Kitty Marion and The Battle for Suffrage

In the Museum of London there’s a scrapbook with a selection of carefully-clipped newspaper cuttings, all yellowed by time. One grainy image stands out. A train carriage, destroyed by fire, its metal, glass and paint left melted and burnished. The heading of the article, printed in April 1913, has a hint of derision, in capital letters above the photo: “The Women Who Did This Want a Vote.” 

The woman who gently cut around this article and pasted it into her scrapbook was 42-year old Kitty Marion. 

She is not as well known perhaps as the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst, Emily Wilding Davison or Annie Kenney, who gaze out at us pointedly from their black and white portraits. But it is important that we remember her. 

Originally from Germany, Kitty Marion came to England in 1886 at the age of fifteen and started work in the theatre. She joined the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1908 and spent the early part of her membership selling copies of the Votes for Women newspaper. It wasn’t long before her actions - and those of the other suffragettes - would however became less peaceful. 

In 1909 she was arrested after throwing a stone through a window of a Newcastle post office. While detained, she set fire to the mattress in her cell, using oil from a gas lamp that lit up the room. More acts followed. In 1912, Kitty hammered in the windows of buildings in London and in 1913 was implicated in the burning down of Levetleigh House in St Leonard’s, once the home of Arthur du Cros, an MP publicly opposed to their cause. Before and after photographs show the mansion reduced to roofless, smouldering remains. 

Kitty may have been involved in other arson attacks in pursuit of the vote. She was never named, but the inclusion of the Teddington train arson - and others - faithfully pasted into her personal scrapbook could give us a clue. The Museum of London calls their insertions ‘potentially significant.’ 

In June 1913, suffrage once again hit the headlines when Emily Wilder Davison was killed at Epsom Derby after she ran out in front of the King’s horse, in full view of spectators. That night, Kitty and another suffragette - Clare Giveen - crept out in their long dresses in the darkness, climbed a fence and set fire to the grandstand of Hurst Park Racecourse, near Hampton Court Palace. They were both arrested the next morning and then charged and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. She later wrote of the hunger strikes, the treatment she had suffered and being force fed through a tube 232 times.

While the actions taken by some suffragettes were certainly violent as in Kitty’s case, it’s important to remember that they were not lawless rebels who used suffrage as an excuse to go on the warpath. The placard-waving, peaceful demonstrations of the past had simply not worked. In a way, women declared war, and went to ever greater lengths to secure the right to vote - one of the privileges that many of us now take for granted. Kitty writes, almost sadly, referring to Hurst Park, that she “would much rather have had the vote than do this sort of thing to get it.” 

Kitty died in New York in 1944, after leaving wartime Britain when anti-German sentiment was on the rise. There her campaigning didn’t stop, turning to women’s rights over birth control, although from now on she protested more peacefully. 

Kitty Marion should be remembered for her tenacity, bravery and spirit. She left her home country to start a new life at just fifteen years old and was a key - but often forgotten - figure in the fight for women’s suffrage. But she also represents a new wave of frustration felt by Edwardian women and a resignation that their efforts up until then hadn’t worked. These suffragettes saw the cause as a war, one that wasn’t fought by standing resolutely in high-collared dresses and waving placards but with fire, hammers, smoke and stones.

Sources: 

Kitty’s scrapbook can be viewed digitally at The Museum of London website: 

https://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/965512.html

Fern Riddell, Suffragettes, Violence and Militancy, The British Library. 

Exploring Surrey’s Past: Arson at Hurst Park Racecourse, June 1913