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Abstract
The City of London still provides us with a very visible, physical representation of policing’s response to the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign of the 1990s: the chicanes, police boxes and CCTV cameras at its entry points that collectively form its protective ‘Ring of Steel’. Terrorism though had announced its arrival in the City some 20 years before the bombs at St Mary Axe and Bishopsgate, with the detonation of an IRA car bomb outside the Old Bailey in 1973 — or so living memory would have us believe. Two seemingly innocuous artefacts in the City of London Police Museum — a milk-can and a Keen’s mustard tin — help give the lie to this perception and provide us with tangible evidence of an earlier, often overlooked bombing campaign. These two everyday household items once contained ‘infernal machines’ — or bombs — that were planted at iconic locations in the City in 1913, but which failed to explode. All the facts point to the would-be bombers being supporters of the Suffragette movement. This article examines the story and significance of the milk-can and mustard tin bombs and the way in which those fighting for women’s suffrage made use of such explosive devices to further their cause. It will explore the similarities and differences between their actions and other terror campaigns that targeted the capital and the ‘establishment’.
Acknowledgements
My thanks are due to Hannah Cleal and her colleagues at the Bank of England Archive and Victoria Iglikowski-Broad at The National Archives for their assistance in identifying holdings potentially containing information on the suffragette bombing campaign, and to the staff at the Women’s Library Archive, London School of Economics for facilitating my access to the papers of Emily Wilding Davison. I would also like to thank Dr George Legg, King’s College London for giving me the opportunity to contribute this paper and for his ready support during its preparation.
Note on contributor
Rebecca Walker graduated in English Language and English Literature from Oxford University in 1985. She became a police officer with Sussex Police in 1993, transferring to the City of London Police 11 years later where she is the force’s lead Police Search Advisor. A member of the Project Board overseeing City Police Museum’s move to the Guildhall Library in 2016, Rebecca also delivers walks, talks and tours on a range of subjects, including the history of policing in the Square Mile.
Notes
1 The City of London Police Museum is at the Guildhall Library, Aldermanbury, City of London. The officer, PC Malcolm Hine, survived, but suffered the after-effects of his injuries for the rest of his life. He died in early 2019.
2 For a brief summary of these debates see K. Cowman, ‘What was Suffragette Miltancy’, in P. Marrkola, I. Sulkunen, and S. Nevala-Nurmi (eds.), Suffrage, Gender and Citizenship: International Perspectives on Parliamentary Reforms (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 299–322.
3 D. Mitchell, Queen Christabel (London: MacDonald and James, 1977), 322.
4 M. Hogenboom, ‘Were extreme suffragettes regarded as terrorists?’ BBC News 11 February 2012 <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16945901> [accessed 24 May 2019].
5 For an explanation of the controversies see June Purvis’s review of Fern Riddell’s book: J. Purvis, ‘Suffragettes’, Times Literary Supplement, 29 June 2018, 31.
6 F. Riddell, Death in Ten Minutes (London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2018), 298.
7 In 1894, anarchists plotting to bomb the City of London’s Royal Exchange were arrested before they could implement their plan. The target in 1895 was believed to be the Royal Observatory: I. Jones, London, Bombed, Blitzed and Blown Up (Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2016), 51–52.
8 The National Archives, Information of Chief Inspector James McBrien laid before Bow Street Police Court, 29 April 1913, Crime 1/140/1.
9 Such acts of arson and criminal damage were not universally condoned even within the WSPU: in October 1912, two long-standing supporters of the suffragette cause, Mr and Mrs Pethick-Lawrence, were expelled from the Union for voicing their objections to such activities: Riddell, Death in Ten Minutes, 152.
10 Papers of E.W. Davison, London School of Economics, 7EWD/A/5/1 TWL5.5 Reel 1, 60.
11 The National Archives, Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Explosives Annual Report 1913, EF 5/10, 41.
12 The bomb, packed with nails, was planted at the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho.
13 A porter joining the train during its journey became aware of the bomb in his compartment shortly before it was due to explode. The device reportedly contained live bullets, ‘pieces of jagged metal and scraps of lead’, Globe, 10 April 1913, 2.
14 S. Webb, The Suffragette Bombers (Barnsley: Pen & Sword History, 2014), 137.
15 Evidence heard during a trial of members of the WSPU at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in May 1913 included details of 3 postmen so injured while performing their duties.
16 The charges read out in court before the trial included ‘causing by means of a certain explosive unknown an explosion of a nature likely to endanger life and conspiring with other persons to cause an explosion in the United Kingdom likely to endanger life’: Webb, The Suffragette Bombers, 60.
17 Hostile reconnaissance is defined by the UK’s Centre for the Protection of the Critical National Infrastructure (CPNI) as ‘purposeful observation with the intention of collecting information to inform the planning of a hostile act against a specific target’.
18 During the Northern Irish Troubles this method of bomb preparation was dubbed ‘Belfast Confetti’.
19 Among the first to target this location were the Gordon Rioters, who in 1781 attempted to storm the Bank of England. More recently in 2009, the area was a rallying point for those protesting against the G20 summit.
20 There is some evidence that the plotters actually intended to target the nearby Stock Exchange and confused the locations. The IRA would make a similar error in 1992 when, following a telephoned warning that a bomb was at the Stock Exchange, their device exploded outside the Baltic Exchange.
21 Hairpins were reportedly incorporated within the milk-can bomb and the bombs planted at David Lloyd George’s House, while HM Inspector of Explosives believed a device that exploded at Westminster Abbey in June 1914 was packaged in a large cycle bell and part of a hand bell.
22 Falkirk Herald, 16 April 1913, 4.
23 Mary Richardson, a suffragette detailed to bomb a Birmingham railway station, later recounted how she became aware that the explosive device was close to detonation by the increasingly loud ticking and spluttering noises it made (M. Richardson, Laugh, A Defiance (London: G Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1953), 142–44).
24 In March 1914, a bomb containing only half the gunpowder contained in the milk-can bomb exploded at the Church of St John the Evangelist, Smith Square, Westminster. The blast damaged one of the pews and caused bulging and cracking to the glass in a nearby window.
25 The National Archives, Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Explosives Annual Report 1913, EF 5/10, 41. Only a summary of the report exists, so it is unknown if any forensic examination to determine who was responsible for the construction or placement of the device was undertaken.
26 Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 15 April 1913, 7.
27 While Diane Atkinson in Rise Up Women! The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018), 391 claims the device was timed to explode at 11 pm, contemporary reports, including one in ‘The Suffragette’ (18 April 1913, 453) state the bomb was timed to explode at 11 o’clock: this could mean either 11 pm or 11 am, when the area would have been very busy.
28 Another, similarly constructed device would be discovered at Haslemere Railway Station in July 1913
29 The WSPU regarded the Church of England as an opponent of the suffrage movement. Consequently many churches country-wide were the target of suffragette protests, arson and bomb attacks.
30 Letter from Major Cooper-Key, HM Chief Inspector of Explosives to Canon Newbolt, dated 9 May 1913, Newbolt Scrapbook Volume VIII, 87–88, St Paul’s Cathedral Archive.
31 In their Annual Report of 1913, Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Explosives reported that during the year, suffragette ‘hoaxes in the form of “bombs” containing coal, alarm-clocks, small Leclanche cells, etc., have been frequent’ (The National Archives, Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Explosives Annual Report 1913, EF 5/10, 41). One such hoax was discovered in Bouverie Street in the City, the same day as the mustard tin bomb was discovered in St Paul’s.
32 Letter from Major Cooper-Key, HM Chief Inspector of Explosives to Canon Newbolt dated 9 May 1913, Newbolt Scrapbook Volume VIII, 87–88, St Paul’s Cathedral Archive.
33 Memorandum from J Stark, Chief Clerk, Chief Office of the City of London Police, 15 May 1913, uncatalogued papers, City of London Police Museum.
34 The National Archives, Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Explosives report, ‘Explosion at Westminster Abbey’, June 1914, EF 5/10.
35 The Daily Telegraph, 14 June 1914.
36 Including amongst the debris of explosions at St John’s Church, Smith Square, Westminster in March 1914 and St Martin in the Fields Church, April 1914.
37 Low explosive contains an explosive mixture that deflagrates — or burns rapidly — producing relatively low pressures. High explosives however, detonate and so are considerably more powerful.
38 In May 1913, the suffragettes took this portability one step further, sending a letter bomb to the magistrate hearing charges against the WSPU leadership at Bow Street Police Court.
39 The National Archives, Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Explosives report, ‘Explosion at Westminster Abbey’, June 1914, EF 5/10.
40 The National Archives, Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Explosives Annual Report 1913, EF 5/10, 4.
41 The Fenian nitroglycerine factory was discovered by police in the back of a Birmingham stationer’s shop in April 1883.
42 Edwy Clayton was an active member of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage and the Men’s Political Union for Women’s Enfranchisement: both his wife and daughter were WSPU members.
43 Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 17 May 1913.
44 Northampton Chronicle and Echo, 8 May 1913.
45 The Brooklyn Dynamite School was established by New York Fenians in 1882. One of its students, Thomas Mooney, took part in the 1881 failed attack on the Mansion House.
46 Starting in January 1894, The Strand magazine ran a series of articles on ‘Crimes and Criminals’. The first in the series was entitled ‘Dynamite and Dynamiters’ which examined the work of HM Inspector of Explosives and provided considerable detail about, and several photographs illustrating, the construction of explosive devices.
47 Although more militant suffragette activities would clearly meet today’s legal definition of ‘terrorism’ (Terrorism Act 2000, Part 1, Sections 1–4) such legislation did not exist at the time. Instead the suffragettes and their supporters were most often charged with offences under the Malicious Damage Act 1861.
48 Dundee Courier, 20 February 1913, 4
49 The National Archives, Minute, 20 June 1921, MEPO 3/489.