KP/AK/2/LYT/C/2 - Letter, Constance Lytton to Annie Kenney, 1909

KP/AK/2/LYT/C/2

Item

Letter, Constance Lytton to Annie Kenney, 1909

1909

Lytton, Constance, Lady
Kenney, Annie, 1879-1953recipient

A transcript follows this description.

Lady Constance Lytton writes about the ‘harrowing’ ‘Birmingham episode’, referring to the first instance of force-feeding suffragette prisoners on hunger strike. The Birmingham prisoners commenced their hunger strike on 18/9/1909 and the government ordered the medical officer of the prison to feed them forcibly by inserting a rubber tube through their mouth or nose into the stomach. This became public knowledge through the Press on 24/9/1909. The matter was raised in Parliament by Keir Hardie, Labour MP, and the rest of the House reacted with laughter, as Constance Lytton mentions. She ends her letter with an impassioned statement about the pioneering women who are having to endure this new form of ‘God’s new violence’.

Transcript provided by Zoe Kelly and Hazel Brain:

RAIL. KNEBWORTH.G.N.R. HOMEWOOD,
TELEGRAM. KNEBWORTH KNEBWORTH,
HERTS.

Dearest Annie

Yes I’ll book.
9am----11 to 22 for [Y]our at Homes.

It’s just simply harrowing the Birmingham Episode. Mrs Pankhurst and Mrs Lawrence are both ill with it, I think [Page 2] But as soon as the public realise it and the ‘laughter’ it has caused in the [House] ! it will, as usual, move on the tide immensely. These heroic women will be only too glad,- one knows they are only proud [Page 3] to have been pioneers in this receiving of the Govt’s [Government’s] new violence.

Yr [Your] loving,

Con [Constance]

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A digital copy may be viewed at Suffragette Stories: https://suffragettestories.omeka.net/items/show/21