Vickery (1844–1929), was one of the first women in England to qualify as a doctor, the first British woman to qualify as a  chemist  and  pharmacist, and was a campaigner for women’s rights and ‘free-love’. Drysdale founded his first birth control clinic in London in 1921 and was a co-founder of the Family Planning Association in 1930. 87

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villages becoming more and more distinct. What memories! – and the fulfilment of “Peregrination”. In London we stayed with Mrs. Jones and her daughter Janet with whom Anna and I had stayed.89 Grace and Win could only remain two weeks, which were crowded with sightseeing, taking in the trip to Shakespeare’s country, Warwick, Kenilworth and Leamington, also a boat trip from Richmond to Hampton Court, a tea at the Emmy Davison Lodge, where Alice Green had invited some of the Militants to meet the American visitors, as she had also done when Anna was over with me. We also spent an afternoon listening to a debate in the House of Commons. Looking down from the gallery on Lady Astor’s hat, I felt a great thrill of pride to have been one of the women who had forced open the doors for her and others. After bidding my two most appreciative fellow sightseers bon voyage home, I visited Hylda Cross at her home in Belper, Derbyshire, where her family had moved to. It was a happy reunion, having met them all before I went to America. Next Hylda, her younger sister, Renée and I went to Curry Mallett in Somerset where Hylda had spent much of her childhood while studying music under the organist Harold Geboult F.R.C.O. of St Mary’s Church in Taunton. Then on to Churston, Devonshire, from whence we visited Torquay, Totness, Exeter, Brixham, Dartmouth, with a boat trip up the river Dart; and then charming places off the beaten track. It was delightful, and Hylda, who knew every step of the vicinity and its history, was most entertaining. I lost no opportunity of spreading birth control propaganda wherever I went. I carried Neo-Malthusian leaflets which I introduced in conversations with strangers, and left about in places where they were sure of being found, such as the tool boxes of workmen renovating some of the churches that I visited with Hylda, also in Gloucester Cathedral which I visited later. I left Hylda to continue her holiday while I went to spend the rest of mine with another dear, faithful friend, Maud Fussell, who had settled down in the country at the foot of the Forest of Dean, near Ross on Wye. What a delightful, old-world spot with its quaint red sandstone Market Hall built in the reign of Charles II. And the picturesque Wye Valley through which Maud drove in her tiny “Trojan” visiting Symonds Yat and Tintern Abbey. At the end of my visit Maud “trojaned” me to London one Sunday, passing through the Cotswolds, getting a glimpse of Cheltenham in the valley, through Oxford and Harrow on the Hill, at which latter we surprised some more good and faithful friends, Dolly Rowe, her mother and sister, Mollie, by dropping in at tea time. On to London and Mrs. Jones and the following Wednesday, August 26th, Tilbury Docks and the “Pittsburgh” home, having a cabin all to myself. It was just as thrilling and exciting to meet all my New York friends again in the office and on the street. “The Outpost” some called me, while Mrs. Sanger symbolized me the “Rock of Gibraltar”. And a rock one had to be for the waves of all evil, angry, wrong, antagonistic, destructive anti-birth control thoughts and words to dash themselves to pieces upon! Again, KM gives the Jones’s address, 11 Parkhurst Road, London N7, as her United Kingdom address in the passenger manifest. It has not been possible to identify the Jones family.

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My friends’ reception on the street and future development can best be described by quoting from the Review, beginning with a short story by myself and an editorial by Mrs. Sanger in the November number. “Most gratifying and encouraging is the welcome given me by my friends on the street, the friends of Birth Control, on my resumption of selling the Review after three months vacation. It is especially encouraging to find strangers who have previously passed me by, apparently unconscious of my existence, expressing their pleasure at seeing me ‘back on the job’. They had missed me and the Review, and are glad of the renewed opportunity of buying the Review and learning that Birth Control means quality rather than quantity in the human race, that it means giving contraceptive instruction to all married people, especially the disease-stricken and paupers who are now merely producing useless burdens to the community, that it means giving all parents the right and opportunity to limit their family according to their health and the size of their income. “Many confess that they were ashamed to speak to me before, but have at last plucked up courage to do so. My sale of 1,000 copies in four weeks speaks louder than words, and proves that people are awakening more and more to the realization that Birth Control is the only ‘Ark’ that will preserve humanity from the deluge of the superfluous, unwanted and unfit.” The Editorial by Mrs. Sanger: “There are thousands of women whose lives are the expression of this silent, inarticulate bravery, women who would not know what you were talking about if you praised their indomitable courage. This type of courage, indomitable, invincible, elemental, is incarnate in our own Kitty Marion. For years, in point of fact ever since we have been publishing this Review, she has sold it on the streets of New York. Firmly planted and holding aloft our printed challenge to prejudice as a living statue of liberty, promise of the proximate liberation of suffering womankind. “Standing there immutable, untiring and sure of herself and her conviction in the endless changing eddies and currents of human traffic in over-crowded thoroughfares, the object of ill-concealed curiosity, at times bitterly denounced by the enemies of Birth Control, Kitty Marion has held aloft with telling dramatic gesture the challenge of Birth Control. She has been a beacon light for lost mothers seeking in desperation some way out of the labyrinth of torture to which the laws and the prejudices of legislators have subjected them. “Her absence has made us appreciate more sharply than ever before the significant and finely poised heroism of Kitty Marion. For three summer months she has been away, her vacation taking her to England where, in the militant suffrage movement she has served so valuable an apprenticeship. But now the mothers passing in the hurried eddying tides of Broadway traffic are again seeking her out. They are telling their neighbours and friends of the reappearance of the brave, indomitable torchbearer again at her various posts. And we who have during these past months missed Kitty Marion welcome her return and greet her as a true heroine of the Birth Control movement.”

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Chapter 73 The following editorial from January 1926 issue speaks for itself. “Police interference in New York is not, it seems a thing of the past. On December 10th Nathaniel Freier, who shares with Kitty Marion the difficult task of selling the Birth Control Review on the streets, was hauled to court on a technical charge of obstructing traffic and held in $500 bail for trial. At the trial the case was summarily dismissed for lack of evidence, but this did not prevent Mr. Freier from much personal inconvenience, which included spending several hours in a cell. This is not the first time he has been annoyed by the police. He is a member of the American Birth Control League, a business man who five years ago undertook street selling after business hours because he believed that Birth Control would save other women from death in childbirth, which had been his wife’s fate. For more than a year he has shown a quiet courage and persistency in the face of persecution. He has been taken to court before but this has not deterred him from bringing the Review and the cause of Birth Control to the attention of the ‘man in the street’. “This arrest brings up the question of the justification of street selling of the Review. Friends of Birth Control are divided about this. Those who are in New York and close to the work have long felt that the contact with the man and the woman in the street was a very real thing and have hesitated to consider discontinuing street selling since newsstands are closed to us. The police also seem to think that this is an effective method of propaganda – else why the nagging and the arrests? On the other hand the League has other and very influential contacts now which it did not have when street selling was begun, and to many of these, especially in the medical and other sciences, street selling is obnoxious. “Has our position changed? Shall we now be able with the strong support of thinking people and scientists, to accomplish our purpose of giving Birth Control to the man and woman in the street without enlisting their aid by street selling? We should like to start discussion of this question and we urge you as readers to give your opinion. The Review is your forum for the discussion of the problems of Birth Control. Please write the editor how you feel on this matter of policy.” I should mention here that certain new members elected to the Board during the previous year objected to the street sales, and agitated in Board meetings to have them discontinued, in spite of the millions of passersby becoming acquainted with the term “Birth Control”, thousands buying the Review who otherwise would not know of its existence, new subscriptions, if only for a year, book sales, new memberships to the League and patients to the Clinical Research Bureau,90 which Mrs. Sanger had opened in charge of physicians and where women could be legally instructed on preventing conception, for health reasons. The good to the masses accruing from the street sales was evidently of less importance than The Bureau opened on 2 January 1923 and, unlike Sanger’s first clinic, which was run – ­illegally – by nurses, it was staffed by physicians. It became the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in 1928.

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the susceptibilities of the “more influential classes who seem to abhor the selling of the Review on the street which they frequent”. However, on to the editorial in the February number. “We publish this month three letters on the problem of street selling of the Birth Control Review. Two are strongly in favor, one opposed; a fourth too long to print, this month is divided in its opinion. The writer so well recognizes the force of the arguments on both sides and the importance to the movement of the two classes – those who can only be reached on the street and those to whom street selling is obnoxious – that he even suggests two magazines, one for the People and one for the Intelligentsia; one boldly displaying Birth Control on the cover, the other bearing some less controversial and perhaps broader title. The plan is not exactly feasible, but it shows how strong are the arguments on both sides. “In this connection it is interesting to note that figures of the Clinical Research Department of the league show that somewhere around 15 per cent of the cases that come to the department come through ‘seeing the lady on the street’. A substantial proportion – the figures have never been kept – join the League for the same reason. However, there are the 85 per cent, who come to the Clinical Research Department from other sources and the large numbers who join the League for other reasons. We should like to hear more from our readers, on both sides of this question. Contributors are asked to state whether they are willing to have their name used.” And on91 in the March number. “Letters on the subject of street selling are still coming in and here is an opinion which is representative of the majority. The letter is specially interesting because it is from Mrs. Walter Timme,92 Chairman of the Congressional Committee of the American Birth Control League. ‘Don’t give it up. In my opinion it is extremely valuable advertising and certainly it enlightens many women who have no other means of knowing that the great discussion of the necessity of Birth Control is on. Then too, the man in the street will become so familiar with the Birth Control Review that he will forget to shudder and feel annoyed, and will begin to think. Don’t give up.” “So far the ‘yeas’ are in the large majority and we should appreciate contributions from the other side. The subject is important; please do not think that it is not worthwhile to express your opinion.” The other side did not respond except through “boring from within” the Board. Through the Review being on the street, references were made to it in stage plays and pictures. Also newspapers carried paragraph and cartoons, mostly facetious and insulting to the sellers. Still it was unconscious propaganda, drawing attention to birth control…. ‘on’: one. Ida Helen Haar Timme (1875–1940), suffragette, birth control and social reformer; she was the wife of Dr. Walter Timme, an eminent endocrinologist and neurologist, himself an active social reformer.

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Stories and paragraphs on my experiences appeared continually in the Review, adding a touch of humor, Irish and otherwise. St Patrick’s Parade days were always good for business, so many more Irish being out then. “You got the Pope’s curse all right selling that,” said a young Irishman in full parade regalia. “I have God’s blessing too, which is far more important to me,” I laughed back at him. “Oh! you got the right dope,” he went on; “I used to belong to the Church but eight years ago my eyes were opened. That bunch that opposes this is the cause of all our trouble on earth, they want people to have plenty of babies, but don’t care a darn what becomes of ‘em.” Can you imagine me being a guest at a concert in a Convent somewhere up on the East Side? I was. A friend of mine who took part in the entertainment begged me to accompany her to “give her courage”. Disguised as a “lady in evening dress” I don’t think the Mother Superior and nuns recognized me, though many of them had passed me quite often at Grand Central. My friend used her title, “Baroness” on this occasion, and the Mother Superior was most sweet and attentive to the Baroness’ “friend”, while the former was on the stage. Wasn’t I good? Never mentioned birth control once, and had a very enjoyable evening.

Chapter 74 On August 26th I was arrested once more. “You can’t stand there selling that, have you got a permit?” said the policeman. I replied that there is no permit needed, if you will call up your Chief Inspector Lahey he will tell you so. Since Chief Inspector Lahey had held a hearing at Police Headquarters on the Town Hall raid he had become quite friendly and advised us to call his office in case of interference. This policeman would not listen to reason but insisted on my going to the station. He added “obstructing traffic” to the charge, and Mr. J. J. Goldstein once more proved that I needed no licence, and I proved that I did not obstruct traffic any more than the hydrant beside which I stood. – “Not guilty. Discharged.” Nearly a year later, June 18th, it happened again. As the editorial in the August 1927 number has it: “Kitty Marion’s recent arrest at the Grand Central Station for obstructing traffic came almost a year after her last arrest on the ground of selling without a licence. Both cases were promptly dismissed by the court, as the police who know the law must have been aware they would be, and the conclusion is forced upon us that the arrests were meant merely as annoyances, with the hope of wearing her down and driving her off the streets. The precinct station complained that it was in receipt of many letters asking to have the sale of the Review at the Grand Central stopped. Since the law is on Miss Marion’s side the police are hard pressed to satisfy these critics and they hope by annoyance to accomplish what they cannot by law. That this is their hope is borne out by the fact that several weeks before the arrest a policeman ordered her off the curb and into the building line and shortly after this a private policeman of the Grand Central ordered her off the building line. The court has found that she does not obstruct traffic and

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the game of battledore with a human shuttlecock being put a stop to, it is hard to imagine what new torment can be devised in the attempt to bring to an end the activities of one whose fortitude has been tested, not by a single act of courage but by calm persistence in the face of ten years’ persecution. In these days when both scientists and the thinking general public are all in support of Birth Control, Kitty Marion remains the last of our supporters to be martyrized.” Editorial in the following number. “A call from Police headquarters and an apology by representatives of the City Police Department ended the incident of Kitty Marion’s recent arrest. Does it, however, end the constant annoyance of arrest after arrest? The same call with apologies was made, it may be remembered, after her arrest last summer. Are precinct policemen absolutely anarchistic? Are they free to put their department in the embarrassing position of having to apologize time and again for arrests made contrary to orders and for no breach of the Law?” This was my ninth and last arrest, though unpleasant arguments continued, but were settled by my giving the policeman the minutes of the last two cases to read, in which the arresting officers did not appear heroic. Early in October 1928 fate dealt me the cruelest blow. I received a letter from Hylda Cross telling me of her forthcoming visit to Curry Mallet, to play the organ at a school chum’s wedding; also how she made her first birth control speech from a soapbox in the Market Place at Derby, where she had so often spoken on Woman Suffrage and Labor. A week later a letter from her mother told me that the night express on which Hylda travelled was wrecked, caught on fire and Hylda “burnt to a cinder” among 14 others.93 An irreplaceable loss to all who knew her. Early the following year Mrs. Sanger retired from the League leaving Mrs. F. Robertson Jones to succeed her as president.94 A few days later I happened to meet Mrs. Sanger near her Clinical Research Bureau on West 15th Street. Apropos of Mrs. Jones’ attitude on street selling, I remarked, “I’d better go and look for a job”, but Mrs. Sanger said “Don’t do that; continue to sell the Review, it’s the only advertising they’ve got.” Incidentally it still advertised the Clinic too, for I placed a card with its address in each copy of the Review, which I heard Mrs. Jones disapproved, though she said nothing to me. In December I read in the press that the unveiling of Mrs. Pankhurst’s statue to which I had received a preliminary invitation was to take place on March 6th, 1930. Having been through so much of the “fight” I felt I was entitled to my part in this festive occasion and decided to go, making it my next year’s vacation The ‘Charfield’ train crash, which involved three trains and fourteen fatalities, was extensively reported in October 1928. Hylda Cross was travelling with her fiancé, Mr. Holman Brooke, who survived. No remains were recovered. 94 Sanger resigned from the American Birth Control League (ABCL), writing to Juliet Rublee that ‘The old spirit has gone’, and that the League of Women Voters’ spirit now reigned. Eleanor Dwight Jones (Mrs F. Robertson Jones, n.d.) was president of the ABCL until 1934. She represented the view that the ‘cause’ had been won and that therefore there was no need for the league to court controversy. 93

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at the same time. I knew my usual Christmas checks from Mrs. Sanger, Mrs. Ackermann and others in addition to what I could save myself, would defray my expenses to London and back. In January I reserved a cabin on the “Ascania” which sailed on February 22nd and before I could complete arrangements sufficiently to discuss the matter with Mrs. Jones, her Board, having heard of my intention of going, forestalled me with voting for the discontinuance of street selling, and notified me of the fact in a letter on January 23rd: “My dear Kitty Marion: At the last meeting of the Board of Directors of the American Birth Control League, the Board again discussed the question of street-selling of the Birth Control Review. As you know, with the progress of the movement the character of the Review was necessarily changed considerably. It has become more scientific and historical and less a propaganda magazine, and consequently less suitable for street selling, and many of our friends have urged a discontinuance of this method of advertising our cause. Knowing that you are intending this spring to make a visit to England, the Board felt that it was necessary to make a decision on this question. “After a careful consideration of the matter, I was instructed by the Board to write you saying that it is the decision of the Board that the sale of the Review in streets will be discontinued when you leave and will not be resumed. “The Board is fully conscious of all that you have done to help forward the Birth Control movement by your courage through good repute and evil repute, through annoyance, persecutions and threats of jail, and in recognition of your work it voted to make you a gift of $500 to be presented to you at a luncheon – or similar function – to be held in your honor before you sail. Of the time and place of this presentation, you will, of course, be fully informed later. “May I add my personal tribute to your splendid work, and my very best wishes for a happy vacation? Yours cordially (signed) Annie G. Porritt.”95 It fell upon me with a sickening thud, which entirely upset my calculations. I had hoped that when broaching the subject to Mrs. Jones she would be agreeable to my taking a couple of months off and return to continue selling, failing which I hoped to make arrangements to work with Mrs. Sanger on my return. I had absolute faith in my always being “in work” as long as Mrs. Sanger and Birth Control were on the earth, especially since on several occasions when discussing and expressing her appreciation of the good work different individuals were doing, she had particularly mentioned Anna and me. “Anna and Kitty shall never want while I have a crust to share with them”, and all who heard her felt she meant it. Still, much as I should have liked to work on her side of the movement I knew I could serve her and the cause best by advertising them through the Review on the street. And now that link with the masses was due to be broken, the average 10,000 copies a year and all accruing from their circulation in new contacts, Annie Gertrude Porritt (née Webb, 1861–1932), a British-born American suffragist and author of a number of books on the militant suffrage movement in England. She was Secretary to the ABCL from the early 1920s until her death in a car crash in 1932.

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members, patients, book sales, to be discontinued, to say nothing of depriving me of a livelihood, in the face of the approaching “depression” too. I felt indignant at being offered a “sop” of $500 and a luncheon. I had not expected either or anything and intended to decline both, but Anna and all my other friends said “Don’t be a fool, take it!” “They want to get some publicity for themselves. let them have it.” “They’ll think you very rude and ungracious if you don’t”, and so forth. And so, with doubts as to whether it is better to be true to oneself or “gracious” to others, I accepted the invitation, taking the responsibility for “quitting” in the following letter: “My dear Mrs. Porritt: Your letter of January 23rd came as a pleasant surprise and great shock to me, a sort of double-edged sword, which gave the home-thrust to my parting from the Birth Control Review. “For many months I have felt a change looming – in fact hoped for it myself, since the situation has changed considerably during the last thirteen years. I am very tired, do not seem to have the same resistance against weather conditions as formerly; sales were decreasing, and when I read in the press that they were going to unveil Mrs. Pankhurst’s statue in London on March 6, I decided to make the break by attending the ceremony. I intended to notify the Board of Directors of my leaving for good almost at the last moment, and quietly steal away, but they have quite upset my calculations, according to your letter. “It is awfully good of the Board to want to recognize my efforts, but the vision of a luncheon and presentation, with my trying to make a suitable reply, fairly gave me nervous prostration, and my first impulse was to decline their generous offer, but on second thoughts, and regaining my composure somewhat, I shall feel pleased and honored to accept their kind invitation in the spirit in which it was made. “With deep appreciation of the Board’s and your own tribute to me, and best wishes for the future success of the American Birth Control League and the Birth Control Review, I remain Yours very sincerely, Kitty Marion.” So with much newspaper publicity and fearful, libelous flashlight pictures, the luncheon took place at the Town Hall Club on February 11th. Lovely, kind farewell-and return letters came from friends and strangers, some with financial contributions. Mrs. Sanger, who was in California during all this “farewelling”, sent $100, “Half to go and half to come back with”, and beautifully worded letters as only she can write. She was more than indignant and incensed at the League “ousting” me. “It’s goodbye to the vigor of the League. ---- You have been too ‘all-giving’ of your very soul and all unselfish qualities to ever be without a place where your qualities count, ---- “Always count me as your friend, blessed dear. Lovingly, Margaret Sanger.” All my nearest and dearest friends and fellow-workers gave me farewell parties and gifts, and on February 22nd bade me God-speed and a happy return. Rough seas and fog delayed the “Ascania” two days but I reached London the day before the unveiling and was met at “Paddington” by Kittie Goldsack, whose guest I was to be, and her sister Ethel Ford (Mrs. Saker). What joy to be able to spend an

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indefinite period with dear old pals, including Mary Cochrane,96 who had taken up the noble profession of nursing, was decorated by the King for bravery during air raids in the war, and was now Matron at Charing Cross Hospital. And there never was a better matron anywhere!

Chapter 75 The Unveiling, how can I describe it? Meeting the “Girls of the old brigade!!!”, the changed attitude in the police who were most deferential to the “women voters”. Even the weather was in harmony with the occasion, sunny and warm just for the day. The ceremony of unveiling Mrs. Pankhurst’s Statue by Mr. Stanley Baldwin,97 who as Prime Minister had signed the Woman Suffrage Bill, was most impressive. Music was supplied by the Metropolitan Police Band, Dame Ethel Smyth, looking gorgeous and imposing in her Doctor of Music robes, conducting her own “March of the Women”, raised her baton, saying, “Well, gentlemen, you have ‘conducted’ me a few times, now I am going to conduct you.” At night there was a dinner given in honor of Mrs. E.K. Marshall through whose efforts and influence the Statue was made, and placed in the gardens near the House of Lords. When I arrived at the dinner, I was placed at the speakers’ table at Mrs. Marshall’s right. I had not anticipated such honor and felt proud as a peacock with his tail spread, especially when I caught sight of Miss Pine, “Piney”, who with Mrs. Pankhurst had “cut me dead” in New York. She was at the other end of a long table placed at right angles to the speakers. We had not met in the crowd at the Unveiling and she was the most surprised woman I ever saw when the chairman, Mr. F.L. Pethick Lawrence, M.P., announced me to say a few words. I felt thrilled and elated with the spirit of the occasion and while speaking, smilingly watched “Piney” as she gazed at me open-eyed, and referred to Mrs. Drummond at her right, who nodded and smiled, for we had met in the morning. I thoroughly enjoyed the little by-play of which the guests were unconscious, while I referred to Mrs. Pankhurst and the old days, lapsing into my work with Margaret Sanger, whom many people present knew and applauded. After the meeting I made my way to “Piney”, who was so pleased to see me that I couldn’t “rub it in”. We met again in June at the dedication of the Headstone on Mrs. Pankhurst’s grave in Brompton Cemetery, and adjourned for tea afterwards with several others, when “Piney” told me of the hard times Mrs. Pankhurst had experienced in America. An offer had been made her by certain anti-British interests to speak for the Sinn Fein, with financial remuneration which would Mary Smallwood Cochrane (c. 1880–1965), Matron of Charing Cross Hospital 1924–43. In the 1911 census, Mary Cochrane is still recorded as an actress. 97 The bronze statue was sculpted by Arthur George Walker, RA (1869–1939), and unveiled on 6 March 1930 by Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947), Conservative politician, Prime Minister 1923–29 and 1935–37. 96

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have placed her on “easy street” for life. Of course she declined, after which she could get no other speaking engagement in America, and supported herself by teaching elocution until, through meeting an official of the Canadian Government she procured a position on the Board of Health in Toronto. In Brompton Cemetery I also visited the grave of my dear old friend and standby Mrs. Hillier, who had passed on since my last visit to England. Her daughter, Nellie, met and took me to it before the Dedication ceremony. Two quiet, restful weeks, with breakfast in bed, I spent with Hylda Cross’s family in Belper, every moment expecting Hylda to break in with one of her mirth-provoking sallies or having her produce “tripe” on the piano. Three months I spent at “The Old Vicarage” a rambling, Jacobean house, over three hundred years old, in Corhampton, Hampshire, with Miss Roodhouse,98 an old friend of one of my suffrage chums. I intended to start writing my autobiography here, but found too many distractions in the lovely, old, real English garden with a riot of flowers, the surrounding country and quaint villages, the tiny church, like a watch-alarm, one of the three or four left in England, built by the Saxons, with some of the original wall and woodwork intact, which stand right opposite the “Old Vicarage” with a gnarled yew tree over 1000 years old overshadowing the church; rambles with the two “Bedlingtons”, Jane and her son Sandy, bus rides to old-world Winchester, the first Capital of England, Southampton, Portsmouth, Southsea, Brighton and Hastings, visiting friends at the two latter. At Southsea I found what had been sand dunes along the sea in my young days, transformed into beautiful, well-kept, well-weeded, flower-beds and rockeries. Why couldn’t some medical “gardeners” do the same with the human slums, I wondered. The same thoughts struck me when I saw the splendid flowers in St. James and Hyde Parks, London. Corhampton’s population was but 92, but birth control leaflets were passed on by natives to friends who needed them in other parts of the country, including parts of London. My hostess, a Roman Catholic, who had been a gynecological nurse, thoroughly believed in birth control after her work on Dogs Island,99 and other East End vicinities. On my way from London to Corhampton I shared a compartment with another lady, and in conversation we touched on politics and the general state of affairs the world over, and she expressed her fear of the socialists “dragging everyone down to their level”. “Well,” I said, “I know very little about it but my idea of socialism is, lifting everyone up to the highest standard. The royal standard is good enough for me.” “Yes,” she agreed, “If we could accomplish that it would be fine.” Then she sort of gathered herself together as if to shock and devastate me with her next speech, and I felt instinctively what was coming. “What this world Mary Ada Roodhouse (1867–1932) was a ‘gynaecological nurse’ or midwife in the East End of London. 99 The Isle of Dogs, an area of East London within one of the largest meanders of the River Thames (thus not an island), characterised by docklands and slum housing. 98

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needs more than anything is birth control.” “Shake,” I said, holding my hand out, “I’ve stood on the streets of New York for the last 13 years” --- “Oh, I know who you are,” she cut me short. “I read about you in the papers from home.” She was an American, living in England and had met Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Sanger. What a talkfest we had. All too soon we reached Corhampton where we parted. From there I went to stay with Maud Fussell who had married since my previous visit. During the war she had succumbed to the “back to the land” slogan and had bought a few acres on which to grow fruit and vegetables. And how she loved the digging and donkey work! – she who had never soiled her hands before. Bert Parker, a neighbor whose land adjoined hers was similarly bitten, so they joined forces and are perfectly happy, conjuring all sorts of wonderful things from the soil. I came just in time to be useful. According to law in the vicinity, to protect the farmers’ next year’s crop, weeds have to be destroyed before they seed themselves. That was my job, birth control the weeds. They grow thick and fast, the bracken towering above me on some uncultivated land and along the hedges. With a sickle I cut them, raked them together and burnt them. What back-breaking, hard work, but what a satisfaction to know that millions of weeds were prevented from being born next year!

Chapter 76 My plans for the future were uncertain. Grace Feeney was in Ireland at the time and intended to rent a cottage for a year, where I was to join her and write my book, but the weather was so wet and cold there in August that she was glad to return to America and steam heat. From New York I received the news that Anna was leaving Mrs. Sanger to take a position in Los Angeles, a position which I knew, would not have been offered to Anna without Mrs. Sanger’s consent. I was mystified considering how often she had sung Anna’s praises to me. “What shall I do if Anna ever leaves me?” and I assured her that Anna never would, being much too loyal and devoted to her and the work. Anna, who had been in closest touch with her through all her fights since 1917, who had taken care of all her correspondence, ‘phone calls, visitors to the office; Anna who knew more of the background of the movement, next to Mrs. Sanger, than anyone else; Anna to whom everyone referred if needing data that perhaps no one in the office but she and Mrs. Sanger knew; Anna, the “willing horse” who worked all hours of the night as well as day; who was shy, unassuming and kept herself in the background; Anna who asked nothing better of life than to devote it to Margaret Sanger and Birth Control, as she had for nearly fourteen years; Anna, whose love, loyalty, devotion, integrity, ability and work had become an epic to all who knew her. “M.S.” (as we called Mrs. Sanger) “will never let Anna go,” I said to myself, until I heard from Anna herself that she was indeed going. Early in August Mrs. Sanger came to London on her way to a Conference in Zurich and invited me to see her, which, as always, I was delighted to do. She was apparently quite ­concerned over

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Anna leaving her, but decided that it was for Anna’s own good and she must bear the inevitable. She advised me not to return to America at present as conditions there were very bad, evidently much worse than I had gathered from the press, and there would be no work for me in her office. She suggested I should stay in London and work with the B.C. International Information Centre,100 of which she was the President and Edith How-Martyn,101 a famous Suffragette, the Director. Nothing would please me better and it was decided that I should start at the beginning of October, at a salary of £3 per week for three months only unless at the end of that period funds warranted my continuing. M.S. gave me £10 -- towards expenses, as my “little fortune” was diminishing. Early in September, after a delightful six weeks with Maud and Bert, I came to London, settled down in a “combined palace” near 9 Parliament Mansions, S.W.1, the B.C.I.I.C. headquarters and commenced work right away by distributing leaflets which gave the addresses of Birth Control clinics in different parts of London, among women in slums. I explained to them to ask for information at their own government welfare centres first. Failing to get it there, to go to the clinic nearest to them. The surprise of most of the women when they heard of prevention instead of abortion, was an eye-opener. I also visited the clinics and became acquainted with the doctors and nurses. As Mrs. How-Martyn and Miss Olive M. Johnson,102 B.A. the secretary who had worked with Dr. Drysdale and the Neo-Malthusian League for many years, were occupied by other activities most of the morning, I took care of the office until the latter arrived. I “cleaned up” the files, the bookshelves and so forth. The Indian Conference then being held brought many visitors to us, physicians in attendance on their Maharajahs, and others, also visitors from America, all of whom I conducted to the clinics. I helped to distribute leaflets in the Shoreditch Health Exhibition at the conclusion of which I covered the slums in the vicinity. I also visited the Caledonian Market and vicinity, North Kensington, Harrow Road, Islington, Finsbury, Whitechapel, Bow, Old Ford, Ilford, Barking, East Ham, Lambeth Road, Vauxhall, Waterloo, Burnt Oak, and other parts several times, paying my own fares. At Dr. Marie Stope’s Clinic at 108 Whitfield Street I received a most flattering reception from one of her secretaries, Mrs. Elizabeth Bootle, to whom my appearance in the flesh was “like a wonderful dream come true”. She remembered seeing me “on the halls” when she was quite a youngster and a great admirer of mine. Then she followed me in the papers through the Suffrage movement, then I turned up in the Birth Control Review and at last here I was myself. It was “wonderful!” It was, and most stimulating to me. The Birth Control International Information Centre  was established by Margaret Sanger and Edith How-Martyn in 1929 to enable the world-wide dissemination of birth control information. 101 Edith How-Martyn (née How, 1875–1954), suffragette, member of the WSPU and c0-founder of the WFL, and birth control activist. 102 Olivin ‘Olive’ M[almberg] Johnson (1872–1954), a Swedish-American socialist, newspaper editor and political activist. 100

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There were many social activities, bazaars, lectures and meetings including anti-birth control at which I distributed leaflets. At the office they kept a diary in which the daily activities were recorded, so I thought it advisable to keep one of my own, and as I look through it now, I could write a large volume on its daily details but will content myself with mentioning one more item. Mrs. Edith How-Martyn, who in Suffrage days was Organizing Secretary for the Women’s Freedom League, under the leadership of Mrs. Pesport,103 Lord French’s sister, founded a “Suffragette Fellowship” to keep alive the “Suffrage Spirit”, and to my utter amazement and disappointment I found that many of my old militant comrades were opposed to birth control, for all the same stupid “reasons” one usually meets. Most of them elderly, single women who have had a regular income all their lives without having to work for it in an overcrowded labor market. As the three months drew to an end without any prospects of further funds for this special work I decided to return to my “legal” home, New York, and wrote, asking Ruth Albert, to see if my old, cosy room at 40 Seventh Avenue was vacant. It was not, but Ruth had a spare bedroom which she insisted on my occupying. Though Ruth had left the B.C. office and gone into partnership with a friend in an Antique store, we had remained the best of pals. Ruth, Grace Feeney and Elizabeth Watson, another worker in the B.C. vineyard, welcomed me home when the “Ascania”, which had taken me away, brought me back on January 19th. When I saw the men and women selling apples on the streets I felt they ought to be selling the Birth Control Review, if only as an object lesson. My return was not generally known; I preferred to keep it quiet until I had found employment and then surprise everybody. I hoped to see Mrs. Sanger on her return from Washington, where just then she was busy with the forthcoming hearing of her Federal Amendment to open the U.S. Mails to the medical profession for the transmission of contraceptive advice and articles. I felt sure I should fit in somewhere in her organization, which had moved to a fine old mansion at 17 West 16th Street. I had not disturbed her with correspondence except to send favorable replies from our senators to whom some newly-found American friend in London, and I, had written, asking them to support the amendment. After her return she invited me, through Ruth, who was in touch with her, to see her on Sunday afternoon at her apartment in Park Avenue. Full of joy at seeing her again, and hope of any sort of work, I went. She was just as sweet and friendly as ever, listened to my doings in London, told me of the progress of the movement here, the success of getting a Bill introduced in Congress, the Roman Catholic opposition, and so forth, but no work for me. Conditions were very bad here and of course she had “warned me” when we met in London. I walked home in a trance, conscious of an aching, icy void in the regions of my heart and solar plexus. Was it possible? I, who had felt so sure of steady work with Margaret Sanger and Birth Control, who had given and lent money to all who asked for it Charlotte Despard. This is a strange typographical error, given KM’s knowledge of suffrage personnel.

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on the street, instead of saving it, believing in the circulation of money as I do in the circulation of the blood in my body, who had supported organizations for the betterment of human conditions, who by my thirteen years work had helped to build up the Birth Control movement in America, the two fractions104 of which had now “ousted” me. Was it just, ethical? What a smashup of “clay gods”! What a practical illustration of “let him that standeth take heed lest he fall”. Judging from the millions of unemployed it was the correct way of a civilized business world. But if such is “civilization” give me “nature red in tooth and claw”.

Chapter 77 I applied for work elsewhere and could have had some at $18 per week but was warned not to mention birth control. Might as well ask a good Christian to deny his Christ. Ruth was opposed to my taking it and suggested I should wait for something better, since she was bearing the brunt of my bed and board. Just before Easter I received a card from Deaconess Virginia C. Young,105 forwarded to the League where she had sent it under the impression that I was still in England. Miss Young who had long been a friend and admirer of my work, was delighted to hear I had returned and informed Mrs. Ackermann of the fact. Immediately I received an invitation from Mrs. Ackermann to a dinner to be given on honor of Margaret Sanger, by the American Women’s Association106 at their clubhouse on West 57th St., within a few days, to interest some of the “élite” in Birth Control for the poor, and the amendment of the laws. Though glad as always to see new faces, I missed many of the old faithful ones, and heard from Mrs. Sanger that they had not been invited, this being a special occasion organized by the A.W.A. Miss Young was on the point of visiting prisons and reformatories in the West, and when she heard that Ruth was going to the country and giving up her apartment, she suggested that I should move into hers during her absence, take care of her mail, pay bills, and so forth, which would be more convenient to her than having to pack up and make different arrangements to accommodate strangers. I was to pay her $10 a month rent, though where that was to come from the Lord only knew, and lo! a few days after I had moved in I received a ‘phone call from Mrs. Sanger’s new secretary, Miss Florence Rose,107 to say there was a “job” for me. Could it be that Mrs. Ackerman’s and Deaconess Young’s influence had anything to do with it? I never found out. My work was to sort, arrange and paste into scrapbooks the press clippings of KM may have meant factions. Virginia C. Young, the head deaconess of St George’s Protestant Episcopal Church in New York. 106 The American Women’s Association, established in 1931. 107 Florence Rose (1902?–69) was the college-educated personal secretary to Sanger between 1930 and 1939. Sanger described her as a recent convert to the cause, ‘efficient, competent in any capacity … and always gleeful and bubbling with fun’. 104 105

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the last two or three years, which Mrs. Sanger thought I could do in four weeks. I did, at a salary of $25 per week. After an intervening week she gave me a week at filing at $15, quite unnecessarily telling me, by letter, that was the salary a good typist would get for the job. Did I want to take it? Considering I had worked for nothing, and for any few dollars she could spare in the early, struggling days, later paying me $5 out of the book department for making and mailing parcels, later still, when rents and commodities went up in price, gradually increasing my salary to $25. in addition to commissions on Review sales, she ought to have known that birth control, not the amount of salary, as long as it kept body and soul together, was my first consideration. Not being a typist was one reason why she had no more work for me. Wanting “new blood for progress” was another. As if the two were always synonymous. Passing over other attempts to find work, I will come to an offer of addressing envelopes, sending out circulars, eventually taking over the filing which was in a most chaotic state of duplication, triplication and worse, at $18 per week, with a firm that shall be nameless. Though the work itself and associates with the other boys and girls were pleasant enough there were things which “rubbed me the wrong way”. Eliminating the little bonuses of the worker on the “depression” plea, while increasing those, as well as salaries of the directors, and refusing me an increase, was the last straw, and at the end of the year I quit, with two weeks vacation money to face the world. “Dammit, better the river than continue to slave merely to fill the pockets of commercial interest”, thought I. Dear, goodhearted Mrs. Ackermann, “the best of the bunch” we had always dubbed her, also sent me a check for two weeks salary and I felt a comparative millionairess with a clear $72, and wondered what I should do when the thought struck me, “Why not settle down to writing my autobiography?” I had moved back to my old room which had become vacant about the time Deaconess Young returned from the West last October. It was now the end of June and I started right away. Living economically I could manage for six weeks. After that surely necessary funds would come from somewhere. Surely some of the wealthy supporters of Birth Control, when they heard I had taken the plunge, would offer to advance the necessary finances to keep me going until I could repay them out of the publication of my book. But I had reckoned without the “depression” which hit them all so hard. Mrs. Ackermann, helpful as ever, collected $155 among her friends and Miss Henriette Hart,108 who came into the movement about 7 years ago, partly through my persuasion, and has organized the State of New Jersey and opened a clinic in Newark, collected $120, all of which was disbursed to me in small weekly sums by my friend and one time fellow worker Sara Levine,109 the last one left of the “old crowd” in Mrs. Sanger’s office. Mrs. Henriette Hart (n.d.), a field worker for the ABCL and co-author of books on contraception and mental hygiene with Dr Hannah M. Stone. 109 Sara Levine (née Bukzin, 1897–1973) was Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau secretary in charge of the Motherhood Advice Bureau and Books Department. 108

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Annie E. Gray,110 Director of the Women’s Peace Society,111 of which I have been a member for several years, lent me $50 on an I.O.U., May Morgan, Miss Agnes V. Birmingham,112 a new friend since my return, and many others have helped me with smaller sums, luncheons and dinners, while my landlady, Mrs. Rostan, has let my rent run on to the present sum of over $100. It would be futile to attempt to express my gratitude to all who have helped me; it can’t be done in words. As I am coming to the end of my story, July 1933, the last copy of the Birth Control Review reaches me. It is about half in size and quality to what it was in its hey-day under the wing of Margaret Sanger. A paragraph from Mr. Guy Irving Burch’s113 Valedictory deserves quoting. “In this, the final issue of the Review, it is fitting to laud the far-sighted efforts of Margaret Sanger in establishing this periodical, and the courageous efforts of Kitty Marion in bringing the subject to the man in the street, who needs it most”. The Review was taken off the street as a concession to the M.D.’s, Scientists, and “Society” within and outside of the League, who considered that way of most effective advertising “degrading”. And now, three and a half years later, it is dead. Traitors to the right of it, M.D.s to left of it, Priest-craft in front of it Volleyed and thundered! Left to its luckless fate, With those who talk and prate Killed in the jaws of hate By the “Fourhundred”! (after – a long way after – Tennyson). It has since reappeared as a diminutive news letter. The medical profession at large is still opposed to birth control, therefore all the more honor to those of its members who have seen the light and followed it. The laws are not amended and millions of poor, American women are still at the mercy of blind, uncontrolled nature and the inhumanity of their selfish, arrogant, dictatorial, would-be “saviours” who tolerate no method of help and assistance but their own. Annie E. Gray (n.d.) was deputy president, then president, of the Women’s Peace Society, and a member of the more radical Women’s Peace Union, formed in 1921 between America and Canada. 111 The Women’s Peace Society was formed in America in September 1919, largely by women who had been involved in the suffrage movement. 112 Agnes V. Birmingham (n.d.) co-authored a book in 1925 with Grace A. McCullough on Correcting Speech Defects and Foreign Accents. 113 Guy Irving Burch (1899–1951), eugenicist, population analyst and writer, was hired by Sanger to work for the National Committee for Federal Legislation for Birth Control, but was also the founder and president of the racist, anti-immigration, Population Reference Bureau. 110

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As for me, whatever the future holds, I thank God that when I shuffle off this mortal coil, I am leaving none of mine in this Frankenstein of a civilization, to perpetuate, or be victims of, human inhumanity, which makes this otherwise beautiful world unfit to live in.

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Chapter 78 PEACE At this point, wondering how I should finish my story, find a publisher, and work, once more the unexpected happened. A post card came from Mrs. Annie E. Gray, Director of The Women’s Peace Society: “If you are not busy how would you like to be the office girl for a few weeks? $10 per. Start Monday, August 28th.” Would a duck swim? For years Annie Gray had complimented me and encouraged me in my Birth Control work. A very real friendship had grown up between us. Annie Gray is a naturalized citizen of English birth. That drew me toward her when we first met here. She is an ardent, indomitable feminist, pacifist and fighter for right and justice for right and justice’s sake. That makes our admiration mutual. She had “soap-boxed” for Woman Suffrage and since the beginning of the World War had carried the message of disarmament and peaceful adjustment of difficulties between nations to the man on the street corner. Principally as a tribute to her I had joined The Women’s Peace Society, inaugurated 1919 by Mrs. Henry Villard,1 the daughter of William Lloyd Garrison the Great Emancipator. It was therefore, a joy, as well as a temporary solution of my bed and board problem to accept Annie Gray’s offer. My work, taking care of the office during her absences and increasing activities elsewhere, sorting, answering and filing routine mail, keeping card index information up-to-date, folding and distributing literature at “peace” meetings of our own and other groups, was easy, interesting and congenial. During this period Annie Gray had added to her already Herculean tasks that of Treasurer of the American League Against War and Fascism.2 She was additionally busy helping to prepare for the first U.S. Congress Against War and Fascism – New York City – September 30 – October 1, 1933 – at which Henri Barbusse3 of France was the principal guest speaker. This gave me the opportunity to participate in advertising the Congress and of getting a first hand acquaintance with the inside story of it. Its success exceeded all expectations and was a revelation to me. Every strata of society, every shade of labor, professional, religious and political organization, and every civilized nation Fanny Garrison Villard (née Helen Frances Garrison, 1844–1928), suffragist and political activist; co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. First president of the Women’s Peace Society. 2 The American League Against War and Fascism was formed in 1933 by the American Communist Party and several pacifist groups to counter the threat of Nazism. 3 Henri Barbusse (1873–1935), French writer, winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1916, and communist. 1

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was represented by the thousands of delegates present; world brotherhood on a small scale, enthusiastic and thrilling! Mecca Temple and St. Nicholas Arena were packed to suffocation on the opening night and huge, disappointed crowds were turned away or accommodated in an overflow meeting in the basement of the Arena. Every session during the next two days was fully attended and the speakers, including our Annie Gray, and particularly Henri Barbusse the honoured principal guest speaker, were cheered to the echo. Noteworthy and pleasant to remember there was no police interference, consequently no riots. All was Peace! The “Anthem” punctuating the speeches was of course the “International”. Unfamiliar with the words, but finding the last three bars of the music to be the same as those of “God bless the Prince of Wales”, I quite naturally chimed in with that “blessing”. And why not? Taking the eldest son of every family the world over as the Prince’s prototype, certainly God bless him, every one! After the Congress, and the Women’s Peace Society’s dinner in honor of her sixtieth birthday, Annie Gray went off on a vacation, the first for thirteen years. She left me in charge of the office. Then with my increasing and more intimate knowledge of the Society’s affairs, I realized to the full why her health and finances had so suffered in her brave, and educationally successful attempt to carry on the organization’s work since the death of Mrs. Villard in July 1928, and the gradual secession of most of her wealthy supporters. The names of the faithful few who stood by Annie Gray, preferring principle to prestige should be written on tablets of gold. One of these whom I remember as a brave early supporter of Birth Control when that was dangerous and taboo, and therefore doubly appreciate, is Mrs. Julia Ellsworth Ford.4 Upon her return, six weeks later, Annie Gray confided in me: “that this must be the last winter of struggle unless some definite financial support can be obtained”. This seemed very unlikely, and so it proved in fact, because no response worth mentioning had been forthcoming in reply to the Financial Committee’s September appeal. I confess, though it but confirmed my own experience, that I could not understand that in spite of daily demands from various groups for Annie Gray’s speeches, there was invariably “no money” to pay for them. That is the price the willing giver pays! In March 1934 Annie Gray at a special meeting of the Executive Board gave a very detailed résumé of the history of the Society, particularly stressing the failure of members (with rare exceptions) to finance the nation wide free educational service rendered. She asked for and received a vote in favor of disbandment and authority to conclude the Society’s business. It was a heart-breaking time! The suffering of the faithful, especially Annie Julia Ellsworth Ford (1859–1950), New York socialite, philanthropist, patron of the arts and children’s author.

4

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Gray to whom her work for the Society had become heart and soul – warp and woof of her being, can only be realized by one, who like myself, had suffered similar disintegrations of spiritual interests. Letters and pleas to continue poured in upon Annie Gray, but no one could offer a dependable solution of the financial problem. The closing of the office was finally admitted to be an unquestioned necessity. By authority from the Board, Christine Kunz, Treasurer, Annie Gray, Director, and I, Office Secretary, issued the final statement to members and then settled down to the task of salvaging important records for future reference works. On April 30th 1934, the office door was locked for the last time and one of the bravest chapters of the Peace Movement marked FINIS! Finished did I say? No! The chapter written by Annie Gray at the huge openair meetings that she called the “Street Corner University”, and elsewhere, will not be finished until the need for struggle against war and injustice shall have passed away. Until then her thoughts, words and spirit will go marching on! To me the few months of association with the fine women pacifists and some newly found friends in the Women’s Peace Society is a fitting climax to my spiritual metamorphosis from a German militarist to an international pacifist; from a worshipper of the destructive soldiers of Mars to undying devotion to the servants of peace, the men and women faithfully going about their daily tasks, gladly giving themselves to the building of what may some day be a worthwhile civilization; when swords shall have been beaten into ploughshares and all shall sit in peace under his or her own vine and fig-tree. Whilst Annie Gray appears to have worked out her destiny in that direction, mine remains on the at times very uncomfortable, at other times “ganz gemütliche”5 knees of the Gods.

ganz gemütliche – quite comfortable.

5

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Epilogue: New York Much of Kitty Marion’s energy between 1933 and 1938 was spent trying to interest publishers in her autobiography. In August 1933, Olive Johnson, secretary of the Birth Control Information Centre in London, was writing to Marion congratulating her on finishing her book. By 1934 she is commiserating with her on its rejection and hoping ‘that the new man will be kinder’ (5 January 1934, KMP: II/1). Attempts were made in England and America to find a sympathetic publisher; then in 1936 Anna Askanasy organised the typing of the manuscript. The following year, the German translation of the autobiography was, apparently, being considered by an Austrian publisher, and an article on Marion’s ‘life story’ by Dr Irma Hift-Schnierer was published in the liberal Viennese paper, Wochenausgabe.1 Askanasy was promoting publication as a ‘valuable [contribution] for their ­feminist  movement’. ‘It should certainly inspire their efforts for women’s suffrage’, Johnson wrote to Marion (26 August 1937, KMP: II/1). Then, in Marion’s words, ‘Hitler butted in and scattered’ the group (KM to AP, 5 December 1940 TWL: 6.1 Box 2). With the annexation of Austria and the death of her husband at the hands of the Nazis in 1938, Anna Askanasy fled to London and then went to Canada,2 destroying any hope of a German publication – and Marion appears to have given up any sustained attempt to have her work published, perhaps because by this date she was more concerned with simply living. Her work with the Women’s Peace Society having come to an end in 1934, Marion was almost destitute. In March 1935 she found herself ‘interesting but strenuous’ work which her friend Edith How-Martyn hoped would ‘give [her] a fresh lease of life’  (6 April 1935, KMP: II/1). This work was with the Works Progress Administration, which had been set up in 1935 as a unified relief project to address the problems of unemployment and poverty during the Depression as a key part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ programme. Irma Hift-Schnierer (1893–1972), child psychologist, historian and journalist. ‘Schreiberin um Frauenrechte. Lebensroman einer Suffragette’ (‘Writer on women’s rights: life-story of a suffragette’), Wochenausgabe, 2 October 1937.  2 Anna Helene Askanasy/Aszkanazy (née Mahler – niece of Gustav Mahler – 1893–1970) and Simon Aszkanazy (1883–1938). The Aszkanazys were members of the Viennese intelligentsia, and great art collectors. Simon was a civil engineer and Anna was a writer and internationally active feminist with a passion for women’s history. Simon became a member of the Austrian resistance and was murdered in the Vienna Detention Camp in March 1938, shortly after the Anschluss. Anna escaped to London with her daughters, Elizabeth and Clarisse, and from London went to Canada, where they settled, but not before Anna had returned to Europe to rescue other refugees including Meta Kraus-Fessel, who had translated KM’s autobiography into German.  1

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An article in the New Yorker in July 1936, called ‘Where Are They Now? The Crusader’, having traced Marion after her disappearance from her Birth Control Review pitches around New York, details her recent history: She lives alone in a single furnished room on the second floor of an old brownstone house at 230 West Twenty-second Street. Her dream is some day to have enough room and enough money to adopt five or six children. Kitty Marion turned sixty five just a little while ago. She is happier now than she has been for some time, because she is working again at something she really enjoys. A few years ago she had the good fortune to meet Miss Agnes V. Birmingham, who is assistant director of the Speech Improvement Project of the WPA.... When teachers were needed to correct the speech of children of foreign parents, Miss Birmingham recommended Miss Marion ... She has been teaching three days a week at P.S.513 and two days at P.S.32. During the summer, she has a job supervising children’s recreation in the public parks four days a week. P.S.51 ... is in the Heart of Hell’s Kitchen, and with the youngsters there Miss Marion has her troubles, but she doesn’t mind. She has taught a lot of children from four to fifteen to say ‘thirty-three’ instead of ‘tirty-tree’ or ‘toity-dree’ or whatever they had been saying. A special problem was a little boy who couldn’t pronounce ‘s’ – he would say ‘he mell moke’ for ‘she smell smoke’ – but Miss Marion coaxed him out of it. … She treats all her pupils as if they were future Presidents of the United States. When we asked her if that went for the little girls, too, Miss Marion was prompt in her reply. ‘Certainly,’ she said firmly. ‘There will be a woman President some day. I think it will be a good thing.’ (New Yorker, 4 July 1936: 22–4)

Unfortunately, by October 1936, Olive Johnson was writing to Marion: I am sorry your own pleasant work has come to an end, and I hope you’ll be successful in getting a transfer to the kind of work that particularly appeals to you. Just what is the ‘Theatre Project’? Any way it is something to remain on the payroll these days, even if it isn’t spiritually satisfying; though it is disappointing to be taken off work one feels is doing good. Is the ‘Theatre Project’ part of the educational system in the U.S.A.? (14 October 1936, KMP: II/1)

The Theatre Project was the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), another part of the WPA programme, which was designed to give unemployed theatre workers work in theatre and other performance-related activity.4 However, this work proved less congenial to Marion than teaching her project students ‘how to speak’, and appears to have involved ‘investigating’ rather than ‘“drawing out of the children what they have to give.”’ Marion saw the children ‘as little plants developing daily leaf by leaf,’ and had found it gave her ‘quite a thrill … also the children when they got their “s”ing “th”, or whatever it was – right’ (KM to AP, 5 December 1940, TWL: 6.1 Box 2). In November 1936, How-Martyn was hoping that ‘the new job P.S.51 et al refers to ‘Public School 51’, in New York City. The FTP is best known for its pioneering community-based, agit-prop, Living Newspapers – very different from the commercial music theatre Kitty Marion had done in Britain twenty years before.

 3  4

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is turning out better than you expected’, and a week later that ‘the change in your work will turn out more happily than you expect. ... Your last note sounded a little depressed’ (3 November and 8 November 1936, KMP: II/1). In the same month Johnson expresses similar concern but also refers to one of the first signs that Marion’s health was deteriorating when she asks whether she is having hearing tests (5 November 1936, KMP: II/1). By January 1937 Johnson was writing: ‘I am sorry you are being kept in a state of worry about the WPA and I do hope you will be one of the lucky ones who are kept on. The damned worry is much worse than hard work isn’t it?’ (20 January 1937, KMP: II/1). Marion was kept on temporarily, with Johnson ‘awfully sorry [she was] on such a tiring job’ and hoping ‘you’ll be put on less physically exhausting work very quickly’ (22 May 1937, KMP: II/1). In June 1937, Marion was finally ‘dropped’ when the programme went into liquidation, and worryingly, her health seems to have worsened. ‘My poor dear, I am so sorry to hear about the arthritis,’ Johnson wrote (ibid.). Marion had lost not just her job and income, but also her ability to pay for the medical treatment she had been receiving. She thought there was some possibility of receiving an old-age pension giving her ‘enough to live simply’. When she was finally granted a pension in September 1937, she was able to resume medical treatment at St Vincent’s Hospital,5 but she was clearly having trouble walking. Johnson wrote sympathetically that ‘It is awful not to be able to use one’s legs’ (17 December 1937, KMP: II/1). Three years later, Marion’s health was so bad that with the ‘weather and my arthritis, I am like a rat in a trap’, she wrote to Alice Park. ‘I can hardly get across the room with the aid of two sticks. Going out in rain or snow, which latter has been falling all day, is out of the question’ (5 December 1940. TWL: 6.1 Box 2). Between 1938 and 1944, by which time Marion was living in the Sanger Nursing Home, we have little information.6 She did eventually meet Anna Askanasy in New York with her ‘two darling daughters’ in 1938, when they had a ‘grand Kaffeeklatsch’7 (KM to How-Martyn, 10 December 1938, MLSC: 50.82/1122). Her last extant letter, to Alice Park, dated 20 May 1943, is from the address she had lived in for more than a decade, 230 W. 22nd Street, which is also the address given on the front page of the autobiography. The letter concludes, ‘I am somewhat under the weather, cold and raining, simply miserable! Gives me the dithers!’ (KM to AP, TWL: 6.1 Box 2). It is clear that Marion maintained her vigorous correspondence with her old suffrage comrades and American friends, particularly Alice Park, signing off affectionately ‘with love’ or, on one occasion, ‘with affectionate, suffragetty love’ (KM to AP, 9 December 1942, TWL: 6.1 Box 2). They discuss St Vincent’s Hospital, Manhattan (1849–2010), a Catholic charitable institution which provided medical care for the poor of New York City.  6 Another omission might have been a marriage. The 1940 New York census gives her marital status as ‘M’. All previous documentation, passenger manifests, censuses etc., have her as single or ‘Head’, i.e. not a wife or widow. The editors assume the 1940 reference to be an error, as no mention of a ‘husband’ is made anywhere else.  7 Kaffeeklatsch – coffee-gossip.  5

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feminist politics and the peace movement, and at times Marion reflects on earlier relationships. Of Sanger she writes that although she, Sanger, ‘used to express her appreciation of Anna [Lifschitz] and me and say that neither should ever want for anything while she had anything … she “wangled” us both out of’ the Birth Control Review organisation. (Sanger’s marriage to the wealthy Noah Slee in 1922 would have made this a particularly sensitive area.) While she asks Park to ‘Excuse me ranting on like this’, Marion adds that ‘when I think back, I could kick myself for being such a devoted idiot’ (17 July 1942, TWL: 6.1 Box 2). Marion continued to read and clip the newspapers voraciously, sending them to Johnson at the Birth Control Worldwide News Service that she ran. She also wrote to the papers on all manner of subjects from the New Deal – ‘the anti-New Dealers might be standing in the place of the millions of unemployed who, figuratively speaking, had fallen among thieves, been robbed of their jobs and left to die, until the Good Samaritan in the shape of the New Deal, CCC,8 WPA etc., came to bind their wounds and provide them with work and the barest necessities of life’ (Unidentified cutting, KMP: III/2) – to Rosika Schwimmer’s application for American citizenship and ‘The Speech Menace’. To judge by one letter on the latter subject, Marion was also listening to the radio: ‘will someone please tell me if “d” is the correct American pronunciation of “t” when that letter appears in the middle or end of a word ... when such pronunciation comes from high school and college students, who take part in radio “quiz” programs ...’ (City Worker 10 May 1939, KMP: III/2). And on another occasion, she reported with characteristic humour about having ‘heard a funny one … a little while ago. British women are [now] permitted to enter Churches and law courts without hats. What a concession to the Almighty, who created them hatless’ (KM to AP, 9 December 1942, TWL: 6.1 Box 2). Marion also appears to have kept in contact with some of her project children. At her memorial supper ‘a nine year old lad who she taught speech’ spoke and said that he would miss her, not only because she had taught him his English diction, but because she had inspired him to be a stamp collector and he had received stamps from her from everywhere.9 Kitty Marion died on 9 October 1944, aged 73. She had been ill for some time and had been taken from St Vincent’s Hospital to the Sanger Nursing Home, which was in a pleasant residential district just west of Central Park. Her fame was still sufficient for her to merit an obituary in the New York Herald Tribune and other papers. She left a will stipulating that there should be no funeral and that she was to be cremated without religious services or flowers. Her friends held a memorial celebration in November where her mementos were displayed and her ‘diary’ was read. Tributes came from all over America and the United Kingdom and from as far away as Jamaica and Australia.

The CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps, was part of Roosevelt’s New Deal work relief programme, which gave young men work on environmental projects.  9 Account of KM’s memorial celebration, Kitty Marion Papers, KMP: III/2.  8

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Katherine C. Evans,10 a fellow suffragette from Scotland, read the following poetic ‘Address to Kitty Marion’: Dear Kitty – You are Guest of Honour here Honoured by all the friends that hold you dear: Tho many of the ones who loved you well Cannot be present, of your life to tell: But some are here, to show in bright mosaic The pattern of that life, never prosaic: I can but tell them of your suffrage fame In England where you boare [sic] a well known name: How great your character was formed when young To be heroic, O Amazon unsung.

The poetic tribute continues for six more verses, extolling Kitty Marion’s suffrage activities, and ends, happily, with one of Kitty’s own jokes: But nothing robbed you of your sense of mirth Which popped up even about the control of birth And twas your way when ending friends a letter To make them laugh and feel a little better I’ll end by quoting one of recent date Do you remember writing me “Dear Kate, The Queen of bees is a busy soul She doesn’t believe in birth control And this is the reason without a doubt There are so many sons of B’s about.”

As Mrs Hazel Moore said, ‘Kitty’s gallant spirit is here – and goes marching on.’11

Katherine C. Evans (n.d.). Probably Kate Evans, suffragette, political agent, poet, performer and correspondent of Marie Stuart de Baecker, a relative of Emily Wilding Davison, about whom Evans also wrote poetic tributes. (https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/tracingemily-wilding-davison-s-family-history. Accessed 20 February 2018). 11 From the account of KM’s memorial celebration, KMP: III/2. 10

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Appendix I Extracts from Kitty Marion’s prison records The National Archives holds files (HO 144/599/184276) relating to the criminal activities of the suffragettes, including details of sentences, discharge and release, conduct, hunger striking and force feeding, and twice, or three-times, daily medical reports to the Home Office. The KM reports relate to imprisonments in Newcastle, Birmingham and Holloway prisons. The following digest is from the period KM spent in Holloway Prison following her conviction for the Hurst Park Racecourse fire (July 1913–April 1914). On 4 July 1913, KM was admitted to Holloway Prison and began a hunger strike. 13 July: the doctor’s report reads: ‘She still shows the effects of recent hunger strike and gets easily exhausted on exertion.’ 15 July: ‘Rather bad night. Odour of malnutrition in breath. Pulse 75. … Complains of gastric pains & says she feels weak. … very languid. No urgent symptoms.’ 16 July: ‘Pulse 85. … Well marked odour of malnutrition. Appears generally weaker & said she felt faint during the night and took a little brandy.’ 17 July: ‘Pulse 106 – rather thin. Certainly weaker. She has … attacks of vertigo when she sits up. Well marked odour of malnutrition. Certainly should not be detained beyond today.’ KM was discharged on 17 July under the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act 1913, for three days. In the Bow Street police’s view, ‘she should be continually watched to prevent her doing fresh mischief’. 19 July: Prison Minutes: ‘She is one of the most dangerous fire-lighters and it is useless to release her and trust to Police to be able to prevent her escape.’ And: ‘She is a good subject for forcible feeding.’ Gives height 5’ 5” and weighs on Feb. 3 ‘nearly 11 stone.’ Signed by Dr H. Smalley, Dr Craig, Dr Forward. 9 January 1914: ‘General conduct: very bad. In the evening she barricaded her cell door with bed and chair, and it had to be forced open with crow bars. Later she set fire to her mattress and sheets. During the night she was under supervision of special officer and this precaution will be continued. … Fed last evening with [oesophageal] tube. Struggled violently and made desperate efforts to vomit … last night walked about her cell from 1.40 am to 4 am. She was resting and apparently asleep before and after.’ 11 January: ‘Her struggles are much less.’ 14 January: ‘Reported as reading in bed from 9.30 pm to 11.45. Afterwards she was quiet and appeared asleep.’

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23 January: ‘Gives vent to a few groans and shrieks when the feeding is over; due in my opinion to vexation at the successful completion.’ 28 January: ‘Remarked “I am afraid I don’t feel bad enough to be discharged.”’ 29 January: ‘It is worth noting that the screaming which has been called attention to in previous reports has become louder and more pronounced since Mr Marshall’s legal visits to 3234 P[hyllis] Brady who occupied an adjoining cell.’ 30 January: ‘No struggling and very little shrieking.’ 31 January: ‘screamed and threw her arms about when feeding was over’. 3 February: ‘no struggling and shouting less marked’. 4 February: ‘shouted a little after feeding’. By the end of February, sleeplessness was being reported. 20 February (and other dates): ‘v. restive most of night. Non-resistive but hysterical after feeding.’ 18 February: ‘Fed again this evening – rejected about 3 oz of food – very hysterical after feeding and smashed all crockery.’ Dr Forward reports that KM ‘expressed her regrets afterwards’. He ‘deprecates changing the pattern of her cell utensils at present as it might excite the woman’. He does not think it likely that she will do it again. 5 March: as she is not retaining weight, the medical officer decides to force-feed three times a day. 12 March: ‘Bright and cheerful this morning.’ Regularly refuses to be weighed or examined. Periodically refuses to exercise. 24 March: ‘Rather hysterical during feeding.’ ‘Quiet after feeding.’ 27 March: ‘She is still a fair weight for a woman of her size [137 lbs, down from 151 lbs] and build and it is unaccompanied by loss of vigour. … Makes every endeavour to obstruct the passing of the tube.’ 29 March: ‘Feeding occupied nearly 30 minutes.’ 2 April: ‘still contracts throat muscles’. 6 April: ‘was restive and says she is going to fight in future’. 9 April: ‘says she feels “seedy” and is in rather a sullen mood’. 13 April: ‘More than usually troublesome.’ 14 April: special report by medical officer gives details of force-feeding and vomiting. This lack of assimilation of food is showing itself in loss of weight – lassitude – colour of face becoming more pallid – diminution of fat tissue, most noticeable about the face, neck and temples, and general loss of energy. In addition the officers inform me she is getting much more depressed than formerly, and I have myself noticed she is quieter and more emotional at times, culminating in hysterical outbursts at the termination of feeding. I thought she was more despondent than usual this morning, and was crying during the process of feeding, She has

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previously told the Principal Hospital Officer that ‘one morning she would come into her cell and find her hanging to the grating.’ In view of this statement I have placed a special officer to watch her at night.

15 April: ‘Fed oesophageal tube – very emotional and hysterical – vomited several ozs a short time after feeding.’ ‘She has now lost 2 stone in weight since Jan 6 and after each meal vomits a certain proportion of her food … She is very hysterical after feeding.’ 16 April: ‘Restless during night. Took some breakfast this morning on being told she would be released. She was ⁄ very emotional [sic: ‘very’ inserted] when told. General condition much the same, except she is brighter.’ KM was discharged on temporary licence on 16 April to return on 23 April. She did not return. The court was informed on 24 April. The file also includes a cutting from the labour movement paper the Daily Herald (17 April 1914: 4/5), headlined, ‘Forcibly fed 232 times. Woman begs Doctor to finish it by giving her Poison. More on McKenna’s Barbarity.’ The cutting reports that Kitty Marion ‘states that so great did the repeated physical and mental agony become that she felt she would have to put an end to it by hanging herself. … she will probably never regain her normal health and strength.’ A hand-written note added in October 1915 reads: ‘very robust now’.

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Appendix II Letters from Holloway Prison (1914) The Museum of London holds a number of letters between imprisoned suffragettes Kitty Marion, Mary Richardson and ‘Rachel Peace’, written on prison toilet paper (Museum of London Suffragette Collections, 2003.46/5). These are from March and April 1914, when the women were all in Holloway Prison on hunger strike, and subject to force feeding. They exchange prison experiences (see Introduction: 4), strategies with prison staff, health and weight loss, advice and support. In one letter Richardson expresses her admiration of Marion as one of ‘a new order of female creation’, and says that she knows Marion ‘would sooner die than submit’, adding, ‘so would I’. In another she expresses concern about ‘R.P.’, who she feels ‘must be lonely’, but she ‘is glad she has books and letters etc’. Her concern was well-founded; Rachel Peace’s mental health was already fragile and, according to Sylvia Pankhurst, she ‘hunger struck repeatedly, but again and again had broken down from fear that forcible feeding would destroy her reason’ (Pankhurst, 1931/1977: 578). Rachel Peace’s letter to Marion is more emotive; it begins with a long astrological analysis: Mars gives energy and enables you to be a good fighter – also it gives you your red hair, which by the by, I thought was golden – but which ever it is – I know it is gloriously beautiful, for that much I have seen of you from the window. I expect you are very pretty really – apart from the ‘make up’ and footlights. I wonder now: – I expect you have blue eyes – very bright ones – particularly so at night! That would be Venus! Mine are when I am outside, but in here they get quite dull. Venus gives a nice complexion to [sic], as a rule and a nice figure, albeit a tendency plumpness. But what is best about beloved Venus is, she gives us love. To us is given the power to give and to gain love.

She goes on: You must be considerably fatter than me if you are 9.9 ½ and have lost 2 st. I am 9.8 now, but went down to 8.7 – that in my clothes! If I can keep it up two months I should only be 7.6, and I’m quite a study in anatomy. Then! I got down there once, but it wasn’t a very happy experience. I am only 5.2 in height – really short by name1 and nature you see: – I expect we have both seen life, and not always from its fairest side: all those, who from circumstances, or even inclination, make their own lives, do not do so apart from much struggle and suffering – But are [sic] me! It is worth it – One cannot sympathise with others without having suffered oneself! One gets a wider outlook on life altogether – and a far better understanding of the temptations prone to all erring Humanity. I am glad I have not had hardships to A reference to her real name, Florence Jane Short.

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struggle against – there is but one teacher in Life – and that is experience – and until we experience, we cannot truly know! Very speedily, does disillusionment come – and it is well it is so, one must recognise the forces one is fighting against to be able to fight – Thus our lives are quickened – suffering becomes experience – and experience progress – Thus do we grow to Eternity. My dear – do not feel at all that you must answer my ‘ruminings’. I like to just sit here and talk to you as it were. I feel very closely in touch with you at these times, and it is a great pleasure to write to you, and if it gives you pleasure to receive odd scraps like these I am very happy, only I do not wish you to feel at all burdened to write. I know too well what any effort means when one is feeling so sadly and ill – I am glad you believe in Angels – it makes life so much richer and more interesting, and I am sure brings us more closely in touch with God. … You know the hush of the hour of sunset – in the country perhaps – in the country one feels it most; but that to me is just what it feels like – The very spirit of God is with me. Good night and love RP

A letter back from Kitty Marion still has a lock of her ‘red’ hair pinned to it, and reads: ‘The Lock,’ I used to have great quantities of it, but crimping irons, [illegible], and the ‘Wrexham Eistidfud’ [sic, 5 September 1912] 18 months ago have played havoc with it. It is falling out dreadfully here. It used to be like a thick cloak round me and I could sit on it, but now there seems to be little but the ‘fast’ die [sic] left. Sic transit Gloria Mundi.2

See also Holledge (1981), 57–8.

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Appendix III Extracts from reports on Kitty Marion’s citizenship status etc. The National Archives files labelled ‘Disturbances: Kitty Marion aka Katherina (sic) Schafer: German suffragette led to her being repatriated to Germany’ (HO 144/1721/221874) trace KM’s struggle to stay in England; the police’s surveillance of her; correspondence between the police and Home Office immediately after the war and some relating to KM’s post-war visits to England. It also includes the letter from Mrs E.R. Browne (Alice Thorburn) suggesting that KM might be a German spy. One file, 221.874/23 – probably from 1915 when the final decision to grant KM ‘a special permit’ to leave the United Kingdom by an ‘approved port’ (see KMA, Chapter 58) – is empty and marked ‘destroyed’. The following are transcriptions of key documents from the years 1915 and 1918. 1 Application for exemption from Deportation or Repatriation of Aliens, 1915 (a) 1 February, letter from Charles Thorburn (‘Vaudeville Theatre WC’) To the Home Secretary, Sir, The enclosed cutting from a letter receivedd [sic] from my sister, Mrs E.R. Browne, Tyrall Estate, Sandy Bay, Jamaica, B.W.1 may be of value to peruse. … Be sure to ask Charlie to find out what has become of Kitty Marion. She is a German – born and bred – she used always to say “Hark [?] the Kiayser – ages ago – What must she feel now? She can’t speak a word German, she has been in England since she was a child. She could, and would easily pass as an Englishwoman. You know her awful character – suffragette – been in prison two or three times – she would be a fine person to ‘spy’ for she knows no German language and her English is perfect – no German accent. Don’t forget to ask Charlie to find out. She is a perfect brute – of a woman – and should be sent out of England – at once. Be sure and find out Charlie may do his country a service. If she can help Germany, she will that is sure as you are alive – I have been dreaming of the brute – so do be on the look out – I know Charlie wo[uld] hoist her out if he has it in his power.

Home Office minutes record: ‘writer has no information as to Marion’s whereabouts and the letter hardly calls for any action’. (b)  23 February, letter from Edward Parker, Inspector, and P. Quinn, Superintendent, to HO With reference to ACC’s minute on attached, I beg to report that I have made exhaustive enquiries, but up to present have not been able to trace the whereabouts of the Militant Suffragette, Kitty Marion. The landladies of the different addresses at which she stayed when in London, deny any knowledge of her, and the inform-

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ants are of the opinion that she is working in the provinces in her profession in an assumed name in the provinces. Most persons whom I have seen regarding her believe her to be of foreign origin but cannot say which nationality as she speaks such perfect English. In a letter, dated July 19th, 1914 which she sent to the Home Secretary … while on temporary release, it will be seen that she described herself as German (attached). I am continuing enquires wih [sic] a view to locate Marion directly this is accomplished. I will take the necessary action should she prove to be a German Alien Enemy.

(c) Copy of letter referred to above from KM to Reginald McKenna, 19 July 1913 (see KMA: 200) Sir, In defiance of your callous and brutal order that [I] shall only be at large for two days, I am going out to either get away or be re-arrested at once, instead of remaining in bed to be nursed back to health and strength, only to be dragged back to prison, perhaps to death, later at your pleasure. The sooner we come to an understanding as to whether it is to be ‘Votes for Women’ or ‘Death for Women’ the better. I am a German subject, but I have worked for many years on the English Stage and know the ravages of the White Slave Traffic is working in an otherwise honourable profession. I have seen with horror the conditions of life under which women have to fight for existence and the unnecessary pitfalls and temptations that surround them. … I am filled with indignation at this state of affairs, and the Cat and Mouse torture of women who are determined to have the Vote, the only instrument by which these conditions can be altered. My loyalty to my countrywomen compels me to fight side by side with Englishwomen for the emancipation of our sex. My life is in your hands, you can kill me if you wish, you will never make me surrender. Physically I may be weak as a mouse, but spiritually I feel as strong as the British Lion and the German Eagle combined. Gott mit une! [sic]

(d) 15 May, deportation or repatriation of Aliens Exemption application. KM’s supporting statement:

I prefer to remain in this country and having been perfectly loyal to it I see no reason why I should leave it. Though I am well known, and I may safely say, loved and respected, as an actress, music hall artiste, and suffragette, comparatively few people know I am German, and none would wish me to leave on that account. My sympathies in the war are, as they have been in other fights, on the side of Justice and Right against Might.

(e) 14–16 July, HO exchange re Katherine Marie Schafer ‘Advise Refusal’, subject to special referral to MO5. ‘Is anything known of this woman in MO59?’ ‘Nothing known by MO5’ (f) 31 July, to Chief Constable [of Nottinghamshire] I am directed by the Secretary of Ste to refer to the case of Miss Kitty Marion … who is apparently residing at The Cottage, Arnold Nottinghamshire, and to ask for your observations as to the repatriation of this person. Is she suspected of

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espionage or any malpractice in connection with the war … she is well known to the Police of the Metropolis in connection with suffrage agitation.

(g) 31 July, to KM from Home Office I am directed by the Secretary of State to refer to your application for exemption from repatriation and to say that, pending further enquiries, you will not be required to leave the country at present.

(h) 30 August, from New Scotland Yard. So far as is known to the Police, this woman does not maintain any connection with Germany and is not suspected of any disloyal practice in this direction. Her sentiments appear to be pro-British, she has recently been singing songs at recruiting meetings. She is, however, a suffragette of a dangerous character … there are still two years and 256 days of her sentence unexpired.

(i) 30 August, Commissioner of Police Report, two initialled notes Miss Marion is to all intents and purposes an English woman. Her connection with the suffrage movement ought not to tell against her: to confirm [?] her repatriation (if indeed she could get admission into Germany) would be to inflict on her much hardship and to incur the risk of a protest from the suffrage movement and horribly even of a sporadic recurrence of militancy. Grant exemption. J.F.W. 1/9/15 This woman deserves to be in prison = but I agree that it is no use sending her back to Germany when she left that country at the age of 15 and has been here for 29 years. Such a harsh measure might open up fresh troubles with the suffragettes who have behaved well since the war began. AJ 4/9/15

(j) 15 September, letter from HO to the Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire saying KM can stay, but ‘this decision has not the effect of releasing Miss Marion from any provisions of the Aliens Restrictions Orders applicable to alien enemies’. [Note: KM sailed 27 September 1915 for New York, see KMA: 206] 2 With the end of the war in 1918, the Home Office seems to have started looking at ‘enemy aliens’ again, and at KM’s case. Internment/repatriation Reconsideration of Exemption form. TO BE KEPT AT TOP OF FILE. The committee considered this case at their meeting on 20 September 1918 and decided to recommend repatriation.

The Home Office minutes refer back to the 1915 decision to grant KM ‘a special permit’ to leave the United Kingdom by an ‘approved port’ and her ‘application to leave the UK under the Aliens Restriction Order 1914’.  Enquiries were then made at KM’s last known address in Arnold, Nottinghamshire. On 24 October 1918 the Nottinghamshire Chief Constable sent a report saying simply: She has gone.

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Select bibliography Archival sources Kitty Marion Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library

Originally part of the Schwimmer-Lloyd Collection. Includes: I. Writings (three copies of the autobiography, one in German); II. Correspondence; III. Printed material and scrapbook; IV. photographs. Museum of London Suffragette Collections

Includes the Suffragette Fellowship Collection, copy of Kitty Marion’s autobiography, KM’s scrapbooks (50.82/1015) and letters (50.82/1122). It also holds KM’s personal collection of theatre posters, playbills, cuttings etc. which covers her career from Germania (1891) to The Sphinx (1914). The Museum of London also holds two scrapbooks compiled by Kitty Marion. The first scrapbook, comprising 40 pages of news cuttings relating to suffragette militancy, has been fully digitised and is available to view online at https:// collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/objects/965512.html or via the Google Arts & Culture Road to Equality Project https://artsandculture.google. com/asset/page-1/AQEjIoxG7PwDrg?childAssetId=MAH_dMm1yXLx3A . The National Archives: Home Office Papers

Two boxes of material. HO144/599/184276, ‘Criminal Cases: Suffragettes’; HO144/1721/221874, ‘Disturbances: Kitty Marion aka Katherina Schafer’, material relating to citizenship etc. The Women’s Library Collection, London School of Economics Library

Includes copy of Kitty Marion’s autobiography (Kitty Marion Papers, 7KMA), letters between KM and Alice Park (TWL Autograph Letter Collection, 6.1 Box 2) and material on the AFL.

Published sources Theatre

Bailey, Peter (1986) Music Hall: the business of pleasure. Oxford: University Press. Crawford, Elizabeth (2014) Kate Parry Frye: the long life of an Edwardian actress and suffragette. ITV Ventures: Kindle Edition. Davis, Tracy C. (1991) Actresses as Working Women: their social identity in Victorian culture. London: Routledge. Gänzl, Kurt (1986) British Musical Theatre, Volume 1, 1865–1914. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Gardner, Viv (ed.) (1985) ed., Sketches from the Actresses’ Franchise League. Nottingham: Nottingham University. —— (2004) ‘Provincial Stages: touring and early repertory theatre, 1900–1934’, in The Cambridge History of British Theatre, Vol. 3, ed. Baz Kershaw. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— (2005) ‘The Three Nobodies: autobiographical strategies in the work of Alma Ellerslie, Kitty Marion and Ina Rozant’, in Maggie B. Gale and Viv Gardner (eds), Auto/biography and Identity: women, theatre and performance. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Holledge, Julie (1981) Innocent Flowers: women in the Edwardian theatre. London: Virago. Paxton, Naomi (2018) Stage Rights! The Actresses’ Franchise League, activism and politics 1908–58. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Platt, Len (2004) Musical Comedy on the West End Stage, 1890–1939. Houndmills and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Suffrage

Atkinson, Diane (2018) Rise Up, Women! The remarkable lives of the suffragettes. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Cowman, Krista (2007) Women of the Right Spirit: paid organisers of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), 1904–1918. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Crawford, Elizabeth (2006) The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: a regional survey. London: Routledge. —— (2013) Campaigning for the Vote: Kate Parry Frye’s suffrage diary. London: Francis Boutle Publishers. Green, Barbara (1997) Spectacular Confessions: autobiography, performative activism, and the sites of suffrage 1905–1938. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. MacKenzie, Midge (1988) Shoulder To Shoulder: a documentary. London: Vintage Books. Mayhall, Laura E. Nym (2003) The Militant Suffrage Movement: citizenship and resistance in Britain 1860–1930. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pankhurst, Estelle Sylvia (1931, reprinted 1977) The Suffragette Movement. London: Longman Group Ltd, 1931/ Virago Press Ltd 1977. Purvis, June (1995) ‘The Prison Experiences of the Suffragettes in Edwardian Britain’, Women’s History Review, Vol. 4, No. 1. Riddell, Fern (2018) Death in Ten Minutes: Kitty Marion, activist, arsonist, suffragette. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Robins, Elizabeth (1913) ‘Speech to the Women Writer’s Suffrage League’, 23 May 1910, reproduced in Way Stations. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. Birth control movement

Baker, Jean H. (2011) Margaret Sanger: a life of passion. New York: Hill and Wang.

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Chesler, Ellen (1992, reprinted 2007) Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement in America. New York: Simon and Schuster. Engelman, Peter C. (2011) The History of the Birth Control Movement in America. Westport, CT and London: Praeger. Sanger, Margaret (1938, reprinted 2004) The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.; Mineola, New York: Dover Publications Inc. Key websites

American newspaper archives: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. British Music Hall Society: http://www.britishmusichallsociety.com. British Newspaper Archive: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk. Census etc.: https://www.ancestry.co.uk. Historical theatre buildings: http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/index.html.

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