Dissertation submitted for the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Leicester by Susan Pauline Walters (Nene College, University of Leicester, September 1993)
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the following people for their help in the completion of this work. Firstly, my tutor Dr Julia Bush, for introducing me to women’s history and for the help she has given me in conducting the research. My husband, Terry, for his encouragement and support, particularly for his assistance in proofreading my typing. I would also thank David Sproson and his aunt, Dorothy Sproson, for allowing me access to the personal papers of Emma Sproson and sharing their memories of her. John Rowley for allowing me to use his transcribed interviews and for taking the time to share his knowledge of Emma and local Labour politics.
I also thank the staff at Wolverhampton Reference Library, the Fawcett Library and Jane Marshall at Nene college. These librarians have unselfishly given me advice and encouragement.
List of abbreviations
ILP Independent Labour Party
NUWSS National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society
WFL Women’s Freedom League
WSPU Women’s Social and Political Union
Chapter one
Introduction
The history of the women’s suffrage campaign appears to have been well documented, but a great number of books written on the subject have concentrated on the part played by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters. Peter Stearns, writing Working Class Women in Britain, noted that women’s history
had a tendency to concentrate on women of public achievements, especially feminists, whilst studies on working class women referred mainly to their position in industry.
There has been little acknowledgement of the part played by working-class women in the suffrage campaign. History has recorded the campaign was centred on London, choosing to ignore local campaigns. The work done in local communities by working-class women therefore has been largely unexplored, with the exception of the works by Liddington and Norris on the campaigns in Lancashire. I therefore decided to investigate the role of working-class women in the suffrage campaign in the Black Country, during the Victorian/Edwardian eras.
I had spent the major part of my life in this area. The Black Country is situated within the conurbation of the West Midlands metropolitan area and is geographically described by Barnsby as
A rectangle with the towns of Wolverhampton, Walsall, Smethwick and Stourbridge at its corners
The area is approximately 100 miles squared and is now administered by the County Boroughs of Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley and Sandwell. The Black Country was named because of the mining and Ironstone workings in the area, and the name is an apt description of the area during the Victorian/Edwardian eras.
I had previously undertaken research on the women chainmakers during the Victorian era and whilst I was able to find social histories that had been written about the area these contain little, if any, reference to women, the vast majority of texts were written by men who had chosen to largely ignore the part played by women in any sphere of life.
Spender, quoting Virginia Woolf, says “Women have no history. History is the history of the male line’ and this appears to be true in this case.
The Black Country was an area of abject poverty, one which Ada Nield Chew, when visiting the area in 1897 described as ‘the depressing surroundings of South Staffs.’ Women worked to support their families; there was no such thing as a living family wage for the majority of the working men.
The workforce was badly exploited. Attempts to unionise them had met with limited success, and it was not until the first half of the twentieth century that the situation improved, particularly so for the women employed in the heavy industries. Had these events affected the indigenous working-class women of the area? If so, how? Did they become politicised? If so, how did that come about? Was it because of trade unionism or as a result of the suffrage campaign? I felt it feasible to examine the involvement of working-class women of the Black Country in political issues, if indeed there had been such involvement.
I decided to start by examine details of any local suffrage campaign. Michelle Shoebridge had carried out research in Birmingham and the surrounding district but this did not extend to the Black Country. I found that the research I had decided upon would not be an easy task and proving the involvement of a particular group of women was impossible. My research led me to Spender’s view that … But for women in the past is a silence, and absence: the pattern of women’s lives lies at present locked in old diaries, stuffed away in old drawers, half obliterated in the memories of the aged.
These words proved to have an element of truth. However, I did locate some previously unpublished autobiography notes of a woman called Emma Sproson.
She began life as a member of the urban poor whom Chinn claims ‘has rare involvement in political, ideological or trade union movements.’ She had become a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and subsequently the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and later the Women’s Freedom League. (WFL) She had lived in Wolverhampton and it is on her life I have chosen to concentrate my research. It has proven impossible to find details of her entire life; there are large gaps which I have been unable to complete, but having read a little about this woman I wanted to know what motivated her, how she managed her life with her suffragist and political commitments plus how her family and friends saw her.
Anna Davin describes how Ada Nield Chew …. stood out from all the women of her time and class even while identifying with them and speaking for them, and in spite of all the shared experience. She was exceptional, though by no means alone, in reaching socialist and feminist conclusions about her life and its social and economic context
I feel the same description can be used to describe Emma Sproson, along with other forgotten working-class women.
I have attempted to draw her life together through her childhood, the suffrage campaign and her election to local politics. Yet I am still left feeling as Spender did when she ‘discovered’ Elizabeth Cady Stanton: I deplore the fact that I have so many questions I wanted to ask her and no way of finding her answers for there is no great body of literature about her! She is not on the highway of human affairs of the past!
In spite of this I hope that I have added to the history of women and particularly to the history of women in the Black Country. Barnsby in his History of Education in Wolverhampton finishes by saying that he completed his work in 1972 because the advantage of leaving the story at 1972 is that it might encourage others to complete and bring it up to date; for that is the point of local history – anyone can join in
It never intended to “bring anything up to date”, rather to establish that women had played a part in the social, economic and political development of the area, which has been ignored by Barnsby et al who have written from the ‘traditional’ male perspective.
Chapter 2
Methodology
In Chapter One I explained my interest in Black Country women and the importance of establishing their historical contribution to the area. Now the methodology employed during my research will be explained.
I began by writing to the local evening newspapers, The Express and Star and the Birmingham Evening Mail. Did they have any information regarding the campaigns locally and would they print a letter requesting information from the public. The archivist at The Express and Star sent me some general articles on suffrage that were not connected with the area. The Birmingham Evening Mail replied that they did not publish at the time. I also wrote to the Blackcountry Bugle, a local paper concerned with bygone customs and characters of the area. They had no information. All three newspapers printed my letter.
Following the letter in the Birmingham Evening Mail I received a reply from a man who informed me that there had been a display at the Birmingham Museum concerning the suffragettes.
The display had ended but I wrote to the organiser, Ann Roach. She replied that she was unaware of any evidence of a suffrage campaign in the Black Country. She advised me of the material available at Birmingham Central Library.
I visited the library where I examined the unpublished thesis of Michelle Shoebridge. This deals with the suffragette movement in Birmingham, but outside of isolated incidents does not contain information relating to the Black Country. The library holds transcripts of taped interviews with Birmingham suffragettes, but these do not refer to the Black Country.
I sent letters to the archivists at Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall. I wrote to the Black Country Museum, a ‘living’ museum which depicts life in the area during the last century and early part of the twentieth. The museum said they had no information at all. Other replies were equally depressing, saying there was little, if any, evidence of any suffrage campaign within their respective areas. However, Elizabeth Rees, the archivist at Wolverhampton, informed me that there were deposited in the archives various personal papers of a woman called Emma Sproson who she said had been a militant suffragette.
I visited the archives at Wolverhampton Central Library and examined Sproson’s papers. They consisted of autobiographer notes and various miscellaneous papers. I found these very exciting because these papers showed that Emma had indeed been involved in the suffrage campaign nationally. Her papers revealed she had served two terms of imprisonment in Holloway during 1907 and a further term of imprisonment in Stafford in 1911. I later discovered that she had in fact served two terms of imprisonment in Stafford, but her surviving relatives knew details of only one sentence.
She had become involved in the suffrage campaign because of her membership of the ILP given her contact with Emmeline Pankhurst. I was pleased that Emma Sproson was working class as I wanted to investigate the lives of working class women who I feel have been generally ignored in the writing of women’s history.
Her prose was written in standard English rather than the local dialect. As seen in chapter 3 she received very little formal education and I feel her writing shows the determination with which she educated herself.
I read old copies of The Express and Star and the Wolverhampton Chronicle on the microfiche. This is obviously very time consuming, not to mention the effects on the eyes and head. The microfiche is of very poor quality but I was able to obtain some useful information, particularly reports of incidents in which Emma had been directly involved. The reports gave an insight into local reaction to the suffrage campaign.
I again wrote, but with limited success, to The Express and Star requesting any information they might have on Emma Sproson.
I thus on reading books concerning the suffrage campaign, autobiographies and biographies of women who had been involved with the WSPU and the WFL. I also read a large number of books concerning the Labour Movement. I found no reference anywhere to Emma Sproson. I was not particularly surprised as after all names such as Ada Nield Chew, Selena Cooper and Hannah Mitchell do not appear in most of these books and yet they worked unstintingly either through the WPSU, the WFL or the NUWSS. The dominant personalities in reporting of the campaigns are the Pankhurst’s.
Of course, with the exception of Liddington and Norris, little interest has been shown in the non-militant campaigns, or the involvement of the working class woman. However more books are now being published detailing the lives of working-class women in their own communities. Reading about the lives of all the working class women involved in the labour movement and the suffrage campaign helped me focus my research in certain areas, for example I looked at the constitution of the Poor Law Guardians of Wolverhampton, as this appeared to be an area where women had had some success in being appointed as guardians. It also helped compare the lives of all the working class women with Emma and see how similar, and indeed dissimilar in some instances, their lives were.
During my research I established that both Chew and Cooper visited the Black Country, speaking as socialists on behalf of the suffrage campaign. Chew visited Wolverhampton as a speaker for the Women’s Labour League. Emma does not mention these women. Perhaps she never met them or attended the meetings. However, it also seems to me that working class women themselves did not record their meetings with women of their own class, but they do appear to have recorded meetings they had with the middle class leaders. Maybe what they saw as the importance of the ‘leaders’ helped them retain details when writing retrospectively.
I rang the Fawcett Library in London and was told that they had heard of Emma Sproson but could not provide any further details of her involvement. I visited the library and was able to ascertain that Emma had been active in the WSPU, that she had later broken with them to become a member of the WFL member and was later elected to the national executive committee.
I was able to examine the newspapers of the suffrage organisations, The Vote, Women’s Franchise, Votes for Women and The Common Cause. The minutes of the WFL executive committee meetings and the newspapers were very well recorded and helped to gain an insight into Emma’s personality, as well as the personalities of some of the well-known members. Suffrage newspapers gave detailed accounts of incidents, and I felt that they were written in a similar vein to the local newspapers, and that the factual reporting did not glamorise or ridicule events or personalities.
When there was an exhibition at the Museum of London showing the story of the suffragettes I attended and to my great delight found two photographs of Emma in the display. This was very exciting as I had never seen a photograph of her before. At least I had some idea what this woman looked like. Thanks to Museum Project Organiser, Diane Wilkinson, I purchased the photographs.
I had contacted the Wolverhampton archivist and asked who had deposited the Sproson papers in the library. It was Councillor John Rowley of Wolverhampton. I visited him. Rowley is a lecturer at Dudley College and active in the Labour Party. He had carried out historical research into the Labour Party in Wolverhampton and had become interested in Emma as a result. He had appealed in 1983 to members of the public who had known or had any information relating to her, to contact him. As a result he had interviewed several people who had known her and he kindly gave me typed copies of the transcribed tapes. Councillor Rowley also gave me details of Mr David Sproson from whom he had obtained the material which was logged in the archives.
I wrote to David Sproson, the grandson of Emma, telling him of my interest and I was then able to see him at his firm in Bridgnorth, Shropshire. Mr Sproson was not born until after the death of his grandmother. He was unable to furnish me with many details of his grandmother’s life, but he very kindly loaned me various original documents of Emma’s and several photographs.
He gave me permission to reproduce the items. He was able to give me details of an aunt of his, Dorothy Sproson, who was still living.
I telephoned Mrs Dorothy Sproson. ( born 09.12.1905) She felt that would be unable to help me, nevertheless she met me at her Wolverhampton home. She is a very sprightly old lady with good powers of recollection. She had married Frank Lloyd (which was Emma’s maiden name) Sproson, the eldest son of Emma, after Emma had finished her political life. I interviewed her and whilst Dorothy was unable to give any in depth knowledge of Emma’s political life she was able to furnish me with details of her personal life after her retirement from politics. I also obtained personal details of Emma’s life which had previously been missing.
Emma also had a surviving nephew, Harold Sproson (83 years) of Wolverhampton. I made contact with him by telephone, but he was not able to recollect any details of Emma’s political life and either did not know or was reluctant to discuss her personal life. There remains another relative, William Sproson, and he had previously been interviewed by John Rowley.
As a result of my research I discovered that Wolverhampton Labour Party had published a newspaper called the Wolverhampton Worker. It was a monthly publication between 1913 and 1915; publication ceasing as a result of WWI. The library held some copies which I examined. This made very interesting reading and I found several references to and articles/letters by Emma in the newspaper. It was also much easier to read the original newspaper down to struggle with the poor quality of the microfiche. I was able to copy articles from the paper, which caught my interest because it was apparent that they had been an active Wolverhampton branch of the Women’s Labour League. Emma’s articles written showed her commitment to socialism, her forthright manner and also the respect in which she was held by other local socialists.
I established that Emma had become a local councillor in 1921. She remained a councillor until 1926 and I examined all the books at the library for the period 1921 to 1926. As I expected these contained very little information but it became apparent that Emma had been involved in an incident concerning the town’s Fever Hospital. I was able to trace the newspaper report concerning this and also a self published small booklet by Emma giving her account of the events. Emma did refer in a speech she made to the Women’s Co-operative meeting that she had worked in a hospital but I have been unable to verify this.
It is generally understood that Emma was involved in the birth control campaign in the area. She was a member of the Maternity Committee but the council minutes refer only to visits to homes for unmarried mothers. Local newspapers for this time carry no articles about birth control or any involvement Emma may have had with such a campaign. I contacted the Family Planning Association archive in London and whilst they were unable to find any references to Emma Sproson they were able to confirm that Wolverhampton had one of the first Birth Control clinics which opened in 1925.
Since completing the research I have become aware that there was a branch of the WFL in Wolverhampton and branch members travelled by special train from Wolverhampton to London on Sunday 21 June, 1908 to participate in the Votes for Women demonstration. I assume that Emma would have been a member of the branch although I have been unable to find any documentation referring to it.
It has become apparent to me that working class women were strongly involved in the suffrage issue and in socialist campaigns within Wolverhampton. However, this has not been documented and thus their involvement has been hidden. During my visits to the library I have been led to understand that ‘A’ level students have attempted to write a profile of Emma, but have given up because the information is too sparse. In fact there is a large amount of information available through press cuttings but this is obviously too time consuming for such level of research. I hope I have made them accessible to students and others.
The information gathering required careful time management and planning. Lengthy journeys were necessary to conduct interviews and carry out archive research. However, I am pleased to have established that Emma Sproson was a dedicated feminist and hope that my research will lead others to further investigate the role of Black Country women.
Chapter 3
From Childhood to Marriage
This chapter will examine Emma’s life, through her childhood, employment, marriage and motherhood. These years, 1867 – 1906, are the years prior to her involvement in the suffragette movement but, one can assume, years in which her political views began to be formulated. Roberts, who went talking of her investigations into the lives of working class women in Lancashire says
There was little feeling among the majority of women that they….. had been exploited by men, at least not by working class men.
and Banks writes that
certainly working class women have their own sources of discontent and by and large these have appeared to be less a result of their sex than of their class.
Ramelson appears to support this argument contending that the purpose of the demand for women’s rights was for women to have rights already enjoyed by man and as
… Working class men enjoyed no rights for women to equal… working men did not have the vote. They were economically, politically and socially a crabbed and confined part of the nation, energetically working to establish their rights. Working class women were to be found in the organisations and campaigns to establish such rights.
Considering Emma’s autobiography notes it is important to remember that she was born into a very poor working class family, and suffered the material deprivation encountered by her class. This was normal for her times and her life would have been similar to that of her later contemporaries. It is apparent that she believed in the exploitation of the working class, but here it is apparent from some of her speeches that she fully understood the double burden she was under as a woman of working-class origin. I formed an opinion that her later political life probably indicates that she believed that she was exploited as a result of her class, not gender.
Chinn claims, when writing of the working class, that
in writing down the memories, these autobiographers are engaging in an activity which sets them apart from the great majority of the class, with the consequence that they are not necessarily representative.
It would be fair to say that Emma’s recollections of her life after 1906 are probably not representative of the majority of working class women. However, the years before 1906 seem to relate to a childhood which was very familiar to women of the working class. Doris Nield Chew says that her mother’s political beliefs
were shaped by her own experience, as was the case for many other working class suffrage campaigners.
I feel that this probably also applies to Emma.
Chinn, when writing of the urban poor, albeit from the period commencing 1880, claims that women of the urban poor belonged to a matriarchal society where they were able to
wield power and influence, and give gifts within her power to flatter men
I feel unable to agree that these women believed they had power. Their lives were lived within strictly limited means and one wonders exactly what gifts Chinn believes they had within their power. Indeed Hannah Mitchell wrote of being treated differently to her brothers and of having to attend to their needs and in her autobiography says
I think my first reaction to feminism began at this time when I was forced to darn my brothers stockings while they read or played cards
Helena Swanwick, although not working class, writes of her relationship with her siblings saying
… I resented also that I was required to render them personal services which they did not reciprocate
Surely statements show resentment of the position these women were in as girls, and that position was because of their gender. It is interesting that the gender roles crossed class barriers and was not purely entrenched in the working class. Examining these observations I do not feel that either woman believed that there was a matriarchal society.
Secondly, if the purpose of this matriarchal society was to ‘flatter men’ then why does Chinn believe that a matriarchal society is empowering for women. This phrase surely implies that men are powerful, otherwise why would women wish to flatter them. I also question the relevance of being able to wield power if one’s life is so restricted by the financial and social limitations made upon it that all decisions are made within those constraints, rather than what one might really desire.
How did Emma Sproson fit into this society? She was born on 13 April, 1867, at Pikehelve Street, West Bromwich. She records no details of the house, but recollects her mother telling her that when she (Emma) was born there was no food in the house and only a half penny in cash. Emma states that her mother had told her that she received considerable help from the neighbours. These actions could be interpreted as matriarchal as the women were deciding how to use their limited means, without I assume reference to their husbands.
The family later moved to Daisy Bank, Coseley, date unknown. Emma records that these were some of her happiest days; she was delighted to be able to pick daisies and poppies locally. One could gain the impression when reading her notes that she had moved to a pretty, rural area.
Chinn says
“whilst autobiographies are a direct record in which writers set down exactly what they wish to, they can as readily leave out what they want … the lapse in time can influence them to view the past … overtly sentimental ways”
Perhaps Emma may have been ‘overly sentimental’ in her recollections. The area was heavily industrialised, with foundry forges and pit banks in abundance. It would undoubtedly have been heavily polluted, with chimneys belching forth smoke and other noxious fumes all day long. However that is not to say that as a child she would not have found great delight in those wild flowers, an oasis of colour within an otherwise drab, dirty backcloth.
She was one of seven children, but I have been unable to discover which position she took in the family, although there were brothers among her siblings. She does not speak of any resentment towards her brothers but she was undoubtedly, like Chew, “familiar from an early age with hard work and responsibility.”
She remembers her childhood with her siblings as a happy time and Chinn says that
“as a source, working class autobiographies emphasise this fact that happiness was not absent in the slums”
Her father was employed as a canal boat builder, and his wage depended on good weather and good attendance. Unfortunately his pay was very poor because both the weather and his attendance were unreliable. Emma describes her father “as a regular worshipper at the shrine of Bacchus,” from which one implies he was often suffering the after-effects of intoxication and could not attend work. Doris Nield Chew writes of her mother’s visit to Wolverhampton in the 1890s saying
“In Wolverhampton she was distressed to find that drink was sold in the working men’s clubs. This may sound priggish, but these were days when drink could ruin the lives of families on the edge of subsistence more easily than today”
Emma appears to have had a good relationship with her mother. More than once she refers in her notes to the poverty into which she was born and she describes her mother as “not being surpassed by any heroes”
Jamieson, although writing of 1890 onwards, says
“Young women could feel uneasy with the fact that they had to do housework; they could doubt that it was legitimately their work, but yet recognise that there was nobody else to do it, meaning no other suitable woman. In this situation, daughters remained uneasily reconciled to doing house work in the knowledge that their mothers had nowhere else to go for help and could not be left to do it alone.”
It is possible that Emma does not mention memories of doing housework because she accepted there was no alternative. She also appears to have had a good relationship with her mother and so perhaps did not wish to appear critical of her when writing retrospectively.
I believe that the family was often hungry, as Emma says that they had “a full feed sometimes.” . This was courtesy of a Mr George Podmore who, when he boiled the potatoes for his pigs, allowed the children to eat their fill of potatoes from the boiler. This was in return for their assistance in washing the potatoes.
Emma started school at five. She claims she did not attend school for long. She records that she had a rash that the teacher believed was measles and so she was sent home. Her notes refer to the fact that she had paid to attend school and she asked the school teacher to return the money. After some discussion the money was returned, and Emma left the school never to return. She apparently spent the remainder of her days in Daisy Bank wandering about. One must remember that school attendance to the age of 10 did not become compulsory until 1876, and she would therefore have been free to spend her days in this manner.
Emma was eight when the family moved to Monmore Green Wolverhampton, and she then recommenced her schooling. She was not fond of the school. She does not say why the move had taken place, but she was unhappy about it. Her notes again refer to her father’s drink problem.
She further states that they “moved into this house in great poverty” ; it consisted of one lower and two upper rooms. There is no mention of how large the previous house had been, but it is reasonable to assume that they had moved into a smaller home, possibly this was connected with her father’s drinking habits.
Emma was now eight and working, either early in the morning or late at night; she picked coal from the pit mounds, picked old iron, carried for the cobbler and took meals to the ironworks. She makes no mention of her siblings’ work contributions, but it is probable that they too participated in these activities to earn money. When talking of her time in Lancashire Roberts says
“children went picking on railway banks for pieces of coal, others collected lumps which fell off carts in the street.”
and Edwards in her fictionalised account of her grandmother’s life quotes her grandmother as saying
“Our two eldest boys earned pennies stone-picking and rook scaring… I earned a bit myself doing doorsteps, running errands and like.”
It appears that poor children right across the country were forced to earn money in this way to increase the family income. Many of these children arrived at school exhausted, and this together with their poor diet could have led to the apparent disinterest in academic study.
Emma does not say that her father’s intoxication had any other effects than that of being unable to work. However, she does say “seeing what my mother had to suffer, I had a contempt for marriage.”
It is possible that she refers only to the poverty in which they lived, but that would surely have been commonplace in the area. Was she referring to the personal relationship between her mother and father? I can only speculate on the answers, but is this where Emma started to become politicised? Is it possible that Emma became politicised because of the treatment of her own mother, rather than her position as a mother later?
Aged nine, Emma was in regular employment, looking after an elderly lady before and after school. She worked as a home help and earned six pence (2.5p) a week. She spent 12 months in this employment until the death of the lady. She was soon back in regular employment, this time residing with her employer. This was not unusual, many of her peers were in residential domestic service at this age. Edwards quotes her grandmother, who entered service as a resident maid at aged ten
“Of course, I cried when I left home. My mum and my dad and the eight younger children cried too…”
Surely Emma also found leaving her mother a great wrench but surprisingly she records no feeling of emotion in her notes.
The work was for a milk woman. She does not mention in which area she was working but I believe it was still Wolverhampton. Duties included cooking and cleaning before school and helping with deliveries in the evenings. She was attending school regularly, with the exception of Fridays, which she took off to work. She writes that her employer was a bad tempered woman who insisted that her work was to a high standard. Writing retrospectively she had found her training beneficial.
At thirteen Emma left school and obtained full time employment in a position combining shop work with domestic service. She describes her mistress as idle and a drunkard. She appears to have been badly treated and claims to have been ill during this time. She left at the earliest opportunity to find other employment in domestic service.
Her new employers appear to have been of a higher social standing and it was in this employment that she began to educate herself. She had access to classical literature and began reading this. She appears to have had a good relationship with her employers. However, her notes recount an incident when she was alone in the house with the mistress’s brother. He asked her to fetch a handkerchief from his room, she alleges that he then followed and made sexual advances to her. She resisted his advances and he did not pursue her. There is no reason to disbelieve her. This type of occurrence was a common enough experience for girls in domestic service.
Emma reported the matter to her employers. The husband apparently believed her and ordered the brother to leave. The wife did not and she dismissed Emma without a reference. Her writing of this incident is without rancour, to the extent that she believed some good came of the incident as the perpetrator had become a Minister of Religion. Did she really feel like that at the time? I cannot imagine the Emma that later emerged as excepting the treatment so lightly. She writes with no apparent bitterness about what had happened: perhaps this is because it was the normal treatment a domestic servant could expect. Interestingly she had been treated badly by two employers, both of whom were women. This tends to show that perhaps Emma held the same view as Roberts’ interviewees who believed they suffered as a result of their class rather than their sex.
Her prospects for further employment would not have been good. Indeed she moved to Lancashire to find work, again in domestic service. Was this from choice? Whilst she had not lived at home since the age of nine she had been within the district. The links with her mother would have been quite severely cut by the move. Was it necessary to move to a place where she was unknown? Was Lancashire an area where she was more likely to find work without a reference as there were opportunities in the mills for the indigenous population? These are questions I can’t resolve.
The Wolverhampton Select Magazine, February 1988, claims that while in Lancashire Emma “may have made a living by teaching.” Her own notes refer only to teaching in a Sunday school and do not refer to her employment at all. Her daughter-in-law Mrs Dorothy Sproson is adamant that Emma was a domestic servant, rising to the position of cook. Emma refers to her Sunday School teaching as problematic as there were some issues she felt unable to discuss with the children, as she was becoming aware of scientific versus religious arguments.
She quotes Tennyson
“There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in all the creeds.”
Interestingly Mitchell uses the same quote in her autobiography. Her work at the Sunday School introduced her to the Church Debating Society. She attended a debate on the subject “should the law of breach of promise be abolished?”. She spoke in support of the abolition and Emma says that was her first attempt at public speaking.
Her second recorded attempt at public speaking was at a Parliamentary campaign meeting organised by Lord Curzon. She claims that she rose to ask a question, but Lord Curzon refused to answer her question on the grounds that “she was a woman and did not have the vote. “
Whilst it has not been possible to verify this, it is probable that such an incident happened. The refusal forced her to say “that from that moment I became a feminist“.
I do not know what Emma meant by a ‘feminist’. She was writing retrospectively and it is possible that at the time of the incident she was not sure what feminism meant to her. It is important to remember that feminism at this time did not merely mean the desire for the franchise but covered a whole host of matters pertaining to women, and there were many feminists who held different views to each other.
During the time Emma had been maturing feminists had been campaigning for women to receive education, to be allowed entry into higher education and the professions, in addition to their demand for the vote. Had this argument helped form Emma’s views? Until her involvement in the campaign for the vote for women it is difficult to formulate any views as to her political beliefs.
Emma returned to her hometown of Wolverhampton, and she states that she had saved enough money to buy a business for herself and her mother. I don’t know what the business was, she does not say and her surviving relatives are unable to help. They believe that, in all probability, it was a shop in the front room of her house.
I do not know when she returned to Wolverhampton but in 1895 there was an election in Wolverhampton and she states that she spoke at political meetings. Further she states that she was sent reports of the candidates speeches and asked to write replies for the editor of The Express and Star.
I am unable to verify this; presumably if she was writing on behalf of the editor then any articles may have appeared as an editorial and not be credited to Emma. The Express and Star was not a socialist publication, it was the local evening newspaper so I do not believe its readers would have been purely working class. If Emma’s recollection is correct then this would surely have been a revolutionary step for the editor.
Various original newspaper cuttings have been found from that time. These were in Emma’s personal documents and not from the archives. These include one letter from Emma to the Express and Star and a report at the Labour Church when the visiting speaker was Theresa Billington-Greig and the meeting was presided over by Emma Sproson. Why these have been retained and no others, if indeed there were any, I do not know. I am unable to say whether they had been kept by Emma or a relative.
The family believe that Emma met her husband to be, Frank, through correspondence they had through The Express and Star. I can’t substantiate this. Emma says that they met when she joined the ILP. Several original newspaper cuttings are contained in her personal documents. These are letters from a Jonathan Burge and someone referring to himself as Alastor (sic). These letters appear to have no significance, other than political rhetoric, which is based on the idea of Socialism triumphing over Toryism and Liberalism. I do not know if the relatives believe these were letters written by Emma and Frank using pseudonyms. Some of the newspaper cuttings are undated but others were written in 1900, after their marriage, and so I have discounted the idea of the relatives and believe that they did meet through the ILP.
Emma and Frank married on 1 August 1896. The marriage certificate does not give her occupation. The entry is left blank, although I assume she was probably then a shopkeeper.
Emma records very little of her family life throughout the autobiography. Through my interview with Dorothy Sproson I have established that there were four children of the marriage, one of whom did not survive. The three survivors were Chloris, born 1897, Frank, born 1899 and George, born 1906. No details are known of the deceased child, indeed Dorothy Sproson claims that Emma did not tell her daughter Chloris of the event, for whatever reason. Dorothy Sproson believes that the child was born in 1898. I do not find it surprising that Emma did not speak about the child. We must remember that times were very different. The infant mortality rate was extremely high then and it was not unusual for a family to lose a child. Additionally, Dorothy Sproson says Chloris became profoundly deaf, apparently when she was very young. No mention is made of this and the difficulties it must have created.
The main evidence for Emma’s personal life comes from surviving relatives of Emma. Her nephew, Mr W Sproson, was interviewed by Councillor Rowley in 1985. He recalled his mother telling him that Frank (husband) would get back from his shift at 3 pm to find Emma
“sitting reading a book of the law, with the three children scrabbling about on the floor in front of her”
Emma does not write in any derogatory manner about her married life, unlike Hannah Mitchell who wrote
… I soon found that a lot of the Socialist talk about freedom was only talk and these Socialist young man expected Sunday dinners and huge teas with home made cakes……… they believed in freedom’s cause” but thought that liberty is a kind of thing ‘that don’t agree with wives’
Doris Nield Chew, writing of her father’s attitude said that the sole responsibility for her (Doris) remained with her mother. She adds
“Of course, wives did not usually go away for days at a time, but after all my father had married my mother knowing quite well the sort of person she was and the sort of life she intended to leave”
Frank Sproson appears to have supported his wife, and as we will see later often wrote to the newspaper supporting her. Relatives also speak of him being very proud and supportive of Emma. There is no evidence to suggest that she felt overburdened with her family life and she appears to have been free to pursue her own ideals. Frank Sproson continued as an ILP member, but like the husbands of Chew, Cooper and Mitchell he did not have the high public profile like his wife’s.
There are no known photographs of Emma as a child. It is unlikely that the family would have been able to afford the cost of a studio photograph, and very few individuals had cameras. There is a photograph of her (Appendix A) which it is undated. I believe it was probably taken before her marriage as she appears quite young. She seems to have been an attractive, resolute young woman. A further photograph (Appendix B) shows her in a deputation with other suffrage leaders. Emma appears to have been of slight stature, a fact to be borne in mind when considering the physical treatment often meted out at meetings and demonstrations.
We have seen how Emma’s childhood and girlhood was spent, and indeed some of her earlier adult years. These were times when her political views were presumably being formed. In Chapter 4 we shall see how Emma’s membership of the ILP brought her into contact with Emmeline Pankhurst and her subsequent involvement with the various women’s suffrage movements and indeed her commitment to those movements. We shall see how Emma defied Chinn’s summary of working-class women as having
“rare involvement in political, ideological or trade union movements”
in that she, along with all the working-class women who have been hidden from history, was involved in political and ideological movements.
Chapter 4
1906 – 1911 – Suffragette or Suffragist?
1906 was the beginning of a great change in Emma’s political life. In this chapter we shall see how Emma became involved in the women’s suffrage movement and the personal sacrifices she made in that cause.
Frank Sproson, her husband, was the Wolverhampton ILP branch secretary and he wrote to Emmeline Pankhurst requesting that she speak to a branch meeting. Pankhurst was the founder of the WSPU and was already busy campaigning throughout the country on behalf of women’s suffrage. In her reply which was hand written, dated 3 August 1906, Emmeline Pankhurst replied that she would attend on 28 October 1906. The letter seems to be written in a rather authoritative manner and one could form the opinion that Mrs Pankhurst thought highly of herself.
Interestingly she signs herself “yours fraternally’, surely a rather masculine term for one fighting for women’s emancipation.
Emmeline Pankhurst did address a Wolverhampton ILP meeting. Emma’s autobiography notes record that Emmeline stayed at their home and that she (Emma) chaired the meeting. Emma does not record what Emmeline spoke about, or indeed anything about the manner in which she spoke but she does record that
“she (Emmeline) was so impressed with my speech that she urged me to go to London for a demonstration that was then being arranged”
It is apparent from Emma’s letters to local newspapers that she was now a very articulate woman and one wonders why she chose to record Emmeline Pankhurst’s particular words to her. Was she proud of what had been said, or was she overawed by the woman? Further, it must be borne in mind that the Pankhurst’s were keen to recruit working-class women to the WSPU in order to have a social balance within its structure, at least surface wise. Annie Kenney was instructed to always introduce herself on platforms as “a factory girl and trade unionist.”
Emma did not go to London at this invitation because she had given birth to her youngest child only two months before and was still breastfeeding. She comments that she was ‘weak’ at this time.
However, during the following months she was busy writing letters to The Express and Star in support of women’s suffrage. In a letter dated 24 November, 1906, she wrote
“women have too long exercised patience, and lent their ears to men who have sidetracked their cause. We should no longer appeal for the parsimonious aid of men… but prove ourselves in destructive force against the Government…
I believe the tone of this letter suggest that she had given the matter much thought and had decided to take part in militant actions. There were letters both against and in support of her via the letter columns and on 9 December 1906, in response to a letter that called upon the Editor to cease printing the letters she replied
the object of my letters have been to sure that the social position of women is bondage, and the only possibility of her becoming free is by full citizenship
The letter continues to criticise respondents who wrote against her views. When dealing with the question of closing the issue she writes
I fear I shall succumb to the weakness of my sex, and have the last word and letter
I believe this shows that she was able to retain a sense of humour, even under pressure.
Her notes record that on 7 February 1907 she suckled her baby before catching the train to London, leaving her three children in the care of her mother. She says it was necessary to wean the baby because she was strong and again refers to the fact that she herself was weak.
In fact the demonstration in which she was to participate was on 13 February. Emma writes that the demonstration took place on the same day that she travelled, so it may be that she in fact travelled on 13 February, although I believe this is unlikely.
Further she states that she went to the home of the Pethick-Lawrences’ where she stayed until the demonstration took place, it is unlikely that she travelled directly to their home and went immediately to the demonstration. I feel that she probably spent some days at the Pethick-Lawrences’ preparing for the demonstration.
Rosen claims that
in the north of England, WSPU organisers sought out women willing to go to prison, and arrangements were made for their brief stay in the homes of London suffragettes (6)
I am assuming that Wolverhampton would have been classed as the North by London women and if so this would mean that Emma possibly chose to participate in the demonstration with the intention of going to prison. Why did she take this action? She had three young children, a home and a business to look after. She remarks that she left everything in the hands of her mother, but letters written by Frank whilst she was in prison refer to Polly looking after everything. I believe from my interview with Dorothy Sproson that Polly was a sister of Emma. Frank was extremely supportive, both publicly and privately. In a photograph of him (Appendix D) he appears to be humorous and gentle. The husbands of Mitchell and Chew who, whilst themselves socialists, do not appear to have been particularly supportive of their wives.
Mitchell said
we badly needed the help of our male relatives, many of whom became ‘anti’ if their wives were out too often… Public approval could be faced and borne, but domestic unhappiness, the price many of us paid for our opinions and activities was a very bitter thing
I assume from this comment that Mitchell did not have the full support of her husband. Indeed when she was sentenced to a fine of 2s/6d (12.5p) or a term of imprisonment for her part in a demonstration at Belle Vue her husband paid the fine, against her wishes. She says
He knew that we did not wish our fines to be paid, and was quite in sympathy with the militant campaign, but men are not so single-minded as women are; they are too much given to talking about their ideals, rather than working for them.… Most of us who were married found ‘The votes for women’ were of less interest to our husbands than their own dinners..
Doris Nield Chew, writing of her mother’s tours of the country says
My father’s attitude to this was simple too. He considered that the prime responsibility for my welfare lay with his wife
Doris Nield Chew was taken with her mother.
Whilst people were obviously very helpful to the Chew’s it could not have been easy for Ada to take a small child on tour.
Emma probably went to London with the intention of being imprisoned. I feel quite sure that she did not envisage an easy time in an Edwardian prison. I accept that she was totally committed to women’s suffrage but I do wonder what her state of mind was at this time. After all she had a child aged six months. She had had three pregnancies in three years between 1897 and 1899, then a respite of seven years before her youngest son was born. Could it be possible that Emma did not make her decision purely on political grounds? Was it perhaps that she was suffering from what we know to as post-natal depression?
However she did attend the meeting which was held at 3 pm on 13 February 1907 at Caxton Hall in London. The meeting appears to have been very inspiring for her. She writes of the singing being led by ‘one of the most beautiful and spirited young women.’
Speeches were made and Rosen claims that Mrs Pankhurst cried “Rise Up, Women!” and that 400 women, led by Mrs Despard, began to march to the House of Commons. As they marched they sang the following to the tune of “John Brown”
Rise up, women! for the fight is hard and long,
Rise in thousands, singing loud a battle song,
Rise in might, and in its strength we shall be strong,
And the cause goes marching on.
Emma has recorded these words in her notes and one assumes they made a great impression on her. The women were refused permission to pass beyond Westminster Abbey green, but Emma reports that they did get past the police at this point. However, their efforts were to be frustrated by a heavy police presence, which of course was an all male presence. Rosen reports that the struggle continued for several hours
as bedraggled women hold themselves again and again against the police
And Emma’s notes record
A cordon of mounted police broke up our ranks… two policeman used me very roughly, and pushed me back, and then the mounted police swept us before then. Will returned again to our objective, and many of us were ruthlessly swept along the pavements, as though we were the enemy advancing in war.
She was subsequently arrested and bailed to appear at Rochester Row Court on 14 February. Mr Pethick-Lawrence, her host, stood as surety for her and for the other women arrested.
It is hard to imagine what physical state Emma was in. She said in her notes that she was weak when she went to London, and one assumes that the physical exertion during the demonstration must have left her badly debilitated. She had also abruptly ceased breastfeeding and as we will see later this had a profound effect on her. She appeared before the magistrates on 14 February when she was fined 20 shillings (£1) or face 14 days imprisonment. She elected, as did all the other defendants, to go to prison. The Express and Star, the local evening newspaper, reported on 14 February, her reply to the charge as
she said she would continue to fight until the women’s position was better than that of the brute or the greatest blackguard on the Parliamentary register… so long as men assigned the position she should hold in the state man was her tyrant and woman his slave
Emma entered prison and her autobiography describes the general conditions, the lack of adequate facilities and poor diet. She says the regime was harsh and relentless and comments that “one night seemed the length of ten.” She was presumably suffering very badly from engorged breasts as her breasts were very painful. She had ceased breastfeeding too quickly, rather than weaning the baby gradually. She was possibly in considerable pain, and as one who was forced to cease breastfeeding abruptly due to an infection, I can certainly empathise with her. She says that she was subject to
alternate fits of laughing or crying… I felt so ill that I did not care what happened.
What this depression totally caused by imprisonment? Was it as a result of her painful breasts, was it postnatal depression, or possibly a combination of all the factors? Why did she not wean the baby properly if she had planned to go to London? She had three other children and presumedly she had breastfed them and knew what to do. I think it is unlikely that we shall ever know whether she was actually suffering from post-natal depression but it is a question that perhaps helps us to understand the personal sacrifices that some women were prepared to make. Her account of painful breasts is corroborated in a letter to Frank Sproson from a Miss E. Wildman.
Miss Wildman had visited Emma in prison on behalf of the WSPU and wrote to him that Emma had been in pain. Miss Wildman was a nurse and had assisted Emma in relieving the pain.
Frank wrote to Emma, through Miss Wildman, who was allowed to read the letter to Emma. The letter tells of family life and the support he is receiving. He appears to have been aware of her depression, because the letter is very encouraging and he tells of all the important women who have asked after her. He finishes the letter saying, “I am quite proud of you and admire your courage, so don’t be downhearted. “ He then promises to meet her on her release. Emma was able to send a reply to Frank which told him of her treatment in prison, but dwelt to some extent on concern about the baby. Emma was obviously worried about the baby, and one wonders if she had a guilt complex, as indeed do many mothers today, about leaving a young child.
Frank was able to meet Emma on her release when, according to Emma’s notes, he was told by Emmeline Pankhurst,
Mrs Sproson is very ill. You must look after her and get her home as soon as possible.
Emmeline Pankhurst appears to have been anxious about Emma’s health, and this contrasts markedly with Hannah Mitchell’s experience following her nervous breakdown. She says that she joined the newly formed WFL because
I was so deeply hurt by the fact that none of the Pankhurst’s had shown the slightest interest in my illness, not even a letter of sympathy. I felt it would be impossible to work with them again
Was it that Hannah was unlikely to be active in WSPU politics again but Emma was still committed that accounted for the Pankhurst’s differing attitudes? Emma returned home, but from this point her notes are quite difficult to follow. She appears to have become somewhat confused over events between her two periods of imprisonment in Holloway. However with the aid of newspapers and original documents I believe I have been able to establish her involvement.
On 8 March 1907, a private members suffrage bill, sponsored by Mr Dickinson, a Liberal, reached its second reading in the Commons. Rosen reports that the debate was more serious than ever before and claims that “militant feminism had created this new seriousness. “
The Bill was talked out, thus giving no time for discussion, and the WSPU subsequently arranged a march for 20 March, again from Caxton Hall to Parliament. This was only three weeks after her first period of imprisonment but Emma again travelled to take part and she was subsequently arrested and bailed to appear before the magistrates on 21 March. The original bail certificate shows that she was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting police. (Appendix G) At court she was sentenced to a fine or one month’s imprisonment. She chose the term of imprisonment and wrote
I knew my family were well cared to, and I was much stronger in health and could not bring myself to consent to my fine being paid
Emma’s notes record that prison life was not so harsh this time, the suffragettes
now had concessions such as newspapers, writing materials and being allowed to wear one’s own clothes
She claims that she applied to go before the Prison Commission as she had been sentenced to 1 months imprisonment and wished to know
is this going to be a lunar or calendar month? If the former, 28 days, if the latter, then 30 days
I am unable to verify if this actually happened, but she says that she appealed on the unfairness of a sentence which could vary according to the number of days in the month in which one was sentenced. She was told that one month meant 30 days.
She writes very little of her personal experience in prison on this occasion, but she does not appear to have been depressed and her physical health was much better. She does write of a woman called Daisy Lord who was in prison awaiting execution for the murder of her baby and that this caused a general air of depression. Daisy Lord was imprisoned at this time and her case was referred to the Home Office. Emma records that she was visited by Christabel Pankhurst but makes no comment on the visit itself. A letter dated 4 April and sent to Frank by Emma dwells mainly on family matters, Emma states that she had spoken at the Caxton Hall on the night before her imprisonment. Emma ‘celebrated’ her 40th birthday in prison.
Frank again publicly supported Emma in a newspaper article entitled ‘Defence of the Suffragettes’ in The Express and Star 25 March 1907, which was written in reply to letters condemning the suffragettes. He replies
…. the publicity obtained by the militant suffragettes since they adopted the tactics so frequently condemned should, at least, have convinced those possessed of ordinary intelligence that they have the courage, tact and ability to justify their demand.
The article continues in this vein, totally supporting the suffragettes and Emma in particular. There are also several letters of support for the suffragettes in The Express and Star.
Emma was released from prison on Saturday 20 April 1907 and she and all the women released attended a public lunch held by the WSPU to celebrate their release. Whilst I accept that the lunch was a celebration the menu was rather rich after a month of prison food. Emma makes no reference to the amount or type of food but remarks that she spoke at the luncheon and records saying
one speaks on the great difficulty with all the knives and forks to eat with, after the use of a piece of tin for a knife, and a wooden spoon.
Her first public meeting after her release from prison was at the Wolverhampton marketplace, where The Express and Star said she spoke with a Mrs Baines of Stourport. I can’t find any further details of Mrs Baines, but Hannah Mitchell refers to her friend called Jenny Baines of Stockport who she says was a fine orator. She says Jenny Baines suffered a nervous breakdown and eventually emigrated to Australia.
Dorothy Sproson recalls Emma having a friend who emigrated to Australia. I feel it is probable that the newspaper wrongly reported Stockport as Stourport. If this is the case then I feel it is probable that the woman talked about by Emma and the one talked about by Hannah Mitchell may be one and the same.
Emma makes only passing reference to her speech with Mrs Baines but The Express and Star of 29 April 1907 reports the incident saying that the women were jeered, verbally abused and had stones thrown at them, it concluded
when the two speakers descended the steps there was an ugly rush in their direction and the police were hard put to protect the women.
The report is favourable in its tone towards the women and there followed correspondence in the paper, some supportive of the women and others critical. Emma’s own feelings about the meeting were recorded by her in Women’s Franchise of 24 October 1907 as
I was feeling somewhat weak when I turned out to meet my first Wolverhampton audience after having served my second term of imprisonment at Holloway…..Under the circumstances I prepared to speak in the course of suffrage… it was a memorable occasion. Every sentence I ordered was met with jeers, insulting epithets or ironical laughter, but I held on and even managed to smile from time to time, and so the men and youths failed in their object, which I realised from the first was to hinder me from speaking altogether.
What kind of woman was Emma, and indeed Mrs Baines, and other woman who spoke in such circumstances? Gourvish and O’Day, albeit when talking of the working class attitude to authority, say
despite their reputation for the docility it was rare for a working class child to grow up cowed and spiritless
I feel it is reasonable to assume that Emma was certainly not spiritless.
Emma had not, at least whilst in London, formed a very favourable opinion of the police attitude towards the suffragettes. The police force at that time was totally male and I do not feel that she could be certain of their reactions. Would they protect her and her fellow speaker from the crowd? Would the police allow their fellow men to abuse the women, other than verbally? If one assumes that the police were entirely honourable in the intentions they do not appear to have been in sufficient number to protect the women. Emma had taken part in marches and demonstrations and had been imprisoned for her beliefs but prior to these marches she had been inspired by the speeches and singing at Caxton Hall. It is probably safe to assume that she participated in these events with a feeling of euphoria engendered by the collective atmosphere of determination. Did this give her the courage to carry out her purpose in London? I do not feel it is likely that she went to this meeting in Wolverhampton with the same feeling of exuberance. The events were probably very frightening but Emma continued to the end, showing her to have been a very courageous and resolute character.
Her experiences were similar in nature to those of other suffragists. Ethel Derbyshire, a working-class socialist and suffragist in Lancashire, was unable to continue speaking at meetings because, as her daughter explained,
She did speaking for the movement on Blackburn on the market… And they would rag her off… And they used to have to really guard her or else she would have been hurt.… She realised that if she did get hurt, what would happen to her three young children.
Derbyshire could not afford the luxury of following her commitments, because had she been hurt she would have been unable to work and her children would have suffered. Very possibly many other working-class women faced this dilemma and draws their family commitments.
Hannah Mitchell was fortunate to be paid a wage for her campaign work. She records details of a meeting at Boggart Hole Clough:
there was a concerted rush and the group round the chairman became separated. We were on sloping ground, and in danger of being pushed downhill by our assailants, most of them young men, who were behind us… Seizing a woman they pushed her into the arms of another group who in their turn passed her on… Two youths held onto my skirt so tightly that I feared it would either come off or I should be dragged to earth on my face
Whilst this meeting was not purely concerned with women’s suffrage it gives an idea of the women’s treatment. Selina Cooper, working for the NUWSS was also subjected to abuse, although Liddington and Norris claim that this was
because they were indiscriminately blamed for suffragette stone-throwing, by-elections had grown into terrifyingly rough affairs
There may be substance in this statement but is it not likely that these incidents occurred purely because of their gender? Mitchell’s account are not too dissimilar from the descriptions of how the police often treated the suffragettes in London.
The Wolverhampton Chronicle reports meetings about women’s suffrage involving Emma in Black Country towns during May, July, August and September 1907. The meetings are generally described as rowdy and that Emma continued to be subjected to a great deal of abuse, mainly verbal but not, as far as I can ascertain, physical. At these meetings she became accustomed to the crowd shouting at her “whoa, Emma!, “ presumably in an attempt to slow her down. A report of a meeting in Dudley on 14 July states that 200 ILP members formed a guard to protect her from the crowd. If such a guard were necessary, one questions the accuracy of previous newspaper reports. Did they fail to report physical abuse?
It is also fair to say that this reaction was not universal in the area. The Wolverhampton Chronicle of 13 May 1907 reports a meeting at which she was the speaker saying
she turned a huge and antagonistically inclined audience round her little finger for the best part of an hour
And a report on 31 October describes a meeting at Willenhall saying
Mrs Sproson, in spite of initial opposition, made a capital start at Willenhall… She collected what was said to be the largest open-air crowd seen in the district for years… She was very soon on good terms with the wives (of the locksmiths) and the women present formed themselves into a bodyguard I’m severely criticised all interrupters. She left them I made a storm of invitations to return.
The various newspaper reports tend to suggest that she spoke about the terrible conditions under which the chainmakers toiled. She called for an end to sweated labour and for a fair wage for the job; it is not clear however whether or not she was in favour of protective legislation specifically for women. It is apparent, though, that she was badly received in towns where one of the main occupations was that of chainmaking, such as Dudley and Cradley Heath. I feel it can be assumed that she was in favour of protective legislation and this may have made her unpopular with some local women as chainmaking was their main occupation and ending sweated labour would have affected their standard of living. In 1913, six years later, Selina Cooper, arranged for a group of chainmakers to take part in the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in London and they were mentioned in the official report:
“especially notable were the chainmakers from Cradley heath, who toiled for about four shillings per week of sixty hours.
These women were very poor. Emma made WSPU tours of the Black Country to Stafford and Cannock.
Emma does not record any views about the WSPU in her autobiography but I believe she was involved in the split in November 1907. On 10 September, Emmeline Pankhurst announced that the WSPU annual conference would not take place as scheduled on 12 October 1907 as she was taking the leadership into her own hands. Her reason for not calling the meeting appears to have been because she feared opposition to her, and her autocratic nature would not have allowed her to work for someone else. Charlotte Despard, one of the WSPU suffragettes, along with others, carried on the meeting and split with the WSPU. They initially retained the title but on 1 November 1907 they renamed themselves the WFL. Their object was:
to secure for women the Parliamentary vote as it is, or maybe, granted to men
They were to confine militancy to attacking the government. The WFL also decided to hold protests in courts against the trial of women by man-made laws and later to withhold taxes on the ‘grounds of no taxation without representation.’ Emma does not appear to have been at the AGM when the split took place but on 1 February 1908 a letter was read from her to the WFL national executive committee (NEC) showing that she was now a committee member.
An examination of the NEC minute books shows she was a very active and committed member. She attended almost every NEC meeting plus the AGM’s. These meetings were generally held in London so it cannot have been easy for Emma to attend.
Additionally, during October 1907 she made a further tour of the Black Country towns and also Stafford and Cannock. A report in Women’s Franchise of 31 October 1907 said that
… suffrage has become a living question throughout Staffordshire, discussed with keen interest in thousands of homesteads. The pluck and energy of these two pioneers has secured for the question a fair hearing throughout the country
I do not know with whom she was travelling as she does not name her companion. She continued to tour the country making women’s suffrage speeches. Unfortunately her notes make little reference to her to tours, but I have attempted to complete a tour itinerary. This reveals that she spent a significant amount of time away from her home and family. She does not record how this affected her family life, Dorothy Sproson believes that her own husband resented his mother’s absences. I won’t dwell upon the tour but concentrate on those events which appear to have been of most significance during the suffrage years.
In July 1908 Emma went to Cheltenham to help with meetings. On 16 July, during a meeting in Cheltenham, the women’s franchise reports
some men, not all of them sober, caused much interrupting and attempted to knock the speakers from their chairs
The meeting was broken up and the banner was torn. A police officer asked the women to leave and when they refused he is purported to have replied “it is too hot for me “ and promptly disappeared. Is it possible that he was the only police officer present and was concerned for his own safety? If he was the only police officer present one must question the reason for this as there must surely have been other officers available. Was this the silent protest of the police against the question of women’s suffrage, or did it reflect the local political view of the Watch Committee?
On 23 July, 1908, whilst at Cheltenham, she chalked details of the town hall meetings on the pavements. A photograph shows her chalking details on a pavement, but I feel that this is not in Cheltenham as both Emma and her accomplice are wearing winter clothing. I assume that she chalked pavements elsewhere. Her personal documents contain a postcard and on close examination I realised that Emma was the woman second from the front of the postcard, and it appears to have been taken on the same occasion as the pavement chalking incident.
There is also a photograph of Emma distributing handbills which could have been taken at this time. Emma was summonsed for a breach of bylaws, in respect of the pavement chalking, apparently the only time that the law was invoked. She appeared before the magistrates where she denied the authority of the court to try her. She was fined five shillings (25p) which was paid by a local sympathiser. Interestingly the newspaper reports say that when she was tried “the court was thronged with police “. Whilst I accept that their presence was undoubtedly to prevent a breach of the peace by suffragettes protesting against the authority of the court, where were these same police when Emma held her open air meeting?
In September 1908 she toured Scotland, which appears to have been a success. She records no details of the actual tour, only those of an altercation she had with a railway inspector. She had purchased a ticket believing she could travel to Kilmarnock with it. However, she was asked to leave the train at Carlisle which she refused to do.
The railway inspector had her forcibly removed from the train and receiving no sympathy from the station master she walked to the police station and demanded to see the Chief Constable. The officer at the station refused this request, but she persisted until she was seen by the Chief Constable. She told him the full details of her plight and her reason for travelling to Kilmarnock and he appears to have been sympathetic and arranged for a loan to enable her to buy a ticket. It is not clear that he sympathised with the suffragettes, rather that he knew the people she was to stay with were influential in that area. Newspaper reports give details of the tour. An article in The Vote of 29 July 1911 reports a Miss Jack of Scotland saying:
Mrs Sproson was no stranger to Edinburgh. In the early days of the struggle she had inspired the branch there too hard work. Indeed its present flourishing condition was largely due to her influence
An article in The Express and Star on 12 February 1947 reports the opening of the Suffragette Museum in Kensington. Miss Ann Munro from Glasgow recalling Emma’s speeches said
the male audience then tried to shout her down with “Emma, Emma, learn your grammar”, for she was only an ordinary type of woman.
Having previously questioned her reaction to the abuse of the crowd I feel it is important to note that a report in Women’s Franchise on 6 May 1909 states that she received a black eye and was later attacked by a man with an iron bar whilst touring Sheffield. These incidents did not deter her and she makes no record of these in her autobiographical notes. Was she afraid? If so was it her commitment to women’s suffrage that enabled her to overcome her fears? She was certainly used to being handled roughly by the police during demonstrations. I believe she was a brave and committed woman.
Apart from her tours Emma wasted little time in practising the beliefs of the newly formed WFL. The Wolverhampton Chronicle of 27 November 1907 reports of the trial of one Annie Parker who had appeared before the magistrates charged with being drunk and incapable. Emma had been present in the public gallery and tried to object shouting
women do not make the laws. I do not see why they should abide by them
She was promptly ejected by a police sergeant acting on the instructions of the Chief Constable who is alleged to have said
we won’t have suffragettes here. That’s Mrs Sproson. Out she goes!
She received two further terms of imprisonment, both in Stafford Jail, as a result of her commitment to the WFL’s policy of ‘no taxation without representation’. On 23 May 1911 she appeared before Wolverhampton Magistrates Court for the offence of keeping a dog without a licence. The original summons is retained by Mr D Sproson. (Appendix N) The Wolverhampton Chronicle of 24 May reports that she pleaded ‘neutral’ to the offence, her defence being:
I decline to pay any dog licence or any other tax, so long as women get no representation for taxation
Emma was fined 2s/6d (12.5p) or seven days imprisonment. She chose imprisonment. On the day of her release she spoke at the Market Place in Wolverhampton saying that she intended to own two dogs. Emma appeared before the Magistrates Court again, on 21 June 1911, for the offences of having no dog license, keeping a dangerous dog and not controlling the dog. Frank was also summoned for aiding and abetting her in the offences. Newspaper reports say that both pleaded ‘not guilty’. I feel Emma was more likely to have once again replied neutral to the charge as in pleading not guilty she would have been accepting the court’s jurisdiction. During the evidential argument Emma is reported as saying that the dog was her responsibility and
she would leave the house if he (husband) either bought a licence or disposed of the dog
The magistrate said to Frank “why don’t you accept that offer?” This gives some insight into the views of the magistrates, all male, of Emma’s activities. It also shows us to some extent what Frank is likely to have endured as a result of supporting Emma.
Emma was fined 25s (£1.25) or 1 months imprisonment. Frank was fined 2/6d (12.5p) or 7 days imprisonment, additionally it was ordered that the dog be destroyed. Emma chose imprisonment and Frank lodged an appeal.
An interview with Mrs Alice Onions, conducted by John Rowley, reveals that Emma flatly refused to have the dog destroyed and when asked her objections by the magistrates she replied, “he died yesterday morning” I do not know if this remark shows her sense of humour or if it was Emma’s way of showing the magistrate that she would not be intimidated.
Her autobiographical notes make little reference to these two terms of imprisonment in Stafford except to say that she was originally a class three prisoner but was later re-classified to class one following a hunger strike. This meant she had certain privileges such as wearing her own clothes. More importantly this was official recognition that the offence was ‘political.’
The Vote of 8 July 1911 reports that H.G. Chancellor MP was to ask questions concerning her case in the House of Commons. Mr Chancellor asked the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, to consider the case on the grounds that Emma was in effect serving two terms of imprisonment for what he considered to be one offence. He also said that the offence had been committed as a protest at the disenfranchisement of women. Mr Churchill replied that two separate offences had been committed and added:
In both cases the punishment was a fine, which she was well able to pay if she had wished
The offence would be considered as two separate offences by today’s standards.
Following her release Emma continued to speak publicly in support of women’s suffrage until April 1912. She then resigned from the NEC, together with others, in protest at Charlotte Despard’s autocratic style of leadership. History seems to have repeated itself in that the WFL was now in the same position that the WSPU had found itself in, that of disagreement with its leadership who wanted autocracy. Evans, albeit writing of feminism on an international level found that the purpose of the German, Minna Caner, in recruiting working class women to feminism was:
to help to emancipate themselves as individuals… Emancipation from the working-class, not of the working-class
Perhaps this is why the leaders needed an autocratic style, were they unable to come to terms with someone from a lower social strata having authority over them?
To what extent were working class truly treated as equals within their respective organisations? Emma addressed the special conference at Caxton Hall on 27/28 April 1912 and the verbatim report reads rather surprisingly that Emma, when talking of the problems of tackling Charlotte Despard, said
It is especially difficult for one who is so much younger (herself) and who feels the difference in her social position, very difficult indeed
I find it surprising that after all that she had done, plus the manner in which she had conducted herself, that she still appears to have been intimidated by reason of being younger than Despard and by reason of her class. Doris Nield Chew writes of her mother:
The gulf in class and education which separated mother even from those who were her political colleagues made her more reserved…
Mitchell claims that Christabel Pankhurst disapproved of Sylvia Pankhurst’s efforts to involve the women of East London in the suffrage campaign.
Why did she bother with women so debilitated by poverty and squalor, who had no leisure, even if they had the will or the intelligence for agitation?
If this was the general attitude of the middle class leaders of the organisations then it is hardly surprising that both Emma and Ada appear to have been reticent about women who were of a different class. It also tends to support Rosen’s view that working-class women were recruited to give an impression of a class balance.
During these suffrage years Emma was also involved in the campaign against the census. Her autobiographical notes record that her husband completed the census but that she then removed it from the envelope and cut out details of herself and other household female members. I do not know why she took this step, Frank Sproson always publicly supported his wife and I’m sure that he would have omitted the details at her request. It may be that she felt this was purely a matter for her but it is of course possible that she did not wish him to be prosecuted for failure to complete the census.
A photograph taken of Emma for the WFL contrasts sharply with the earlier one, which portrays her as a determined, resolute woman. In the photograph published by the WFL her hair had been arranged into a full, wavy style, she is wearing jewellery and her light coloured dress falls into soft folds. The photograph gives her a gentle, ladylike appearance and appears to be romanticised. What was the purpose of this photograph? One wonders if they intended showing the women in this very ladylike, middle-class manner in an attempt to counteract the views portrayed in caricatures of the time that inevitably portrayed feminists as strident women with characteristics which were generally associated with men. Liddington and Norris quote an unnamed Tory candidate as saying:
suffragettes were only a few masculine women and a few feminine men
After her departure from the WFL I have been unable to trace any further involvement of Emma which is concerned specifically with women’s suffrage.
Return to my title, “suffragette or suffragist?” I feel unable to answer the question satisfactory in respect of Emma. Suffragette was the word adopted by the Daily Mail on 10 January 1906. Rosen says, the term suffragette:
served the legitimate and valuable function of distinguishing between militant feminists – suffragettes – and those suffragists of both sexes who sought the vote by entirely legal means
Liddington and Norris say, when recording the involvement of the working-class in the suffrage movement in Lancashire, that they coined the term radical suffragist because:
they all seemed to share considerable industrial experience and a political radicalism that set them apart from many non-militants.
If one has to fit into either of these two categories, which one should Emma fall? She was imprisoned when a WSPU and WFL member. Failing to pay taxes was an illegal act and her participation in marches resulted in charges of resisting the police being brought against her. I would question the use of the law over the issue of the dog; it would be interesting to see how often the law was invoked at the time. Is it not possible that the law was invoked because she was a suffragette? Was it authority’s way of showing that she could not win? She was apparently never involved in acts of damage or arson as were others.
Liddington and Norris’s definition presupposes that the women involved had considerable industrial experience and a political radicalism. I feel that Emma was a political radical and that was her reason for joining and being such an active ILP member. She had no strong personal industrial experience in the same way as Chew, Mitchell and Cooper. However, she lived in a heavily industrialised area and from early childhood she saw men and women at work in forges, heavy industry and on pit banks. I believe that Emma does not fit conveniently into either category, but she was obviously committed in her aims. Perhaps we should not try to retrospectively categorise these women strictly by attempting to fit them into the ‘modern’ definitions being proposed.
In the Wolverhampton archives I found a copy of a letter which appears to have been sent to a local newspaper. The letter is undated and it is not clear who the sender was but whoever it was writes:
Emma Sproson was not an extreme militant and she believed in democratic government.
I assume from this that the sender disliked the term militant suffragette being applied to Emma. Perhaps the writer would have been happier with the term radical suffragist and there I will let it rest.
Chapter 5
1913-1927 – Socialist Years
Until 1912 we followed Emma’s private and political life in some depth. However her autobiographical notes end at 1912, with the comment “that once the vote was won I devoted my time to socialist issues” and a passing reference to her election as a local councillor. I have attempted to construct Emma’s life from 1912 to 1927 when her political life appears to have ended.
Obviously the vote had not been won by 1912 but I feel that following her resignation from the WFL NEC that Emma was no longer deeply involved in the question of suffrage. She appears to have turned her attention to pressing social needs within Wolverhampton. I believe she probably felt that she could no longer work within the organised suffragette movements because of the lack of democracy and perhaps she was tired of being seen as lower class which is what she hinted at in her retiring speech from the WFL. She was not however the type of woman to ‘retire’ from public life, indeed she had become involved with the suffrage campaign because of her socialist involvement.
Wolverhampton was an area of pressing social needs and she turned to the current areas of oppression, to fight for the rights of the working class. I have been able to trace some details of her involvement in local politics prior to and immediately following the outbreak of WWI through The Wolverhampton Worker, a local newspaper which was published monthly by the local Trades and Labour Council from 1913 to 1915.
The Wolverhampton Worker of 1 May 1913 reports a meeting of the Tenants’ Defence League in the Empire Palace, Wolverhampton. The event was held in response to the threat by the Property Owners’ Association to increase rents on their property. It should be borne in mind that problems were occurring over rents throughout the country and there would be rent strikes in many towns. Emma spoke at the Wolverhampton meeting, urging the tenants not to pay increases, but her speech was nevertheless directed particularly towards the women present. The report says:
she (Emma) said it was always the women who had to make twelve pence do the work of 13, and point after point she drove home among the sympathetic applause of the audience
I feel this speech shows that whilst she had been very busy travelling in the cause of women’s suffrage, Emma was still very much in touch with the reality of the lives of working class women. Her comments about women having to make money stretch further is borne out by women interviewed by Roberts; these women talk of balancing the budget and the strategies they used which included pawning wedding rings and obtaining credit. A Mrs Nixon told Roberts.
I took my wedding ring three times. (to the pawnbrokers) it was a good one… Each time I took it I was caught with babies.
The newspaper reports that the outcome of that meeting was a refusal by the Property Owners’ Association to meet the Tenants’ Defence League. The newspaper claims that the meeting was refused because Emma and a Mrs Wiles were present. The newspaper’s view of this was:
the real reason for the objection is that the whole crowd of grabbers who grind the faces of the poor are afraid of Mrs Sproson and Mrs Wiles – two of the ablest women in Wolverhampton.
Of course, one must remember that the newspaper was the organ of the Trades and Labour Council, and as such was likely to look favourably upon Emma’s views. Even so perhaps this incident gives a true reflection of her resolute character. Unfortunately I have been unable to discover anything further about Mrs Wiles.
The same newspaper edition gives details of a Trade Union and Labour mission week in Wolverhampton. Emma is shown as the chairman of a meeting which was addressed by Julia Varley, the secretary of the Women’s Labour League.
Following these rent meetings the newspaper highlighted local housing problems. The reporter of these articles was ‘The Special Commissioner’ and the articles gave very graphic descriptions of the very poor state of housing locally. Whilst conducting my research I discovered old newspaper reports which claimed that Emma was ‘The Special Commissioner.’
However, I can’t state categorically that she was actually the author. In March 1914 the Wolverhampton Worker carried an open letter from Emma which was addressed to the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the borough. The letter is highly critical of the housing scheme which the council was considering adopting. The letter implies there had been an altercation between Emma and council members resulting in her being told to suggest a better scheme. The letter proceeded to do just that and again she referred to her position as a working woman.
It is interesting that Emma was later to purchase a row of cottages and become a property owner herself. Dorothy Sproson says that Emma’s intention was to provide good accommodation at cheap rents for others. Indeed the cottages were rented out and later Emma was to purchase a further piece of land on which she had three houses built. One of these was occupied by herself, Frank and Chloris and another by one of her sons and his family. The other house was rented out.
The outbreak of war in 1914 had caused the various factions of the women’s suffrage to adopt different stances over the question of war. The WSPU immediately adopted pro-war and pro-government policies, whilst the WFL and the NUWSS had varying views among their members. A great many women though who have been involved in the suffrage campaign were very strongly against war and passionately in favour of peace. I have been unable to find any newspaper reports that give a good insight into Emma’s own views. Nevertheless, I believe that the extra hardships suffered by the working class as a result of the war had a tremendous influence on her and I feel it is safe to assume from the material I have read that she was probably anti-war.
Prior to ceasing publication in 1915, because of the outbreak of war, The Wolverhampton Worker of 23 March 1915 reports details of a meeting held on January 31. Emma’s resolution to the meeting was:
to protest against enormous increases in the price of necessities and demand government should take steps to put an end to the exploitation and plunder of the working-class
The resolution was carried unanimously. During her speech Emma demanded that the government act upon suggestions put forward by the War Emergency Workers’ National Committee. The suggestions were, briefly
- to stop the wheat shortage, and to this end, to import wheat
- re coal shortage – to fix maximum prices and to use private and public railway trucks economically
- Public control of merchant shipping.
- Distribution of household coal on a fair basis.
Emma’s speech continued:
…. There is a huge gamble carried on in connection with the food supplies and other necessities of life. For my own part I recognise the fact 20 years ago that such gambling took place – by insurance companies as soon as you are born, by cemetery companies to bury you when you are dead… and buy a whole train of exploiters all through your lives
Whilst I believe this speech showed her very strong belief that the working-class was exploited, I also wonder if her sense of humour was surfacing when she made the remarks about birth and death.
Whilst I am not in a position to state satisfactory her views on the war this particular speech ends with Emma saying:
Government would have to exercise a very strong arm between the distributor and the consumer if they would enjoy that security which the government must possess in order to carry on war successfully. No government could succeed in war unless the people were at the back of them. And the government would only get the people at the back of them when they insisted on fair dealing all round
Have views are very similar to those of Sylvia Pankhurst who attacked the governments policies on welfare provision, asking:
What did Parliament care about the miseries of the slums? Why did it not use some of its quasi-dictatorial powers to set up some adequate services?
I believe Emma’s speech give us an insight into her views. I believe she is telling the working class that they are being exploited; that they are deprived of necessities but are still expected to fight. I feel sure that the majority of the working class were only too aware of their position but I wonder if the aim of her speech was to make them rethink their position. Did she hold similar views as Hannah Mitchell whose opinion of war was
war in the main is a struggle for power, territory or trade, to be fought by the workers, who are always the losers
It is important to remember that Emma was making a public speech and it would have to be carefully delivered in view of the political climate of the time, both in England and abroad.
I believe the greatest insight into her vWar views came from an interview with Dorothy Sproson. Dorothy says that her husband was extremely bitter because his mother, Emma, had destroyed his conscription papers. She says that he was unaware that he had received them until the arrival of the military police to arrest him. Frank’s widow says he went willingly and eagerly to join the regiment to which he was assigned. She is unable to give details of exactly when this took place except to say it was near the end of the War. Thus Frank never left England. T
his revelation causes one to question why Frank had not volunteered long before this event, after all he would have been fifteen when the war broke out. Was Emma so determined a character that he was afraid of upsetting her? Of course there is the possibility that Frank junior did not wish to join the Armed Forces, but that he felt obliged retrospectively to adopt a pro-war stance to establish his own ‘manliness’.
Where and how did Frank Sproson senior fit into these circumstances? In Lancashire the ILP had spoken against the war, but I do not know if the Wolverhampton branch passed such a resolution. In any case there were dissenters from the resolution amongst its own members. The ILP had founded the No Conscription Fellowship to help conscientious objectors and Ethel Derbyshire’s daughter recalls:
I’ve been at the ILP rooms. They used to have dances of a Saturday night, and so many of the boys had got their calling-up papers and wouldn’t go; and they knew that the military police were coming for them… so they used to all be there at the dance and they used to come for them… And they would sing the Red Flag when they went.
Sylvia Pankhurst, who by now had turned to communism,
held up as an example of true heroic militancy these absolutists (conscientious objectors)
It was reported that an ILP and Quaker meeting in Nelson against conscription in 1915 was interrupted by the Home Defence Corps and scuffling broke out, the police arrived but chose not to intervene. The report claims:
The ‘Red Flag’ , a symbol of defiance, was struck up in an attempt to drown the Home Defence Corps song
As we shall see later the symbol of the Red Flag was to be the cause of much consternation and criticism in Emma’s later political life.
The end of the war saw the introduction of the granting of the franchise to women over the age of 30, which meant they could now stand for election to the local councils and Parliament. Emma stood as a Labour Party candidate in 1919 and 1920, but failed to be elected. She eventually won a seat for Dunstall Ward in Wolverhampton in 1921. A photograph for her election campaign still shows her looking very feminine and contrasts sharply with a later one when she was a councillor. She appears to have had little difficulty in being nominated for a seat, unlike Hannah Mitchell who was first nominated by the ILP in 1921 but was turned down by the local Labour Party who said “she was not amenable to discipline “
Hannah Mitchell was eventually elected to the council in 1926.
Ada Nield Chew seems to have all but stopped her political life following WWI, she started her own business and in the words of her daughter:
For the next nine years she worked like one possessed. All too soon she would be 60; somehow she must make enough money from her business to keep her in retirement
Selina Cooper accepted an invitation to be nominated as a Parliamentary candidate in the general election bought her notes record.
The NUWSS sent my name as a parlimtry (sic) candidate for Berry, at the time the above union was supporting the Labour Party I was not excepted (sic)
So Selina failed to gain a place in the General Election. She does not appear to have made any effort to be elected to the local council, but continued her life with involvement in other local matters.
When Hannah won her seat there were already three women council members but Emma was in the unenviable position of being the first woman councillor on Wolverhampton Borough Council. Hannah claims that she had the support of her female colleagues, Emma was never to be in that position but was always the lone woman councillor.
On being elected she caused great furore by waving the Red Flag from the Town Hall balcony. (18) She received much criticism for this action. I believe her response in the local newspaper gives us some retrospective insight into her war views. She replied to the criticism saying:
the true meaning of the Red Flag is international brotherhood, which alone will bring international peace. I feel a woman’s highest mission is to succour life, not to take it……
She further draws attention to the fact that the Red Flag had previously been used symbolically on May Day processions and at the Rent meetings without comment. I do not accept that Emma did not realise the implications of flying the Red Flag. It had been a symbol of the Russian Revolution and thus stirred new and different feelings in people to those when it has previously been used. Whilst Emma was a Labour candidate one wonders to what extent she was influenced by communism.
Her election to the local council must have appealed to her sense of humour for as she later told a member of the Co-operative women’s guild in Manchester
the irony is that the man who committed me to prison 12 years ago for refusing to pay a tax as a protest against women’s political disability was the one appointed to declare me elected the first woman councillor for Wolverhampton
Once elected to the council, what contribution did Emma make? An examination of the council minutes proved rather fruitless, for they contain only the very barest details of the debates which took place. Emma was to serve on the Public Health Committee, and the sub-committees which dealt with mental health and homes for unmarried mothers. Following her death the Express and Star reported that
she showed particular interest in matters affecting women, children and wage earners
I have no doubt that she was very concerned with matters relating to women, children and the working class, but she has shown herself to be a very able orator and very concerned in many causes. Hannah Mitchell also served on the Public Health Committee and also the Libraries and Parks Committee. Is it possible that these women were appointed to these committees because of their gender? They do not appear to have been appointed to committees concerned with matters other than health or welfare. Councillor H. E. Lane, in an interview with John Rowley, recalled Emma:
as a very forceful and determined woman, who knew her mind and spoke it freely. She was very active in pursuing and exposing the abuse of the time – and there were very many abuses in the municipal government of that period.
Further during a later enquiry into allegations into the administration of a hospital, councillor Wilcock is reported to have said:
Councillor Henn and himself welcomed Mr Sproson because they believed there was work for a woman to do
What exactly is the meaning of these words? Prior to her election there had only been male council members, women had no official voice. Does this suggest that this work suddenly evolved or that it had be found to suit a woman’s supposed ability?
Post WWI I witnessed a growth in ‘welfare’ services such as health centres, public baths and clinics for mothers and babies. There were obviously men on these committees, as she was the only woman councillor, but the attitude of Councillor Henn and his colleagues suggests that now there was a woman council member work was distributed on a gender basis, rather than on an ability basis. Bearing in mind Emma’s previous campaigns in housing I do not believe she would be happy in being appointed solely to committees to deal with ‘women’s work’. Nor do I believe her full potential was exploited. In investigating her council life I have decided to record details of the major events where she was involved. Throughout her whole time as a councillor she appears to have been at odds with the remainder of the council, including members of her own party over salaries.
The Express and Star of 13 September 1922 reports she objected to the pension being granted to the retiring Chief Constable, saying it was too high. She also objected to the rates of pay for the Town Clerk and council officials. Her objections were always that their salaries were high enough, too high and she objected strongly to any salary increase. She replied to a critic in the Express and Star who complained that she had not sought lower rents:
…. In reference to the correspondent’s stupid remarks to my assumed inaction for securing reduced rents he ought to see that when I exercised my powers to reduce salaries… It was an effort to reduce his rates, which is tantamount to reducing rents, and also serves to expose the injustice on the part of the council in reducing the manual worker from £3.5 shillings to £2.12 shillings per week.
This reveals that she understood financial management much more than a superficial level, and that she was concerned about the low pay rate for manual workers. There were many support letters of Emma.
The one event which Emma is remembered for by the interviewees and which received a great deal of publicity was her involvement with the enquiry into the Fever Hospital. Her view of the general mismanagement of hospitals was voiced to a Co-operative Women’s Society delegate at Manchester when she told her:
I intend speaking on the £3,000 subscription to hospitals, but I failed to catch the eye of the chairman. Had I done so I should have spoken as one who had worked in a hospital, suffered in one, and now on the management committee of a hospital, convinced today that these institutions benefit more the administrators than those whom they were designed to bless, and how the time has arrived when the position of hospital should be reconsidered
These views were not dissimilar to those of Hannah Mitchell:
Hospitals seem to be run by military institutions… While the taint of pauperism is fading from the municipal hospital the spirit of Bumble still survives… I knew quite well that an abundance of good food was provided by the Hospital Committee. Somewhere between the store and the patient’s bed this food is often spoiled.
However, Mitchell did not speak out about these conditions and regretted this after leaving the council when she became a visitor, a relative of a patient and an outpatient. She said:
If I had had this experience before I should have been more outspoken when I was on the Public Health Committee. But I have always disliked fault finding and petty criticism, so I did not carry all the complaints I received to the Committee
In direct contrast Emma not only spoke about mismanagement but carried out her own investigations to prove allegations of the same. In October 1922 the matron of the Wolverhampton Borough Fever Hospital had reported to the Hospital Committee a depletion in her staff.
Emma suggested that enquiries should be made into the matter as the staff were resigning after very short time periods or leaving without giving notice. It appears that the committee did make some very superficial enquiries and that the matron either resigned or was dismissed. The exact circumstances in which she left were disputed between Emma and the council. Before this had happened Emma had visited the hospital, uninvited and on her own initiative, and she alleges uncovered various malpractices, mainly involving the acquisition and disposal of monies and goods. Emma brought these allegations to the attention of the Hospital Committee and a Committee of Inquiry was established.
Perhaps Emma should have foreseen the outcome of the Inquiry bearing in mind the corruption that apparently existed within local councils. It may have also helped had she had the wisdom of Hannah Mitchell whose view of her own position on the Health Committee was:
Medical officers and their staffs are only human; social position counts with them, and in a perfectly courteous manner, you could be made to realise that they regarded you as very small fry indeed
I am certain that Emma would see the wisdom of these words and I am equally sure that they would not deter her efforts to champion the underdog. Mitchell gives the impression that she believed only her class worked against her, but I believe gender would also have played a great part in the decisions made by other council members. The Inquiry team would undoubtedly have been all male, and while I concede that many of her actions could be considered autocratic I also feel that she would have been seen as a threat because she was strong minded and did not crumble under the male councillors authority.
I do not feel that Emma foresaw the outcome of the Inquiry which vindicated the Medical Officer of Health and the matron and resulted in Emma being removed from the Hospital Committee and subsequently the Health Committee. Emma was also censored by the Labour Party. She received little support from her own party members concerning this incident.
Following the Inquiry Emma published, presumably at her own expense, a pamphlet entitled Fever Hospital Inquiry – Facts v Fairy Tales. This set out her version of events and was in response to the official report. In the foreword to her pamphlet she says her main reason for writing it was:
to give the ratepayers an opportunity of forming their own opinions as to whether I was reasonably performing my duties in the efforts I made to find out the real ownership of the goods removed in the way they were
The Express and Star of 2 August 1923 gives details of the council meeting into the Inquiry. It reports that Emma was described by her male counterparts as:
Pin-pricking, meddling, tittle-tattle, trifling, irritating, back-door business, interference, tinkering things, a hindrance and a menace
I doubt if the same phrases would have been used to describe a man’s action in similar circumstances. Certainly some of the phrases used were gender biased, and indeed are the same language still in use to describe females. I do not claim a man would have had any greater success in such allegations but I do not believe the same vitriolic phrases would have been used to describe his actions. Nothing credible was said about Emma. I feel sure that a man in similar circumstances would’ve been supported by his own party colleagues.
In spite of losing the Inquiry and being publicly branded as a troublemaker she fought the by-election held in November 1924 and was again successful. This showed her popularity with the electorate. It appears that some of her supporters had warned her against repeating the Red Flag incident. However as she went to the ledge of the balcony to give her speech the Express and Star of 23 November 1924 states:
As Mrs Sproson neared the end of her speech she was seen to be fumbling under her coat. In the end she pulled out a bundle of red material, which she waved in the air without unfurling
This action was greeted by much cheering from her supporters. She continued her council work, campaigning for low rents, minimum pay rates for the lowest paid and for keeping council officials pay at reasonable levels. She was not involved in any further action of particular note, save to say she appears to have been opposed to the majority of the council for much of the time.
The Express and Star of 22 April 1924 reports Emma attended the ILP conference in York. She apparently made a speech complaining about the constitution of the cabinet. She apparently addressed her remarks to the Prime Minister, Ramsey McDonald saying:
It is dangerous to compromise socialist principles with such a government as we have. I am quite prepared to undertake to interpret faithfully the views of true socialism
The report continues with a review of McDonald’s speech concerning the difficulties of forming a Cabinet.
Emma also attended the ILP conference in April 1926, and a subsequent report in the New Leader details a debate concerning low membership numbers. Various resolutions were put forward including:
amending the constitution to empower branches to admit woman at half subscription rates
Emma made a vigorous speech in opposition saying that the resolution “violated the principle of sex equality “ In the event the resolution was carried, however whilst I agree with her in principle she would have been aware that some women would have no independent income. Further, in the Black Country some married couples would have found it extremely difficult to make the cost of membership for one let alone two.
In 1927, Emma stood in the by elections as an Independent, but failed to retain her seat. From this time there is little evidence of any further political involvement. Her hearing had become severely impaired and participation in public affairs had become increasingly difficult. Her oldest son, Frank, had married and she was now a grandmother. Dorothy Sproson says Emma enjoyed being with her grandchildren and rarely spoke of her public life. Dorothy also believes her husband resented Emma’s behaviour in the suffrage champion and this may have caused her to remain silent. She seems to have spent the rest of her life very quietly until her death on 22 December 1936. In an obituary to Emma, E. Edwards, J.P, wrote:
…. Her Life was a living rebuke to all forms of cant hypocrisy and oppression… her life of high endeavour for her downtrodden class was not shaken by baronets, crowns or coronets
These words support the views that she was a spirited, resolute woman who believed in equality of the classes. However, I feel that Mr Edwards’ words
… She taught us not to worship the pictures of her sex in gaily gowned and bejewelled apparel but to respect men and women for service to the people
tell us a great deal about her feminist views and her work to have women treated as equals.
Conclusion
We have reached the end of Emma’s public and political life. It has been possible, using many sources, to assemble an impression and to analyse key points of her life. We have seen how she was born into poverty, a member of the working class who carried the double burden of class and womanhood. Like many of her contemporaries she received little formal education. Emma educated herself. Her letters to newspapers reveal an articulate woman and we are indebted to Emma for her foresight in recording her experiences.
The development of women’s history has been based upon women’s writing. Unfortunately, in contrast to well-documented middle and upper class women, many working class women had neither the opportunity or ability to record their experiences and these have been lost forever. Emma’s personal documents were retained by her daughter, Chloris. After Chloris’s death they passed to Emma’s grandson, David Sproson, who was born after Emma’s death and so never knew her personally. When David Sproson heard of my research he allowed me to use all the documents, for he had always believed that someday his grandmother’s life would be considered important enough to be recorded in history.
He could, as so often happens, have destroyed the documents as unimportant.
Her childhood was very similar to that of her contemporaries. Her writing revealed her strong support for her mother who struggled to survive financially. Whilst Emma did not record any bad experiences of her father, she records details of his drunkenness and wrote of her mother’s sufferings. She did not stipulate what these were but I believe it is safe to assume that Emma had little regard for her father.
Unlike Hannah Mitchell, Ada Nield Chew and Selina Cooper, Emma never worked within industry, but she, like them, probably found her gender a hindrance as a domestic servant. Certainly in her youth she had few good experiences of employers and after making a complaint of sexual harassment against her employer’s brother she was dismissed without a reference. She writes retrospectively without complaint but I believe that all these incidents helped her to become politicised. It was whilst she was still single that she became actively involved in politics, through her ILP membership.
We know she later became involved, at a time when working class women were being actively recruited, in the WSPU. She endured four terms of imprisonment for her beliefs and became involved at a national level on the WFL NEC, no mean achievement for a young woman of her social class. Her WFL involvement took her on long countrywide tours, not an easy feat for a married woman with three children. She was fortunate in having the support of her husband, Frank, a circumstance not shared by Mitchell, Cooper and Chew. She eventually left the WFL over her disillusionment with the autocratic style of leadership.
Following her WFL resignation Emma became involved in local politics, taking a great interest in the condition and shortage of housing. She was deeply involved in the dispute about rents, again finding gender a hindrance when landlords refused to meet with her. It has not been possible to discover how she spent the time during WWI but I believe it is safe to assume she opposed the war. The recorded speeches she made were certainly anti-War and she prevented her eldest son from entering the armed forces. Immediately women were allowed to stand in elections she was nominated as a councillor, but she failed to attain a seat, until 1921. Whether this delay was because of her views during the War, her political leanings or her gender is impossible to say.
Once elected Emma remained burdened by her gender. It appears that she was elected to certain committees because they were considered to be ‘women’s work’.
When she forced the issue of the mismanagement of the Fever Hospital she received little support from the other all male councillors.It is possible that the situation may have been different had she not been the only woman councillor. She was referred to in uncomplimentary, probably gendered terms, by the Health Committee Chairman. However she was not deterred and she published her own account of the incident.
No published record of the Suffrage Movements contain any reference to her contribution. She was an ILP member and an elected Labour councillor but her achievements are not recorded in local Labour Party records. She is absent from local history books and only remembered by a few elderly socialists. As a result Emma, like other working class women has, to use Sheila Rowbotham’s words, been ‘hidden from history’, not only by male historians but by contemporary and subsequent female researchers.
Emma probably became politicised as a result of her gender and class. In spite of her ability to speak eloquently, write articulately and show courage in the face of personal hardship she appears to have been intimidated by the middle class women of the suffrage movement.
There is little doubt that the majority of working class women could not afford the privilege of becoming involved in politics at the same level as Emma for many reasons. These women were burdened with frequent pregnancy and some of them with the ongoing general responsibility of work and family. All had to fight for survival. Whilst these women have not personally recorded their lives they have also been ignored by history. Their lives have been seen purely in domestic terms and considered uninteresting.
Surely these women have contributed to all aspects of our history. It’s important for historians to “recover “ the lives of women of all classes and to record their contributions to history. I hesitate to say “women’s history “ for I believe women’s contributions are an integral and important part of mainstream history. Surely if their achievements, in whatever field, are omitted we have only half of the picture – the male perspective.
I believe that in carrying out this research I have contributed to “recovering “Emma Sproson for history. Whilst I cannot provide a complete biography hopefully the information I have documented and analysed will complement the efforts of future studies of Emma Sproson, local and women’s history.
If you’d like more details on this recording including how to get a copy of the dissertation that includes a bibliography and an index relating to some of the statements in this work then please make contact with writer Mark Metcalf on 07392 852561.
Mark Metcalf ~ independent working class writer and journalist 