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"Arrested at the gates of the Palace!", Chief Inspector Rolfe, Emmeline Pankhurst, Mrs Pankhurst, Suffragette Buckingham Palace protest, Sylvia Pankhurst, Women's Social & Political UInion, WSPU< Suffragettes
100 years ago today, May 21 1914, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst led her Suffragettes on what proved to be their last ever major protest march. She had seen how the Irish had by means of a call to arms and dealing directly with the King, had successfully by-passed the British government. George V had responded to the threat of a “Currah Mutiny” by convening an Irish Conference to be held at Buckingham Palace. Mrs Pankhurst thus decided she would attempt to petition the King directly about the Votes for Women issue which Prime Minister Asquith continued to block.
The Suffragettes widely publicised the event because they wanted a big crowd there to see the protest, but this resulted in a huge police presence awaiting to intercept the Suffragettes, and also a big crowd of mostly anti-Suffragette men congregating outside the Palace.
A large number of Suffragettes congregated at Grosvenor Square, from where the march to the Palace headed down Park Lane and into the loop of Hyde Park Corner. But many of the protesters were soon encircled by a large number of mounted and foot police at Wellington Arch. The police successfully ‘kettled’ them, including Sylvia Pankhurst’s East London Federation of Suffragettes. It was the end of their involvement for the day, but they had their own big protest arranged for May 24 (more on this in 3 days time).
But Mrs Pankhurst and her main band of Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) supporters had forseen the police tactics and managed to avoid the cordon by turning off Park Lane, cutting through side streets and over Piccadilly before entering Green Park. This also outflanked another police line on Constitution Hill. They then headed through the trees of the park to the Palace.
Some of Mrs Pankhurst’s supporters were already in the crowd by the Victoria Memorial outside the Place, and started to make individual runs at the police line. Each woman was thrown back by the police into the crowd of young men by the Memorial who shouted at the women that they ought to be burnt as they beat them up.
Mrs Pankhurst and her band then took the police by surprise by suddenly appearing out of the park, passing behind the police line that was holding back the crowds by the memorial. The women were at the gates of the Palace by the time a police inspector gave the order for his men to turn and deal with them.
Mrs Pankhurst was grabbed from behind by a burly policemen, Chief Inspector Frank Rolfe of A Division. His armed clasped around her waist, he carried her off with her tiny frame dangling a foot above the ground. This took place in front of a knot of reporters and photographers, one of whom took a shot of the scene. This photograph, of Mrs Pankhurst being carried away, is perhaps the most iconic of all the images taken during the Suffragettes’ militant fight for the vote.
Spotting the reporters, Mrs Pankhurst did not waste the opportunity to grab some additional headlines. She shouted, “Arrested at the gates of the palace! Tell the King!”
She went to prison. More on what happened next in the next weeks as various Suffragette centenaries come around.
At some point in history it was mistakenly recorded that Chief Inspector Rolfe died 2 weeks later of heart failure! And if you google the scene, that’s what comes up. But it’s not true. He actually died 2 months later from an infection, having received an injury via the most mundane of accidents – tripping over a rope barrier during a routine piece of police work.
London Town Walks 
Most accounts of the Suffragettes’ March on Buckingham Palace on 21 May 1914 show the starting point as Grosvenor Place not Grosvenor Square. Nor can I find any mention of Mrs Pankhurst and her contingent having cut through Mayfair from Park Lane, across Piccadilly and into Green Park. There is considerable discrepancy between the reports of different newspapers but most recorded the she approached from Grosvenor Place and managed to slip through the gates at the Wellington Arch on to Constitution Hill. Can you kindly advise me from which authority you got the Grosvenor Square, Park Lane route. Thank you.
I have done a huge amount of research into both the Suffragettes and women on the Home Front in the Great War, and I have concluded that newspaper reports of the time were often either slapdash, biased or propaganda for the government. For example, it has gone down in history that the policeman who carried Mrs Pankhurst off at the end of the march died of a heart attack soon after. This is simply not true. But one newspaper later threw it in as a bit of interesting background colour, and every other newspaper soon reproduced this ‘fact’ and it has become history. Rather like things on wikipedia these days! Newspapers also reported the numbers arrested at the march as 57,67, 68. The numbers of women Mrs Pankhurst had at the march also varied enormously.
As you say, there is mention of the march starting at Grosvenor Place and also Grosvenor Gardens. The Daily Mirror, which perhaps covered the event in more detail than any other newspaper, says it was Grosvenor Gardens.
But in three sources – Sylvia’s Pankhurst’s memoir, a biography of Emmeline Pankhurst by Jane Purvis and in A Fateful Year: England 1914 by Mark Bosridge, Grosvenor Square is said to be the start point. Knowing that part of London well as I do, I suspect Grosvenor Square must have been the starting point for such a large march. As well as Mrs Pankhurst’s own supporters, Sylvia’s East London Federation of Suffragettes were also there to show their support. There were also police there to keep order. Such a large number of people simply could not have congregated and got themselves organised in such a narrow space as Grosvenor Place or Grosvenor Gardens. What is certain is that after 5 days in prison on hunger and thirst strike, Mrs Pankhurst was released and went to recover at a friend’s house at 34 Grosvenor Place. I suspect that may be where Grosvenor Place came from in some of the later reports.
But what really convinced me that Grosvenor Square was the start point was a letter from Mrs Pankhurst, sent to Ethel Smyth from 34 Grosvenor Place, days after the event. In it she writes of the march”..saw Wellington Gates closing on us as we marched towards the park.” Had she been coming from Grosvenor Place or Gardens the closing of what are now called the Memorial Gates at the top of Constitution Hill would have completely blocked her way and she would have no alternative route open to her and would have been kettled by the police. She must have been coming down (probably Park Lane as such a large group would have needed to march down a main road both for logistical and publicity purposes, though this has to be conjecture of course in the absence of any other details) from Grosvenor Square and on seeing the gates closed, (again probably) headed left along Piccadilly and through Green Park, which accounts for the police at the Palace being so taken by surprise by her arrival.
Sylvia Pankhurst had ordered her women not to become involved in any sort of altercation because they had their massive event at Victoria Park coming up, and they were duly blocked by the police at the gates and took no further part in the proceedings.
One other thing that pushes me towards Grosvenor Square as the start point is that as well as a massive police presence, there were soldiers there too. There is a report of a soldier on horseback knocking out a woman as he rode by her as she was simply minding her own business near the gates of Buckingham Palace. To start the protest at Grosvenor Place or Grosvenor Gardens, so close to Wellington Barracks, would have been asking for trouble, and a tactical mistake I doubt Mrs Pankhurst would have made.
Of course there is some supposition by me above, but in the absence of definitive sources, I have relied on sources I trust above those of newspaper reports, my knowledge of London streets and common sense.