25 FEB 1913
SUFFRAGETTE LANDS IN COURT
Emmeline Pankhurst, the founder of Britain’s suffragette movement, went on trial near London today accused of bombing Chancellor of the Exchequer David Llyoyd George’s villa in Surrey a week ago. Nobody was hurt in the explosion. Mrs Pankhurst described it today as ” guerrila warfare” and accepted responsibility for this and various other violent acts. She and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia have been jailed several times for inciting riots. Mrs Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903 to press for voting rights for British women – rights already established in the British colonies of New Zealand and Australia. Women of all classes joined in massive demonstrations, civil disobediance and hunger strikes – and have been harassed, jailed and thrown bodily out of PAarliament. It is the WSPU’s millitant tactics that have brought the suffragettes growing public hostility in this divisive issue.