Book Review of Jennifer Godfrey’s Secret Missions of the Suffragettes: Glassbreakers and Safe Houses (Pen & Sword History April 2024)
Have you ever heard of a 'vitrifragist'? Author Jennifer Godfrey brings this visceral word to our attention in her new book Secret Missions Of The Suffragettes. One name in the book rang a little bell and insiped me to dig a little deeper into her life before continuing with the book review below.
Kitty Marion (1871-1944 b.Katherina Maria Schafer, Germany )
In the spring of 1912 a very nervous Kitty Marion arrived at her appointed time and place outside the windows The Silversmith’s Association and Sainsbury’s on Regent Street in London. Equipped with a hammer. She had turned up early and worried that she was going to be the only suffragette amongst the dispersing ‘twilight shoppers’.
She need not have worried. She smashed three windows at the appointed time and was arrested alongside a fellow ‘vitrifragist’. Jennifer Godfrey explains that The Glass Breakers were instructed to ‘hit the windows low...to avoid glass falling from above.’ Kitty reportedly ‘sang whilst in her cell’ in Vine St Police Station where she was taken after the arrest.
Kitty Marion (born Katherina Maria Schäfer) was a ‘a dainty songstress’, ‘an excellent comedienne’ and a ‘popular artist’[1] who trod the boards in the Music Hall theatres of Edwardian London. She earned her living from this, so why did she also deliberately go out of her way to smash the windows of a theatre?
A theatrical agent had tried to kiss Kitty and when she refused his advances she was told she would never succeeded in the business if she didn’t submit to the toxic ‘casting couch’ mentality of the men who controlled the theatre circuit.
Kitty railed against ‘the disgraceful state of the theatrical profession’ where ‘it is almost impossible for a woman to earn her living respectably on the stage’. In 1906 she joined the Actor's Association and the Variety Artists Federation where she became vocal in her protests. She also joined the Actress Franchise League and in 1909 she signed up to the Women's Social and Political Union. Her first job was to sell the ‘Votes For Women Newspaper’. She felt uncomfortable in this role but remembering her performance roots appears to have helped and she settled into the task.
The Museum Of London hold a stunning photograph of Kitty being escorted by two policemen after ‘5 Suffragettes, including Kitty, heckled Lloyd George at a meeting in Wales and were brutally set upon by vicious crowd.’ She looks proud, exultant and powerful. This contrasts greatly with the realities of the consequences of her actions. Kitty was caught and released numerous times under the notorious ‘Cat and Mouse act’ and along with many others suffered the intense pain and indignities of a force feeding regime.
Which returns us to the other stories of the many and varied Glass Breakers in Jennifer Godfrey’s unique book.
Secret Missions book review
Using detailed research, copious images and specially commissioned illustrations and maps the author leads us through these women’s lives from home life to radical activism to prison and back home, then prison again once the cat and mouse act was put into practice. The book is separated into two sections. The first deals with the practicalities of organizing and plotting the glass breaking events. She also weaves us through the friendships and camaraderie that developed through joint experience, sometimes in the Court Room or Prison Cell and examines the effect that this radical lifestyle change and the trauma many of the women experienced during force feeding and physical arrest by police officers cast over other friends and family who were outside the experience.
The second part examines safety concerns, including the teaching of jujitsu as a form of self defence, the locations and logistics of moving suffragettes to the Safe Houses spread around the country and mentions of the alias names, Kitty was apparently sometimes known as Aunt Maggie. Not to mention the elaborate disguises and subterfuge used to help the women escape the eagle eyed gaze of the authorities.
Packed full of images, maps and data there is plenty to explore by dipping into the book as well as reading chronologically. For example there is a page of surveillance images kept by the Criminal Records Office which shows off guard moments mixed with formal portraits and carte de visite style photographs.
There are informative chart break downs listing everything from poems written by suffragettes to the names of signatories embroidered onto handkerchiefs by Holloway prisoners, to prison rules for different classes of inmate and lists of named imprisoned women alongside sentences meted out, to special coded words to be used in secret messages. These plain facts and names blend with the off-guard photographs and text to bring unexpected seams of emotion connecting past and present.
The illustrations, redolent of Gwen Raverat’s memoir, by Daniel Atkinson suggest a cosy homely Mary Poppins-image of women living day-to day lives which contrasts with the physicality of the glass breaking acts they were driven to carry out and the harsh treatment the women were often subjected to when arrested and in police custody.
The book is a thoroughly immersive and satisfying mix of stories, data, photographs, maps and drawings giving the strong impression of a really good exhibition. It will appeal to those generally interested in the history of women’s suffrage as well as researchers and family historians seeking out easy access to raw data and images for further investigation.
Secret Missions is available direct from the publisher here
https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Secret-Missions-of-the-Suffragettes-Hardback/p/43195
Or on Amazon
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Missions-Suffragettes-Glassbreakers-Houses
Also from your local bookshop and Waterstones.
Sources:
Fascinating collection of postcards and blogs related to Women in The Music Hall. Includes a piece about Kitty along with anti-suffragette postcard images.
Selection of images related to Kitty
Kitty’s bio and personal papers at the New York Public Library
(Needs an in-person appointment to search the archives)
https://archives.nypl.org/mss/6263
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