Suffragettes and suffragists targeted sports institutions as part of publicity campaigns and militant action, particularly from 1911-13. Golf courses, race tracks, and cricket pavilions were preferred sites for militant actions, but all sporting events were considered to be at risk during the height of the militant campaign.
The excerpt from Votes for Women below describes preparations for the 1913 Oxford Cambridge Boat race in anticipation of a suffragette attack. The race was the type of high profile spectator event that made an ideal target for the suffragettes. In the days leading up to the race, worried crews organised round the clock surveillance for their boathouses. On race day, police and volunteers patrolled the race route in boats lest a suffragette threat should materialise.
Although suffragettes did not successfully interrupt the race, their presence was notable. The WSPU ran a launch of “Votes for Women” banners. There were also reports of NUWSS members handing out campaign materials at rail stations before and after the race.
Votes for Women suggested a much simpler way to safeguard sporting events from suffragette attacks: “Give women the vote!”
“The Boat Race Under Police Protection
The Oxford and Cambridge boat race will be rowed on Thursday, March 13, after we go to press. The greatest excitement seems to prevail both in the daily press and in the vicinity of the course as to whether the Suffragists will succeed in stopping the race, as it is reported they have threatened to do. It seems that for some time past the most extraordinary precautions have been taken to ensure the safety of the boats, a force of something like twenty men having been on continuous night night and day duty near the headquarters of the London and Leander Rowing Clubs where the two boats are housed, and the doors of the boathouses have been firmly barred. The course is to be patrolled by police boats, and rowing clubs have been asked to assist with as many boats as possible. What needless trouble and expense all this entails, and how the whole country is being held up when even her sports have to take place under police protection! And how much simpler to give women the vote!”
Source: Votes for Women, 14 March 1913, p. 347.
