Deeds, Not Words: The Suffragettes and Early Terrorism in the City of London

Abstract

The City of London still provides us with a very visible, physical representation of policing’s response to the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign of the 1990s: the chicanes, police boxes and CCTV cameras at its entry points that collectively form its protective ‘Ring of Steel’. Terrorism though had announced its arrival in the City some 20 years before the bombs at St Mary Axe and Bishopsgate, with the detonation of an IRA car bomb outside the Old Bailey in 1973 — or so living memory would have us believe. Two seemingly innocuous artefacts in the City of London Police Museum — a milk-can and a Keen’s mustard tin — help give the lie to this perception and provide us with tangible evidence of an earlier, often overlooked bombing campaign. These two everyday household items once contained ‘infernal machines’ — or bombs — that were planted at iconic locations in the City in 1913, but which failed to explode. All the facts point to the would-be bombers being supporters of the Suffragette movement. This article examines the story and significance of the milk-can and mustard tin bombs and the way in which those fighting for women’s suffrage made use of such explosive devices to further their cause. It will explore the similarities and differences between their actions and other terror campaigns that targeted the capital and the ‘establishment’.