Suffragette scuffle at Buckingham Palace

Suffragettes struggle to enter Buckingham Palace, 21 May 1914. A heavy policy presence ensured they did not succeed in entering the palace gates. The Suffragette newspaper recorded the events: 'Some of the women rushed at the gate and railings and climbed on to the crossbars, while others attacked the police and tried to force them out of the way. There were a considerable number of police agents in plain clothes, most of them being men of a low and brutal type. Great roughness and brutality was also shown by the men in uniform. They pummelled the women and a man supporter unmercifully, and threw them about in a savage fashion, even after they had been taken into the station room. The women broke windows, the glass of the pictures, and anything they could lay their hands on, but that was no excuse for treating them in such a manner.'