Mrs Pankhurst's Bodyguard

How suffragette and jujitsu-trained bodyguard ‘Kitty’ Marshall helped fight for political equality, while shadowed by the government and police (the ‘Cats’). Kitty Willoughby Marshall broke with convention. In 1901, she daringly divorced her husband and joined the WSPU, campaigning for women’s suffrage. She married Arthur Marshall and the couple soon became a powerhouse team in the movement, Arthur defending the suffragettes in court while Kitty, trained in ju-jitsu and a member of the elite team ‘the Bodyguard’, helped her close friend Mrs Pankhurst evade the clutches of the authorities under the Cat and Mouse Act. All this took place under the watchful eye of the Metropolitan Police and Special Branch detective Ralph Kitchener, who frequently came into contact with the Marshalls in his work trailing suffragette ‘mice’. This gripping new book by Dr Emelyne Godfrey follows events on both sides as the ‘cats’ hunted the ‘mice’, making extensive use of unpublished material and unseen images. AUTHOR: Dr Emelyne Godfrey studied the culture of self-defence in the Victorian and Edwardian eras and helped to popularise the subject of ‘jujut-suffragettes’ through articles for the TLS, BBC History Magazine and History Today, appearing on The One Show with Gyles Brandreth. She lectures widely and has previously written on crime and self-defence in Victorian literature for Palgrave Macmillan. She is chairman of the H.G. Wells Society and on the committee of the Metropolitan Police History Society. She lives in London. 13 colour, 30 b/w illustrations

Author Biography

Dr EMELYNE GODFREY studied the culture of self-defence in the Victorian and Edwardian eras and helped to popularise the subject of ‘jujut-suffragettes’ through articles for the Times Literary Supplement, BBC History Magazine and History Today, appearing on The One Show with Gyles Brandreth. She lectures widely and has previously written on crime and self-defence in Victorian literature for Palgrave Macmillan. She is chairman of the H.G. Wells Society and on the committee of the Metropolitan Police History Society. She lives in London.