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Jujitsuffragettes
From The Martial Arts Encyclopedia
The term "Jujitsuffragettes" was coined by the editors of Health and Strength Magazine circa 1910, to describe members of the militant Suffragette movement who studied the martial art of jujitsu as a means of self defense.
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Militant Suffragettes
During the first decade of the 20th century and up until the outbreak of the First World War, the right of women to vote in elections was a matter of overwhelming political and social debate in England. Spearheading the Suffrage movement was Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, the founder of the Women's Social and Political Union and a gifted political leader, whose militant tactics of street protest, poster campaigns and public disorder won her as many enemies as supporters.
On November 18, 1910, a large but ostensibly peaceful protest by the WSPU was violently broken up by police and by angry onlookers, and the incident developed into a riot that was dubbed "Black Friday" by the press. Many people were injured and over one hundred and twenty women were arrested during the six hour long running battle through the streets of London.
The British parliament attempted to silence Mrs. Pankhurst by rushing through a piece of legislation that became known as the "Cat and Mouse Act", which allowed Scotland Yard to continually re-arrest her on a prior conviction of inciting others to violence, which carried a sentence of three years behind bars.
While incarcerated, Mrs. Pankhurst and many of her followers adopted the tactic of hunger striking. Although many lower-profile Suffragettes were force-fed while in prison, the authorities were wary of sanctioning this dangerous practice against Mrs. Pankhurst herself, for fear of negative press. Thus, the Cat and Mouse Act allowed them to release her, wait until she was recovered from her hunger strike, and then arrest her again on the same charge.
To counter this, the WSPU created a secret society of women and men who were committed to physically protecting Mrs. Pankhurst and other leaders of the Women's Suffrage movement during their public appearances. "The Bodyguard" was led by Canadian-born Gertrude Harding and generally numbered around twenty-five members, supplemented as required by other sympathisers.
Jujitsu in London, 1899-1910
The first three known jujitsu instructors in Europe were E.W. Barton-Wright, Yukio Tani and Sadekazu Uyenishi, who trained Londoners in various self defence arts at Barton-Wright's "Bartitsu Club" during the first few years of the 1900s. The Club disbanded in 1903 and the instructors went their own ways, with Tani and Uyenishi eventually setting up their own dojos.
After Sadekazu Uyenishi returned to Japan in 1908, his senior student William Garrud assumed management of Uyenishi's Golden Square Dojo in Soho. Garrud continued to operate the school as a jujitsu dojo, taking responsibility for teaching the men's classes while his wife Edith ran the women's and children's classes. Two years later, Edith divorced William and established her own academy, the School of Ju-jutsu, in Regent Street. Mrs. Garrud's dojo, and Edith herself, achieved a certain notoriety due to their connection to the Women's Suffrage movement.
Edith Garrud and "the Bodyguard"
It is clear from her own writing that Edith Garrud was highly sympathetic to the militant Suffragettes' cause. She trained members of the Bodyguard in jujitsu for use against the police and violent anti-Suffrage mobs. Her dojo also became a safehouse and base for women escaping from the police after aggressive protest events in London, which often included extensive property damage inflicted with hammers and thrown stones.
According to Antonia Raeburn, the author of Militant Suffragettes (London, NEL, 1974):
"At six o'clock another contingent (of Suffragettes) made an assault on shops in Regent Street, and fifteen minutes later Oxford Street was attacked. Mrs. Garrud's jiujitsu school was just off Oxford Street in Argyle place and six of her Sufragette pupils were taking part in the stone throwing [...]
Mrs. Garrud's gymnasium was one of the bolt holes after the raid. She had taken up some of the floor-boards and covered over the gaps with heavy tatami mats. "They came back to the school because it was easy. They came straight in and turned those mats up. I made them strip off their outside clothes and give me their bags with their stones and any other missiles they had left over. All went under the floor-boards and back went the mats.
They were all in their jiu-jitsu coats working on the mats, when bang, bang, bang on the door. Six policemen! I looked very thunderstuck and wanted to know what was the matter. "Well, can't we come in ?" said one of the policemen. I said : "No I'm sorry, but I've got six ladies here having a jiu-jitsu lesson. I don't expect gentlemen to come in here." He said : "Are they pupils ?" I said : "Yes, pupils." So, it ended up by one old man coming in and having a look round. He didn't see anything, only the girls busy working, and out he went again."
Gretchen Wilson, the great-niece of Bodyguard leader Gert Harding, wrote:
"The 25 Bodyguard members were armed with Indian rubber clubs, hidden within their long skirts, & trained in jujitsu, a Japanese system of wrestling that works well against stronger opponents. As leader, Gert was ordered not to risk arrest, & she often felt 'like a heel' for not being able to join in the fray. Although they couldn't out-muscle the policemen, they could outwit them. On several occasions they staged exciting rescues. Twice a decoy maneuver led the detectives to carry off the wrong Mrs. Pankhurst. But the sad truth is that, more often than not, the women suffered dislocated joints, broken bones & concussions."
Edith Garrud in the Media
On July 6, 1910, staged photographs of "Mrs. Garrud, a well-known Suffragette," throwing a uniformed British policeman appeared in the London Sketch. Shortly thereafter, the satirical Punch Magazine printed a cartoon showing London bobbies cowering before a solitary "Ju-Jutsu Suffragette."
The July 23rd edition of Health and Strength Magazine featured an article entitled "Damsel vs. Desperado", written by Edith Garrud and extolling the value of jujitsu as self-defence for women. The anonymous article that follows Mrs. Garrud's, detailing a polemic sketch that she had apparently choreographed and which was being rehearsed at her dojo, appeared in Health and Strength Magazine, April 8, 1911.
Sources:
Raeburn, Antonia: The Militant Suffragettes (1974)
Wilson, Gretchen: With All Her Might: The Life of Gertrude Harding, Militant Suffragette (1998)
Wolf, Tony: Edith Garrud's Dojo: published in The Bartitsu Compendium, Lulu Publications (2005)
