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Suffrajitsu is a term used to describe the application Suffrajitsu

of martial arts or self-defence techniques by members of
the Women's Social and Political Union during 1913/14. The
term derives from a portmanteau of Suffragette and Ju-
jitsu and was first coined by an anonymous English journalist
during March 1914.

During the Edwardian Period, jujutsu was promoted as a way

to foster women's self defence, autonomy and health, initially
in the United Kingdom and then elsewhere in the Western
World.

In contemporary usage, "suffrajitsu" describes the

suffragettes' techniques of visible 'self-defence, sabotage and
subterfuge' against the police and other aggressors, whilst
promoting the benefits of jujitsu as a 'free activity' and a form
of self-defense for dealing with both domestic violence in the
home, and public attacks to women.[1][2] Edith Garrud demonstrating jujutsu techniques
on a volunteer dressed as a police constable
Focus Self-defence
Etymology [ edit ]
Hardness Full contact
The term "suffragette" was first used in 1906 pejoratively by Country of origin United Kingdom
the journalist Charles E. Hands in the London Daily Mail Famous practitioners Edith Margaret Garrud
describing female activists working for women's suffrage, in
particular members of the WSPU. The latter, however, Ancestor arts Jujitsu, Judo
embraced the term and used it to distinguish their own, radical
and militant approach from that of more staid and law-abiding "suffragist" organisations such as
the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.

Martial arts instructor Edith Garrud believed the term "Ju-Jutsuffragettes" originated from Health &
Strength Magazine prior to 1910.[3]

The term 'Suffrajitsu' was coined by an anonymous English journalist in a widely republished article
first issued in March 1914 and has subsequently been re-popularised by the Suffrajitsu: Mrs.
Pankhurst's Amazons graphic novel series (2015).

Style of engagement and contemporary influence [ edit ]

Suffrajitsu drew upon the techniques of the Japanese jujutsu teachers in London during the Edwardian
period. Women in particular were seen as ideal to engage in Jujitsu, as their smaller on average builds
allowed them an advantage in allowing their opponent to underestimate them based on their being the
'fairer/weaker' sex and then using their jujitsu to topple larger opponents.

Outside of the training suffragettes received related to ju-jitsu, weapons were also frequently taken
into account by their practicality, to prevent attack on their persons, both domestically and by the

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police. Members of the WSPU Bodyguard (see below) were issued with Indian clubs for use as
weapons. Women learned to defend themselves with everyday items of clothing such as the Hatpin,
used by Edwardian women to hold their oversized hats in place which could at times reach up to 16
inches in length, either to disarm or maim. Flora Drummond, known as 'The General' for wearing a
military style uniform, Helen Ogston, Teresa Billington-Greig and Maud Arncliffe Sennett were each
known to carry around whips, to intimidate opponents.[2] At the Battle of Glasgow (1914), suffragettes
engaged with police by deploying hidden barbed wire as a stalling tactic.[4]

History [ edit ]

Ju-jitsu was first demonstrated in London in 1892 by Tetsujiro

Shidachi and later promoted in England by the Bartitsu founder
and practitioner Edward Barton-Wright, who introduced Asian
martial arts to the middle-classes between 1899 and 1902.
Unusually for Edwardian-era "antagonistics" (combat sports)
clubs, lessons at the Bartitsu Club were available to women as
well as men.

In the interest of women practitioners and writing in the Daily Edith Garrud's dojo
Mirror in 1903, Evelyn Sharp called for 'women [to] take the
special ladies classes offered by (former Bartitsu Club
instructor Sadakazu) Uyenishi in Golden Square'. The specific
classes being offered taught by Emily Diana Watts; who herself
learnt from training at the Oxford Street dojo of Uyenishi's former
associate Yukio Tani, along with other 'lady instructors' like Phoebe
Roberts (1887–1937) who also taught Judo alongside Uyenishi by
December 1904 at the Golden Square school. Uyenishi, remarking
on woman learning ju-jitsu, was quoted as noting that "Balance
and quickness will always win, and women are always
quick."[5] Coupled with the heightened position of Japan as a
nation state after the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the victory over
Russia in 1905 based partly on the word of the Japanese army
Phoebe Roberts
claiming Judo was their secret weapon and hyperbolic claims of
jujutsu teachers and sportswriters, there was an inclination in
Edwardian English society to learn about 'jiu-jitsu', and the art was
taught to young women at Girton College and Newnham College.[6][7][8]

By 1905 Watts began teaching self-defence lessons to other high society women such as Duchess
Bedford and by 1906 began teaching Jujitsu classes at the Princes Skating Club, Knightsbridge, also
publishing The Fine Art of Jujutsu. Other female students of this style included Marie Studholme who
trained under Tani in 1907.[9] Ju-jitsu parties became all the rage, instructing upper and middle class in
the art of self-defence in their homes, or at afternoon tea.[4]

In 1908, Edith Garrud took over women's classes at the Golden Square School when Uyenishi left
England. Garrud also founded the 'Suffragettes Self-Defence Club' in 1909, a suffragettes-only Jujutsu
club, which from 1911 moved to the Palladium Academy, in Argyll Street.

The requirement for suffragette self-defence was reinforced by events such as the Black Friday Raid,
wherein plain clothes police officers had allegedly physically and sexually assaulted unarmed women
attempting to force entry to the House of Commons during a "Raid on Parliament" protest action.[10]

Even after the dissolution of the more violent tactics used by the WSPU in 1914, in 1918
when Christabel Pankhurst was running for office for the Smethwick seat at the General Election, her
supporters used jujutsu to deter protestors rallying against her running for the seat.[11] With the
founding of the Budokwai in 1918, Jujitsu and Judo began to attain non-political and international
followings and were increasingly taught once again primarily as sport or for self-defence. The first
female practitioner, Katherine White-Cooper, entering the Budokwai in April 1919.[9]

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Recreational activity or 'The Soft-Art' [ edit ]

Jujitsu was promoted as a way not only to help defend women but
to for their mental and physical health and well-being. The
suffragette movement (like the feminist movement to other contact
and non-violent sport later on[12]) promoted its recreational
usage;[4] The 1908 board game Suffragetto introduced a then-
highly political topic into the domestic sphere, framing and
engaging the issue in a more positive light for a wider
audience.[13] In this manner, self-defence could be marketed as a
sport, hobby or entertainment rather than being pejoratively
labelled by the wider society as an aggressive or niche activity for
women. Performers and publicists like the strongman Eugen
Sandow, promoted Jujitsu for women in his magazine on physical
culture as a form of 'rational exercise' which supported 'feminine
Suffragetto board
grace'.[14][15] Given a heightened interest in national health due to
a national report revealing health issues in the United Kingdom, it
was also in the national interest to increase public participation in
sport. Indeed, in 1913 Edith Garrud's dojo was used as a base for militant suffragettes fleeing from
pursuing policemen; hiding their protest implements and changing into jujitsu uniforms gave them the
veneer of respectable sportswomen.[7]

Promotion through the arts [ edit ]

One way of promoting jiu-jitsu to the public was through theatre productions incorporating the style,
with female participants performing and demonstrating the style's particular benefits when 'a light slim
girl ... was able to throw heavy male opponents with the utmost ease.' In 1904, Roberts and Watts
performed with Tani and Uyenishi at Caxton Hall to promote the style, in the guise of stage
entertainment, Roberts later performing for the Japan Society in 1906 at the Kew, Regents Park and in
1908 at the Palace Theatre, Manchester. Roberts eventually toured Barcelona demonstrating Jujitsu
for female audiences.[7]

Garrud demonstrated Jujitsu for the WSPU in 1909, and in

January 1911 choreographed the fight scenes for the play What
Every Woman Ought to Know. In August Garrud wrote about using
jiu-jitsu as a form of self-defence in Health and
Strength magazine. [16]

"ju-jutsu has over and over again been proved to

be the most effective means, ... because it is
easy to learn, and because it is, quite apart
from its combative value, a splendid exercise; it
is the very thing for women as well as men to
take up thoroughly." — Edith Garrud, July 23,
1910

Ju-Jutsu as a Husband-Tamer (1911)

Filmography [ edit ]

Title Company Year

Jiu-jitsu Downs the 1907 – in which a woman played by jujutsu instructor Edith Garrud is pursued by
Pathé
Footpads two "ruffians" and ultimately defeats both of them with her martial arts skills
1911 – features a sequence in which the protagonist is defeated by "Miss U.I.
Charley Smiler
Pathé Throwe" in a jujutsu match, after which she hands him a calling card reading
Takes Up Ju-jitsu
"Votes for Women!"

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Militancy in WSPU and The Bodyguard [ edit ]

Jujitsu was initially demonstrated and promoted as a style of self-defence, but after the death of
women like Mary Jane Clarke and the Conciliation Bills fiasco, the WSPU began to employ
more militant forms of protest such as midnight raids on parliamentarians homes as well as
nationwide arson and bombing campaigns, albeit the latter two categories of action were only carried
out against unoccupied properties.[17]

In response to the Cat and Mouse Act of 1913, the WSPU formed
what was termed variously the 'Bodyguard', 'Jiujitsusuffragettes' or
'Amazons'; a group of about 30 suffragettes tasked with protecting
suffragettes who had been released from hunger striking in prison
from being re-arrested. In order to be eligible to serve with the
Bodyguard, women had to be in good physical condition, trained in
self-defence and willing to risk their safety and freedom in service
of their cause. The organisation engaged Edith Garrud to teach
them how to prevent bodily harm against themselves from the
police.

Active members of the Bodyguard employed hand-to-hand combat

when necessary to protect their charges, but by preference
employed techniques of distraction, evasion and misdirection in
collaboration with the large, semi-underground network of WSPU
sympathisers.

The Bodyguards' most well known hand-to-hand combats

engagements with police officers were the "Battle of Glasgow" on
9 March 1914, during which about 30 Bodyguards battled a much
larger contingent of police constables and detectives on the stage
of St. Andrew's Hall before a shocked audience of some 4500 Punch cartoon depicting militant
people, and during their "Raid on Buckingham Palace" on 24 May suffragettes
1914, when club-wielding suffragette Bodyguards fought police in
the streets while attempting to access Buckingham Palace and
present a suffrage petition to King George.

The Bodyguard group was disbanded shortly after England declared war against Germany at the
outset of the First World War, because the WSPU no longer required protection when they
discontinued their militant activism and instead turned to supporting the war efforts.

Bodyguard
Name Background
Gertrude Harding Head of Bodyguards, Jujitsu
Kitty Marshall Jujitsu
Edith Garrud Trainer for bodyguards, Jujitsu

Representations in modern popular culture [ edit ]

The Suffrajitsu phenomenon has been portrayed in a variety of modern media including:

The 2015 graphic novel trilogy Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons

The 2015 feature film Suffragette, which includes a brief scene in which radical suffragette Edith
Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter) teaches a self-defence class
Season 3, Episode 5 of the Drunk History (UK) TV comedy show (2017) features a Suffrajitsu
segment starring Jessica Hynes as Emmeline Pankhurst
The 2018 independent documentary No Man Shall Protect Us: the Hidden History of the
Suffragette Bodyguards
Season 5, Episode 5 of the Drunk History (US) comedy TV show (2019) features a Suffrajitsu
segment starring Tatiana Maslany as Emmeline Pankhurst and Kat Dennings as Bodyguard
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Gertrude Harding
The 2020 Netflix movie Enola Holmes starring Millie Bobby Brown in the title role as a martial arts-
trained detective in Edwardian London, co-starring Helena Bonham Carter as her radical
suffragette/martial artist mother and Susie Wokoma as jujutsu trainer Edith Grayston.

United States [ edit ]

In the United States, Japanese instructors such as Yae Kichi Yabe in Rochester, New York began
teaching jiu-jitsu to Americans. Women recognized that jiu-jitsu training was not only effective as a
means of self-defense but had political implications as well. President Theodore Roosevelt was a
vocal advocate of jiu-jitsu training as a way of fostering manliness in American men and preparing
United States soldiers for battle. In 1904, Roosevelt hired jiu-jitsu instructor Yoshitsugu Yamashita to
train him in the Japanese art of self-defense and made a public display of his training for the
press.[18][19] Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just
as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise
("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshiaki
Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. The participants
of the class included Grace Davis Lee, Katherine Elkins, Jessie Ames, and Re Lewis Smith Wilmer.[9]

Also in 1904 the Physical Training for Women book was released by journalist H. Irving Hancock,
based on the Tsutsumi Hōzan-ryū style. The work whilst only showing basic partnered stretches, was
taken up for self-defense against 'mashers',[20] with journalist Priscilla Leonard writing how Hancock
relayed that 'In Japan the women are not weaker, and in this country they have no right to be [either]'.

American suffragists drew inspiration from the tactics of the British militant suffragettes. Some
American women directly participated in the actions initiated by the WSPU and a few even became
members of the Bodyguard. Chicago reformer Zelie Emerson was recruited to join the movement
by Sylvia Pankhurst who was on a speaking tour in the United States at the time. In 1913, Emerson
traveled back to the United Kingdom with Pankhurst and was arrested multiple times for breaking
windows to advocate votes for women. Emerson was arrested, sent to prison, and went on hunger-
strike. After directly experiencing police brutality and having her skull fractured by police truncheons on
two separate occasions, Emerson decided to join the suffragettes in drilling in the use of clubs, boxing,
and jiu-jitsu.[18]

Most American suffragists tried to avoid any association with the militant tactics of the British
suffragettes. There was no formal organization like the Bodyguard among suffragists in the United
States. However, according to historian Wendy Rouse who has studied the origins of the women's
self-defense movement in the United States, some American suffragists did advocate self-defense
training for women and some groups of suffragists organized small groups to train in secret. Especially
after their direct experiences with violence in the 1913 women's suffrage parade, American suffragists
recognized that the police would offer them little protection. They began to recognize the value of jiu-
jitsu training for their own self-defense.[18] New York suffragist Sofia Loebinger told reporters that she
admired the British suffragettes who practiced jiu-jitsu: “Strong situations need strong women, and I
am heartily in favor of the movement.” She expressed the belief that “boxing would be a good thing for
women if only to teach them to concentrate their minds on one thing at a time. The ballot, for
instance.”[21]

In 1918, American society also began to promote Judo and wrestling as being fit for women's self-
defense against the 'mashers' rather than a 'masculine' sport like boxing, with organizations like the
Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) promoting the sports. Women's Judo
in Hawaii particularly flourished, with Hilo promoter Miss Harrison, and with Maui promoters including
Floy Robinson, Kennette Griffith, Myrtle Nelson, Emma Cawdry, and Elva Class and the first female
black belts including Shizuko Murasaki, Matsue Honda, and Yasue Kuniwake. Suffragettes and upper-
class socialites often viewed learning martial arts as engaging in female empowerment, unlike boxing
whilst working-class women used combat sports, mostly wrestling in vaudeville productions and self-
defence where necessary. However most women until the 1940s viewed learning jiu-jitsu as 'manly',
something which could scare off prospective marriage partners if the women built up too
much muscle, diminishing their 'figures' and 'womanly charms'.[9]

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Further reading [ edit ]

Meine Selbsthilfe Jiu Jitsu für Damen (My Selfhelp Jiu Jitsu for
Women), Attinger (1901)
Physical Training for Women by Japanese Methods, G.P.
Putnam's Sons (1904)
The Fine Art of Jujitsu, William Heinemann & Co (1906)
The Life and Adventures of Miss Florence LeMar, the World's
Famous Ju-Jitsu Girl, Florence leMar (1913)
Suffragette Escapes and Adventures, Katherine "Kitty" Marshall
(Unpublished, 1947)

See also [ edit ]

Elkins in 1918
Sarah Mayer
Emily Diana Watts
Edward William Barton-Wright
Judo in the United Kingdom
Kinamutay Effeminate Hand Fighting

References [ edit ]
1. ^ "Journal of Non-lethal Combat: Damsel v. Desperado" . Archived from the original on 24 July 2008.
2. ^ a b "Jujitsu suffragettes" . HistoryExtra. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
3. ^ "Journal of Non-lethal Combat: Damsel v. Desperado" . 24 July 2008. Archived from the original on 24 July 2008.
Retrieved 23 November 2021.
4. ^ a b c McEachern, Megan. "Suffra-jiu-jitsu: New exhibition sheds light on little known facts about Scotland's
suffragettes" . The Sunday Post. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
5. ^ The War in the Far East, The Times, 12 May 1904, p. 9
6. ^ Delap, Lucy; DiCenzo, Maria; Ryan, Leila (2006). Feminism and the Periodical Press, 1900-1918 . Taylor &
Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-32027-6.
7. ^ a b c Twentieth-Century: The Cases of Phoebe Roberts, Edith Garrud, and Sarah Mayer, Mike Callan, Conor Heffernan,
Amanda Spenn, The International Journal of the History of Sport, Volume 35, Issue 6: New Historical Work on Women and
Gender, 2018, pp. 530–553
8. ^ "InYo: Women Who Would Not be Sheep" . Archived from the original on 2 September 2009.
9. ^ a b c d "InYo: Women's judo 1900–1945; Svinth" . Archived from the original on 10 February 2009.
10. ^ "Martial History Magazine | Jujutsu Suffragettes" . 21 November 2008. Archived from the original on 21 November
2008. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
11. ^ Christabel Pankhurst and the Smethwick Election: Right-Wing Feminism, the Great War and the Ideology of
Consumption,Nicoletta F. Gullace, Women's History Review, 23, No.3, June 2014, p. 336
12. ^ See Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women's Self-Defense, Martha McCaughey, 1997 and Barbara Deming,
Revolution and Equilibrium, 1971
13. ^ says, Gina Pacington scott. " "Suffragetto": a Suffragettes vs. Police Board Game Rediscovered After 100 Years |
Suffrajitsu" . Retrieved 18 January 2021.
14. ^ The Perfect Man: The Muscular Life and Times of Eugen Sandow, Victorian Strongman, David Waller, 2011, p. 132
15. ^ "InYo: Jiu-Jitsu for women, Sandow's Magazine" . ejmas.com. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
16. ^ "rhetorically speaking..: kidney-punching the patriarchy" . 18 July 2007. Archived from the original on 18 July 2007.
Retrieved 18 January 2021.
17. ^ "The 1910s: 'We have sanitised our history of the suffragettes' " . The Guardian. 6 February 2018.
Retrieved 18 January 2021.
18. ^ a b c Rouse, Wendy (2017). Her Own Hero: The Origins of the Women's Self-Defense Movement . New York: New York
University Press. ISBN 978-1479807291.
19. ^ Rouse, Wendy (2015). "Jiu-Jitsuing Uncle Sam: The Unmanly Art of Jiu-Jitsu and the Yellow Peril Threat in the
Progressive Era United States" . Pacific Historical Review. 84: 448–477. doi:10.1525/phr.2015.84.4.448 .
20. ^ A slang term in use from 1872, being a man who makes indecent sexual advances towards women, especially in public
places. OED online
21. ^ Greeley-Smith, Nixola (11 April 1911). "Suffragettes Will Cultivate Muscles and Fight Like Amazons for Her
Ballot". Evening World. New York. p. 3.

External links [ edit ]

suffrajitsu.com : promotional website for the Suffrajitsu graphic novel trilogy, with historical
information on the real-life Bodyguard team that inspired the fiction
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