Emelyne Godfrey speaks about the unorthodox life of Kitty Marshall – a cricket-ball-wielding, martial-arts-trained suffragette ready to go fist-to-fist with the police for votes for women

By Ellie Cawthorne

Published: Monday, 31 July 2023 at 06:40 AM


Known as “Mrs Pankhurst’s bodyguard”, Kitty Marshall was a cricket-ball-wielding, jujitsu-trained suffragette ready to go fist-to-fist with the police in her fight for votes for women. Historian and biographer Emelyne Godfrey tells Ellie Cawthorne more about Kitty’s unorthodox life, and the tense game of cat-and-mouse that suffragettes were locked in with Met police.

Emelyne Godfrey is the author of Mrs Pankhurst’s Bodyguard: On the Trail of ‘Kitty’ Marshall and the Met Police ‘Cats’ (History Press, 2023)