Ju-Jitsu and the suffragettes
By 1911, Ju-Jitsu was becoming fashionable in the northern hemisphere as part of the rise of the physical culture fad - a health and strength training movement. Calisthenics, combat sports and martial arts were popular features of this movement, as well as certain types of equipment, including Indian Clubs. In London, the battle for women’s rights had reached boiling point. The suffragette’s protests and the violent government reprisals were becoming more and more extreme.
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst and her supporters were experiencing increased brutality from the male establishment whenever they met at demonstrations or rallies. They were arrested, imprisoned and tortured. Many went on hunger strike, including Pankhurst. All were force-fed and many physically and sexually assaulted. The public had little appetite for the practise, and the government didn't want a Suffragette martyr, so it legislated its way out of an awkward situation. Under the infamous Cat and Mouse act, the starving women would be released. As soon as they recovered, and attended a rally or demonstration, they would be re-arrested, on the same charge. The unprecedented law change was specifically targeted at Emmeline Pankhurst and her supporters.
The violence and sexual assaults - from both public and police - meant drastic action was necessary. Pankhurst asked Edith Garrud, whose husband ran a dojo, to help her establish a protective force called The Bodyguard. A secret bodyguard unit of thirty fit and able women was established. They were covertly trained in the art of Ju-Jitsu and went to meetings in protective clothing with wooden Indian Clubs concealed in their bustles from where they could be produced swiftly, and to effect. They were disciplined, strategic and fearless.
Edith Garrud
Edith, 4ft, 11inches, was famous for her demonstrations on stage
She also wrote a story: Damsel V. Desperado. Read it here:
Ju-Jitsu as a husband tamer
Ju-Jitsu was popularised on the British stage by Garrud with her infamous sketch, "Ju-Jutsu as a Husband-Tamer: A Suffragette Play with a Moral" (From Health & Strength, April 8, 1911, 339.
Year of the bodyguard
learn more about The Bodyguard here ... Bartitsu website
Florence LeMar
Florence Warren (1890 – 1951), a champion swimmer and athlete, modelled herself on Garrud. The timing was perfect. Women already had the vote in New Zealand and their political influence was growing. They were proving themselves equal to any task, yet self-protection remained uncharted territory still. The 'fair sex' was still considered 'fair game'.
Florence was already doing the rounds on the vaudeville circuit as an athlete. There she met champion German pugilist and martial arts expert, Joseph Gardiner, adopted the stage name LeMar, and set off with characteristic evangelistic fervour. They married in 1911. Armed with her handbook, The Life and Adventures of Miss Florence LeMar, the World’s Famous Ju-Jitsu Girl, they toured the Australasian vaudeville circuit preaching their brand of salvation for put-upon women everywhere.
Their popular star turn, The Hooligan and the Lady, was a sensation. A lass barely gone twenty, LeMar took challenges from the floor for the wager of one hundred pounds. Many tried, none succeeded.
LeMar was a visionary with pronounced ideas about the role of women under attack. She entered the vaudeville touring circuit as a champion female athlete in days when career opportunities for women – illegitimate, lower-class women especially – were limited. Her intense collaboration with Gardiner produced a show, a book and an heir. Intellectual and physical equals they were a tour de force. Their act was a vaudeville sensation, not least because it was a woman demonstrating the art.
Gardiner and LeMar used the radical methods of Ju-Jitsu to demonstrate the ability of the fairer sex to repel evildoers. Their amusing, light-hearted sketches belied the deadly message beneath. With missionary verve, Flossie set out to instruct all women in the health-giving and moral benefits of Ju-Jitsu.
Suffrajitsu Documentary
Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes Documentary
The documentary Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes, co-produced and co-directed by Tony Wolf and featuring an interview with Emelyne Godfrey showcases the Jujitsuffragettes and features a re-enactment of their combat training.
The BBC documentary Everybody Was Kung-fu Fighting: A History of the Martial Arts in Great Britain (2013) showcases the Suffragette Amazons, featuring an excerpt from The Year of the Bodyguard and interviews with Emelyne Godfrey (author of Femininity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature and Society) and Tony Wolf.
Tony Wolf Interview
"Tony Wolf is the pre-eminent historian on Edith Garrud and the Bodyguard. His research and books, including the 2009 young-reader biography Edith Garrud: The Suffragette Who Knew Jujutsu ( http://a.co/d/dhpFU8G ) and the 2015 graphic novel trilogy Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons ( http://a.co/d/4VSNMSA ) have led to a new interest in their long-neglected story. Flossie appears as a major supporting character - a New Zealand-born adventuress, no less - in the graphic novel series.
Tony is also the writer and co-producer/director of the 2018 documentary No Man Shall Protect Us: The Hidden History of the Suffragette Bodyguards:
(link) - https://vimeo.com/275968947
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Learn more at http://suffrajitsu.com/secret-histories-and-outlaw-suffragettes-an-interview-with-tony-wolf-creator-of-mrs-pankhursts-amazons/.
Honor Blackman interview
Icon Films produces this mini-documentary on the life and times of jujitsuffragette trainer Edith Garrud, hosted by Honor Blackman and featuring an interview with Emelyne Godfrey, author of Femininity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature and Society.
Badass Women From History:
PODCAST INTERVIEW
Kirsty Young interviews Kitty Marshall; militant suffragette, and founder of Mrs Pankhurst's Bodyguard, a secret group of women highly trained in martial arts who protected Mrs Pankhurst during the Cat and Mouse Act.
Kitty’s unpublished memoir 'Suffragette Escapes and Adventures' can be found in the archives of the Museum of London.
Listen here:
Badass Women from History: Kitty Marshall, original suffrajitsu podcast
A mini-documentary on the life and times of Edith Garrud, the martial arts trainer of the radical “jujitsuffragettes” during the early 20th century.
One of the first modern female martial arts icons, presenter Honor Blackman – a real-life judo enthusiast and the author of Honor Blackman’s Book of Self Defence, as seen in the picture above – made good use of her judo prowess in playing Dr. Cathy Gale, John Steed’s partner in The Avengers. She later took on James Bond himself as Pussy Galore in the movie Goldfinger.
Thereafter the Suffragette Bodyguard was virtually forgotten until the late 1960s, when journalist Godfrey Winn published an interview with the then-94 year old Edith Garrud in "Woman Magazine". Then came a minor revival of interest in the wake of the Women's Liberation movement in the 1970s, culminating in the 1982 British documentary, The Year of the Bodyguard.
Suffragette
dir. Sarah Gavron (2015)