ALS by Lloyd George's secretary F.L Stevenson about Emmerline Pankhurst 1916
GEORGE, David Lloyd (1863-1945); Stevenson, Frances (1888-1972): An autograph letter signed by Frances Stevenson on behalf of George about wartime passport instructions for WSPU suffragettes Emmeline Pankhurst and Grace Roe, 15 September 1916.
Autograph letter signed, written entirely in the hand of Frances Stevenson as Lloyd George’s private secretary, on War Office, Whitehall stationery embossed “Secretary of State for War”; 120 x 190 mm, a single sheet folded, written on the first and fourth sides. Addressed “To the Officer in Charge, Passport Office” and signed “F. L. Stevenson”, with her office added beneath. Two former paperclip positions have caused rust staining and small areas of paper loss, otherwise very good.
“Mr Lloyd George would be much obliged if you will see that Mrs Pankhurst and Miss Grace Roe obtain facilities to travel backwards and forwards between London and Paris whenever they have occasion to do so.”
An uncommon First World War document about two leading members of the militant suffrage movement. “Mrs Pankhurst” is Emmeline Pankhurst, founder and leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union, while Grace Roe was a senior WSPU organiser who had acted as an intermediary between the organisation in Britain and Christabel Pankhurst in Paris.
The letter was written while Lloyd George was Secretary of State for War, several months before he replaced Asquith as Prime Minister. It directs the Passport Office to facilitate unrestricted wartime movement between London and Paris for Pankhurst and Roe, at a time when international travel was closely controlled. The intervention shows the transformed relationship between the government and the formerly militant suffragettes during the war, when Emmeline Pankhurst suspended the WSPU campaign and placed her organisation behind the national war effort. Written and signed by Frances Stevenson, Lloyd George’s private secretary, mistress and later his second wife.