These papers relating to cultural events were collected for their general or antiquarian interest and relevance to the subject, rather than having a united provenance (that is, being produced by the same institution or business).
The City of London was divided into wards for the purpose of government as early as Norman times. The wards had responsibility to keep the peace, supervise trade and oversee sanitation, and each ward has the right to elect an Alderman and Commoners to sit in the Court of Common Council.
G Bedford is a party mentioned in the marriage settlement of 1843.
Robert Gunter, of Earl's Court Lodge, Kensington, was a Captain in the 4th Dragoon Guards.
The manor of Stepney, also known as Stebunheath, was recorded in the Domesday Book as owned by the Bishop of London, and was probably part of the lands included in the foundation grant of the see of London circa 604. At this date the manor included Stepney, Hackney, and parts of Shoreditch, Islington, Hornsey and Clerkenwell; although parcels of land were later granted to other institutions and people, such as lands in Clerkenwell given to the priory of St Mary, Clerkenwell, and the Knights Hospitallers.
In 1550 the manors of Stepney and Hackney were surrendered to the King, who granted them to Lord Chamberlain Sir Thomas Wentworth. The manor stayed in the Wentworth family until Thomas, Lord Wentworth, the earl of Cleveland. He incurred large debts and was forced to mortgage the manors. The family eventually lost Hackney manor but retained Stepney until 1695 when it was sold to William Herbert, Lord Montgomery. In 1710 he sold it to Windsor Sandys. By 1754 it belonged to the Colebrooke family who held it until 1939. In 1926 all remaining copyholds were converted into freeholds.
The manor house at Stepney was used as a residence of the bishops of London and the Stepney meadows provided hay for his household's horses. The house later became known as Bishopswood or Bishops Hall, and later Bonner Hall.
Information from: 'Stepney: Manors and Estates', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 11: Stepney, Bethnal Green (1998), pp. 19-52 (available online).
The letters formed lot 235 in Sotheby's sale on 25 March 1974 and were bought by Mr Godfrey Groves, a keen collector of topographical material relating to North London. It is possible that at one time they formed part of the Gardner Collection of London topography, broken up in 1923.
Cecil Roth (1899-1970), Jewish historian, compiled a report and catalogue on the archives of the United Synagogue and its predecessor synagogues in 1930. A copy of the catalogue is available within this collection (reference ACC/2712/13/01/50).
The Diocese of Southwark was formed in 1905 and lies in the Church of England Province of Canterbury. The Diocese has jurisdiction over 317 square miles of London south of the River Thames, formerly in the ancient counties of Kent and Surrey, areas which had been in the Diocese of Rochester and vast Diocese of Winchester.
A British fleet took control of the Cape of Good Hope in 1795 and established a garrison in Cape Town.
William Clapham of London was a Citizen and Grocer (d 1688), who owned Cox Key, Fresh Wharf and Gaunt's Key as well as warehouses in Thames Street. The properties were left in tail to his son William Clapham (d 1730). By 1764 William Skrine had gained the reversionary interest. Skrine may have been distantly related to the younger William Clapham through Clapham's wife, Mary Lem.
Gresham House, in Old Broad Street, was the home of Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-79), Lord Mayor of London, and was the site of Gresham College until 1768 when the house was demolished and HM Excise Office was built. This was sold in 1853 by the Government to six partners and, in 1857, the Gresham House Estate Company Limited was formed by them to manage the property. Other property was purchased in 1936 and 1955 in Bishopsgate (nos 25-27 and 31-33 respectively). Gresham House was sold in 1959.
In 1921 Broad Street Estates Limited (incorporated 1913), which owned a freehold building in Old Broad Street opposite Gresham House, was acquired. This property was sold in 1953. An "island" site between London Wall and Great Winchester Street, comprising approximately 1 acre, was purchased in 1928 and a subsidiary, Great Winchester Street Estates Limited, was formed to hold it. This company went into voluntary liquidation in 1958 and the site was sold in 1960. Since the late 1950's, Gresham House Estate Company Limited and its subsidiary, Broad Street Estates Limited, have been concerned mainly with investment business.
As of 2011, 73 High Street, Teddington, was operating as a clothes shop.
Tothill Fields was the name given to an open area between Westminster Abbey and Millbank. Tournaments were held there by kings living in the Palace of Westminster. Later the fields were used for cattle, growing food, horse racing, military parades, and bear baiting. A fair was held there every year. Duels were often fought here, and public punishments and executions held. The area was also used for burial pits during the plague. The fields were not developed until the 1830s.
Information from The London Encyclopaedia, eds. Weinreb and Hibbert (LMA Library Reference 67.2 WEI).
The church of Saint Sepulchre, Holborn Viaduct, was first mentioned in 1137. It was damaged in the Great Fire of 1666 and was rebuilt in 1670-71. However the tower and outer wall survived and date from around 1450. The church is now the National Musicians' Church. The church is also known as Saint Sepulchre without Newgate as it stood just outside the Newgate walls. The parish was partly within the City of London and partly within the former county of Middlesex.
Charles Brown was a builder. He lived in Old Ford, and then Edmonton and Enfield Highway.
Charles James Sanderson lived at No. 4, Hornsey Lane.
Burleigh House, Enfield, was built circa 1700 west of the market-place. It was replaced soon after 1913 by a cinema, with shops along the street frontage of the grounds.
From: 'Enfield: Growth before 1850', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5: Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham (1976), pp. 212-218 (available online).
There is no unifying factor to these papers (e.g. that they relate to property owned by one estate or family or the legal work of one office), they were simply collected for their antiquarian interest before being passed to the archive.
A demicastor was a hat made of inferior beaver fur, often mixed with other furs.
Morven Park is a Victorian house situated in Potters Bar. It was purchased by the National Trust in 1930. It is now (2010) a care home for the elderly.
William, 1st Earl of Mansfield, died on 20 March 1793 and was succeeded by his nephew David. The plan of the Kenwood estate may have been drawn up in connection with the 2nd Earl's succession.
Henry 3rd Viscount Clifden succeeded his grandfather in 1836 and on his own death in 1866 was succeeded by his son Henry George the 4th Viscount.
During the 18th and 19th centuries Parliamentary Acts were used to enclose (fence off) common lands and uninhabited waste lands and entitle them to an owner. Common land was that which had traditionally been used by locals (commoners) for communal pasture or farming.
Sir Charles Howard (1696-1765), army officer, was the second son of Charles Howard, third earl of Carlisle. He entered the army in 1715, joining the Coldstream Guards. By 1738 he was colonel of the 19th foot, which became known as the Green Howards in 1744. Howard saw action in Flanders, being wounded four times, and in the Jacobite uprising in 1745-46. He was made KB in May 1749. He attained the rank of general in March 1765, but died in August of that year. He was unmarried, however, his will made provision for a natural son, William, who was also in the Army.
It is probable that the General Sir Charles Howard of ACC/0657/002 is the same man; and that the daughter Eleanor of ACC/0657/001, 003 and 004 is another illegitimate child of his.
Biographical information from H. M. Chichester, 'Howard, Sir Charles (c.1696-1765)', rev. Jonathan Spain, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009.
Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887 was marked by extensive public celebrations.
President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on the 14th April, 1865.
The Willis family were involved in the legal profession: the documents mention Richard Willis of Tokenhouse Yard, solicitor; James Willis of Lincoln's Inn, barrister-at-law; and George Willis, 449 West Strand.
These papers relating to the Uthwat family were collected for their general or antiquarian interest and relevance to the subject, rather than having a united provenance (that is, being produced by the same institution or business).
James Charles lived at Kennet House, a large residence situated where Sudbury joins Harrow on the Hill. He was married to Julia Forrester. He was a Justice of the Peace.
It appears that William Hunt lost the Assizes case and was fined. The matter then went to the Court of Queen's Bench. The Court of King's Bench (or Queen's Bench, depending on the monarch) was founded circa 1200 to hear common pleas, although it came to specialise in pleas of special interest and concern to the king, such as those which involved his own property interests, or breach of his peace, or an error of judgment by another royal court. By 1675 the King's Bench was the highest court of common law in England and Wales, with jurisdiction over both civil and criminal actions. Civil business was conducted on the 'Plea Side' and criminal business on the 'Crown Side'. It was absorbed into the High Court in 1875 (source of information: The National Archives Research Guides Legal Records Information 34 and Legal Records Information 36).
The general election of 1906 was held from 12 January to 8 February 1906. It was won in a landslide victory by the Liberal Party under Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
The 1907 London County Council elections were won by the Municipal Reform Party, who were allied with the Conservative party.
Henry Andrade Harben was born in 1849, son of Sir Henry Harben, Director and Chairman of the Prudential Assurance Company. Harben studied to become a lawyer and was called to the bar in 1871. In 1879 he followed his father as Director of the Prudential (he succeeded him as Chairman in 1907). As well as his work as a lawyer Harben sat on several local administration committees and served as Mayor of Paddington. He was also an antiquarian and researcher, becoming fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1893. Harben died in 1910, leaving his collection of antiquarian books, maps, drawings, and prints to the London County Council. His major work was the Dictionary of London, which was published posthumously in 1917.
John Burns was formerly a member of London County Council. His private collection of documents was acquired by Lord Southwood, who gave them to the Library.
No administrative history has been traced for these photographs.
Samuel and Henrietta Barnett were important figures in the social reform movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Samuel was the vicar of Saint Jude's Whitechapel, founder of Toynbee Hall, Whitechapel Art Gallery and the Education Reform League. Later he became Canon of Bristol and Canon and Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey.
Henrietta was the founder of the London Pupil Teachers' Association, and is widely reknowned as the founder of Hampstead Garden Suburb.
Crystal Palace was constructed in 1851 in Hyde Park, to house the Great Exhibition. After the Exhbition it was dismantled and re-erected in Sydenham where it was used as an amusement park, holding exhbitions, concerts, theatrical productions, firework displays and sports events. It had a small zoo, fountains and a statue park. The Palace burned down in 1936 and was destroyed.
This collection of photographs had its origins in the Greater London Council (GLC) Architect's Department.
The Department of Education and Science was created in 1964. These plans were created by the Department and its predecessors in the course of their work.
Charles Shorter was a merchant living in the City of London in 1659, and in Southwark by 1691.
Curzon Street runs between Fitzmaurice Place and Park Lane in Mayfair. In around 1715 the land in this area was purchased by a Derbyshire baronet, Nathaniel Curzon. Building began in the 1720s although much of the north side remained open until the 19th century. It became a fashionable address, and was well known for the Mayfair Chapel where illicit marriage ceremonies were performed without banns or licence, until the 1754 Marriage Act stopped the practice.
Information from The London Encyclopaedia, eds. Weinreb and Hibbert (LMA Library Reference 67.2 WEI).
These papers were collected for their general or antiquarian interest rather than having a united provenance (that is, being produced by the same institution or business).
The Princess was Frances, only child and heiress of Fleetwood Wilson of Wappenham Manor, Northants, who was married to Russian Prince Alexis Dolgorouki. Alfred de Rothschild was the second son of Baron Lionel de Rothschild, and was, at various times, a director of the Bank of England and a trustee of the National Gallery.
The ships represented in this collection are:
- 'Salacia', No. 9144, registered at London, 64 tons; master, B. Bacon; in lobster and fresh fish carrying trade between UK and Norway
- 'Emperor', No 23244, registered at London, 30 May 1861, 199 tons; [owner], Messrs Lambert Bros. and Scott; master, James Chapman Smith; giving names of crew, for coasting trade from London to Shields or elsewhere
- 'Anne Lee', No 17055, registered at London, 380 tons; master, Demo Constantine; for Jamaica.
These papers relating to properties in London were collected for their general or antiquarian interest rather than having a united provenance (that is, being produced by the same institution or business).
Following the advances of the British South Africa Company (incorporated in 1889), northern Rhodesia (later Zambia) became a territory of the British Crown in 1894. Missionary work in northern Rhodesia, a remote and thinly settled region, was pioneered in the last decades of the 19th century.
The donor of these manuscripts, the Rev Canon James Smith Robertson (b 1917), served the UMCA (Universities Mission to Central Africa) in northern Rhodesia, 1945-1950, and worked in Mapanza, 1950-1955, and Lusaka, 1955-1965.
The general election was held in May 2005 and was won by the Labour Party with a reduced majority. Requests for donations were sent out to candidates of all parties throughout the country and major deposits were received from all parts of the United Kingdom. Parties represented include: Conservative Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Green Party, UK Independence Party, Socialist Alliance, Plaid Cymru, Scottish National Party and a range of parties from Northern Ireland. The collection also includes a wide range of addresses and material from smaller parties and Independent candidates.
Robert Edward Barker (c 1820-1910) served with the General Steam Navigation Company before becoming a customs official in 1866.
For some fifty years George H. Gabb (fl 1880-1930) built up a collection not only of manuscripts relating to science, but also of scientific instruments.
Vice-Admiral Lancelot Ernest Holland (1887-1941) was lost with the HOOD in 1941.
Walter Lord (8 Oct 1917-19 May 2002) published his most famous work, A Night to Remember, in 1955. A journalistic narrative history of the TITANIC, the book became a British film (in 1958) and Lord was asked to be a consultant on James Cameron's film 'Titanic'. (1998). He is credited with having revived the memory of the ship, about which not a single book was published between 1913 and 1955. His book has been a bestseller ever since.
His life-long fascination stemmed from his mother's tales of her voyages on the OLYMPIC, one of TITANIC's two sister ships, which she used to tell him as bedtime stories. By the age of nine, the story of the TITANIC had become his greatest interest and he persuaded his mother to take him across the Atlantic on the OLYMPIC, so that he could learn more about the lost liner.
Through the years he talked to and corresponded with scores of survivors, rescuers and others intimately connected with the disaster. He tracked down nearly 60 TITANIC survivors to get their stories for 'A Night To Remember', and collected much commemorative memorabilia, donated over many years by his friends and admirers.
William MacQuitty (15 May 1905 - 5 Feb. 2004) was born in Belfast. He was six when he watched the launch of the TITANIC on 30 May 1911, and saw her set sail on her fateful maiden voyage a year later. During the Second World War he worked in film production for the Ministry of Information but it was only in the 1950s that his interest in the TITANIC was rekindled. His wife had been reading Lord's 'A Night to Remember' and he realised that this was the film he had been waiting for. He took an option on the film rights, met Walter Lord, and together they developed a screenplay based on the book.
MacQuitty then produced the film, also called 'A Night to Remember' (directed by Roy Ward Baker) and following its success won a contract for the Independent Television Authority's franchise for Ulster.
Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872) devoted his life to building up his library at his house, Middle Hill, in Gloucestershire. Although Phillipps never managed to catalogue his collection, it was estimated that he owned 60,000 manuscripts at his death, and it became the most famous private library in Europe. The library was left to his grandson, who had still not completed its dispersal at his death in 1938. In 1946 the residue was finally purchased by Messrs Robinson who sold the naval manuscripts, describer here, to Sir James Caird for the Museum. (See A.N.L. Munby, Phillipps Studies, vols I-V, Cambridge, 1951-60). Because of the importance and diversity of this collection, it has been split into six entries. Those of no obvious provenance are given in this entry. The collections of Robert Cole (entry no.96), George Jackson (97), the Southwells (98), and William Upcott (99) are described separately below. The collection of John Wilson Croker, consisting of the correspondence received by Lord Nelson, has been described in Volume I of this Guide, entry no. 207.
In the early nineteenth century it was impossible for women to practice as doctors in Great Britain. The alternative choice of nursing was seen as a corrupt profession of the unskilled and the lower classes until the middle of the century. Both attitudes were caused by women's lack of access to training in the profession, largely through the parallel lack of access to training in universities and colleges that were only open to men. The one role open to them, midwifery, was constantly undermined and devalued due to this very lack of university education involved in learning its skills. In America the situation was slightly different: the English-born Elizabeth Blackwell had become the first woman in the United States to qualify as a doctor though rejection by male colleagues forced her to set up a women's hospital in New York. Visits to London in the 1850s led to work at the St Bartholomew's Hospital and friendship with Florence Nightingale. In 1859 the General Medical Council admitted her to the Medical Register but the following year a special GMC charter made it possible to exclude doctors with foreign medical degrees, leaving women who had qualified on foreign soil open to attack. Nonetheless, in 1869 Blackwell moved permanently to London and there established the London School of Medicine for Women in 1870, as well as the National Health Society. Blackwell's influence on British women intending to enter medicine was already great: in 1862 the Female Medical Society was established and Elizabeth Garrett decided to enter the profession under her advice. However, Garrett's initial attempts to enter several medical schools failed due to the continuing refusal of universities to accept female students. Instead, she was forced to become a nurse at Middlesex Hospital, a profession that had become respectable through the work of Nightingale and her colleagues in professionalising nursing training and practice. Nevertheless, it came to light that the Society of Apothecaries did not specify that females were banned from taking their examinations and in 1865 Garrett sat and passed their examination before the loophole that allowed this was closed. Other countries began to allow women to enter the profession: in 1864 the University of Zurich admitted female students while the universities of Paris, Berne and Geneva followed suit in 1867. Garrett later was appointed visiting physician to the East London Hospital but though she subsequently graduated from the University of Paris, the British Medical Register refused to recognise her MD degree. In the next few years she opened the women-run New Hospital for Women in London with Elizabeth Blackwell and helped Sophia Jex-Blake to establish the London Medical School for Women to which Garrett Anderson was elected Dean of the London School of in 1884. The legal situation of women who wished to become doctors did not change, however. Though Edinburgh University allowed Sophia Jex-Blake and Edith Pechy to attend medical lectures in 1869, male fellow students rioted and their final examinations were rendered void as university regulations only allowed medical degrees to be given to men. The consequence of this was that the British Medical Association therefore refused to register the women as doctors. However, Russell Gurney, a MP and supporter of women's rights took the first legal steps to remedying the situation and in 1876 the Enabling Act was passed that allowed universities to award female students degrees in their subject. This meant that all medical training bodies were now free to teach women in this area if they chose to do so. The following year the Royal Free Hospital admitted women medical students for clinical training and the University of London adopted a new charter in 1878 that allowed women to graduate from their courses. Individual institutions were slowly forced to change their practices to permit women to hold their degrees, though some, like Oxford and Cambridge, resisted until 1920 and 1948 respectively. By 1891, 101 women doctors were in practice in the British Isles, and the following years the British Medical Association was finally forced to admit women doctors.
In a period in which the women's sphere was ideologically located in the home, their entrance in to the public sphere was seen as either a scandal or an object of mockery. However, while the fields of politics and commerce were largely closed to females, paradoxically, other positions in the public eye were not. Women writers and artists could be found from the Renaissance onwards and actresses in particular could achieve great fame for their work. However, women who entered into the public sphere in this way were generally considered to be outside of the normal rules of society even while being lionised by its members. This equivocal social position left them open to abuse, but at the same time meant that they could move freely around all sections of it while remaining at liberty to look after their own business and financial affairs in a way that a woman was not normally permitted to do. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the ambiguous status of such individuals with its benefits and limitations led a number of women involved in the arts to become acutely conscious of women's overall status. This led a number of them to become engaged in the campaign for the vote and for improvement of women's status. Groups such as the Actresses' Franchise League and the Artists' Suffrage League undertook collective action which others continued on an individual level throughout this period and into the second half of the nineteenth century as the campaign to improve women's status continued.
James Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937), was born in Lossiemouth, Morayshire in 1866, the illegitimate son of Ann Ramsay, a maidservant. He studied at the local school from 1875 until 1881 before becoming a pupil-teacher. Aged nineteen, he went to Bristol before moving to London in 1886, where he was employed as a clerk for the Cyclists' Touring Club. Poverty and ill-health ended his attempts to win a science scholarship and be became a clerk to Thomas Lough, MP. MacDonald joined the Fabian Society around this time and there met others such as George Bernard Shaw, Annie Besant, Walter Crane and the Webbs who were concerned with issues such as socialism and women's suffrage. In 1893 the Independent Labour Party was formed by members of this group, including Philip Snowden, Robert Smillie, Tom Mann, John Bruce Glasier, Ben Tillett and James Keir Hardie.
Mrs Mary Ellen Taylor (fl 1910-1914) and her husband Captain Thomas Smithies Taylor were friends of the Pethick Lawrence family, Dr Elizabeth Wilkes (her sister) and her brother-in-law Mark Wilkes. By early 1912 Mrs Taylor was an active member of the Women's Social & Political Union which was then engaged in a campaign of militant action against government and private property. On 4 Mar 1912 she took part in a window smashing party with a Miss Roberts and a Miss Nellie Crocker, attacking a post office in Sloane Square. They were arrested and brought before a magistrate at Westminster Police Court, who referred their case to the Sessions. From the 5-22 Mar 1912 they were placed on remand at Holloway Prison until Taylor went before Newington Session and was given a three months sentence. While in prison, she went on hunger strike, though she was not forcibly fed, and was subsequently discharged and taken to her sister's house on the 27 Apr 1912. She was imprisoned a second time in Jul 1913 under the alias of Mary Wyan of Reading. Mrs Ellen Mary Taylor refused release under the Cat and Mouse [Temporary Discharge for Ill-health] Act of 1913. She claimed complete discharge and declined to give the prison governor any address. When she was conveyed to a nursing home she refused to enter until her full release was granted and continued her strike on a chair in the road outside. The police then removed her to the Kensington Infirmary where she eventually gave up her protest. Around this time, the Woodford assault case took place, touching the Taylor's immediate circle of friends.
Captain Thomas Smithies-Taylor (fl 1910-1914) was the husband of Mrs Mary Ellen Taylor. He was a supporter of the militant suffragettes based in Leicester. He wrote letters to the national and local press on this and related subjects.
Dr Elizabeth Wilkes (fl.1910) was married to Mark Wilkes, he was a teacher employed by London County Council and a member of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage. She was also a suffragist and a member of the Women's Tax Resistance League. On the occasion when she refused to pay her taxes, her husband was obliged by law to pay the amount on her behalf. However, Mark Wilkes refused to do so and was sent to Brixton prison for this action. The Men's League organised a protest march to the prison and the Daily Herald interviewed Wilkes while in prison. He went on hunger strike and was released due to ill health. A meeting was subsequently organised by the Women's Tax Resistance League at the Caxton Hall in honour of the couple.
Mark Wilkes (fl. 1894-1914) was a teacher and the husband of Elizabeth Wilkes (1861-1956). Elizabeth refused to complete a tax return or to pay taxes herself and informed the tax authorities that as a married woman her tax papers should be forwarded to her husband. He, in turn, claimed that he had neither the means to obtain the necessary information to complete the forms nor to pay his wife's tax bill and was imprisoned for debt. The Tax Resistance League took up the case and achieved much publicity for it.
Women's Social & Political Union (WSPU) (1903-c.1919) was the prime mover of suffrage militancy. In Oct 1903 the WSPU was founded in Manchester at Emmeline Pankhurst's home in Nelson Street. Members include: Emmeline, Adela and Christabel Pankhrst, Teresa Billington-Greig, Annie Kenney and Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy. Several had been members of the NUWSS and had links with the Independent Labour Party, but were frustrated with progress, reflected in the WSPU motto 'Deeds, not Words'. An initial aim of WSPU was to recruit more working class women into the struggle for the vote. In late 1905 the WSPU began militant action with the consequent imprisonment of their members. The first incident was on 13 Oct 1905, Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney attended a meeting in London where they heckled the speaker Sir Edward Grey, a minister in the British government. Pankhurst and Kenney were arrested, charged with assault upon a police officer and fined five shillings each. They refused to pay the fine and were sent to prison. In 1906 the WSPU moved to London and continued militant action - with the Daily Mail calling the activists 'suffragettes' an unfavourable term adopted by the group. Between 1906-1908 there were several constitutional disagreements with the Women's Freedom League being founded in Nov 1907 by the 'Charlotte Despard faction'. From 1908 the WSPU tactics of disturbing meetings developed to breaking the windows of government buildings. This increased the number of women imprisoned. In Jul 1909 Marion Dunlop was the first imprisoned suffragette to go on hunger strike, many suffragettes followed her example and force-feeding was introduced. Between 1910-1911 the Conciliation Bills were presented to Parliament and militant activity ceased, but when Parliament sidelined these Bills the WSPU re-introduced their active protests.
Between 1912-1914 there was an escalation of WSPU violence - damage to property and arson and bombing attacks became common tactics. Targets included government and public buildings, politicians' homes, cricket pavilions, racecourse stands and golf clubhouses. Some members of the WSPU such as the Pethick-Lawrences, disagreed with this arson campaign and were expelled. Other members showed their disapproval by leaving the WSPU. The Pethick-Lawrences took with them the journal 'Votes for Women', hence the new journal of the WSPU the 'Suffragette' launched in Oct 1912. In 1913 in response to the escalation of violence, imprisonment and hunger strikes the government introduced the Prisoner's Temporary Discharge of Ill Health Act (popularly known as the 'Cat and Mouse Act'). Suffragettes who went on hunger strike were released from prison as soon as they became ill and when recovered they were re-imprisoned.
Discord within the WSPU continued - In Jan 1914 Sylvia Pankhurst's 'East London Federation of the WSPU' was expelled from the WSPU and became an independent suffrage organisation. On 4 Aug 1914, England declared war on Germany. Two days later the NUWSS announced that it was suspending all political activity until the war was over. In return for the release of all suffragettes from prison the WSPU agreed to end their militant activities. The WSPU organised a major rally attended by 30,000 people in London to emphasise the change of direction. In Oct 1915, The WSPU changed its newspaper's name from 'The Suffragette' to 'Britannia'. Emmeline's patriotic view of the war was reflected in the paper's new slogan: 'For King, For Country, for Freedom'. the paper was 'conservative' in tone and attacked campaigners, politicians, military leaders and pacifists for not furthering the war effort. Not all members supported the WSPU war policy and several independent groups were set up as members left the WSPU. In 1917 the WSPU became known as the 'Women's Party and in Dec 1918 fielded candidates at the general election (including Christabel Pankhurst). However they were not successful and the organisation does not appear to have survived beyond 1919.