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Theresa Garnett and the Whip That Struck Winston Churchill

Posted on 12th January, 2026 in Suffragettes, Theresa Garnett, Winston Churchill

I recently came across a photograph in the Birmingham Daily Gazette, 6 February 1947, which shows Theresa Garnett holding the whip with which she attacked Winston Churchill at Temple Meads Railway Station, Bristol on 13 November 1909. She was charged with assault, but the charge was changed to breach of the peace. On 15 November 1909 she was sentenced to a month in Horfield Gaol (now HMP Bristol).

I was intrigued by this article because it seemed to round off the story of the incident, and in particular the uncertainty surrounding the fate of the whip. According to contemporary press reports, Churchill grabbed the whip off Theresa Garnett and put it in his pocket. After her release from prison, her solicitor applied on her behalf to have it returned to her as it was of “historical interest”. Churchill said he had handed it to the Bristol police.

When magistrates met on 22 December 1909 to make a decision about Theresa’s request, they decided that the whip would not be returned to her as there was a risk she would use it again. They also thought there was a possibility that the whip “might be displayed in public in such as way as to bring ridicule or contempt upon a Cabinet Minister” (Bristol Times and Mirror, 23 December 1909). The magistrates felt that the whip should not be kept as a weapon or a trophy, and that the best thing would be to destroy it.

Theresa Garnett

But several things about the 1947 photograph puzzled me. For one thing, I found it hard to believe that the police had ignored the magistrate’s order to destroy the whip, and that they then at some point returned it to Theresa Garnett. On the other hand, I had never found any confirmation that it had been destroyed. How or why she had regained possession of the weapon was a mystery. However, it seemed that in 1947 she gave the whip to the Suffragette Museum established by the Suffragette Fellowship and housed at the headquarters of the National Union of Women Teachers, Cromwell Road, Kensington. This collection was transferred to the London Museum, then in Kensington Palace, in 1951.

I contacted the London Museum and asked them if they could confirm they have the whip, and if they had any information about its provenance. Their collection does indeed include the whip which Teresa Garnett is holding in the Birmingham Daily Gazette photograph. You can see a picture of it at https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-65663/whip-of-plaited-leather-thongs-produced-as-evidence-in-a-charge-of-threatening-behaviour-against-mrs-arncliffe-sennett/  However, it was not Teresa Garnett’s whip. It had belonged to Maud Arncliffe Sennett.

This was confirmed both by visual inspection, and by checking its provenance.

Visual inspection 

I had noticed that the whip Theresa Garnett is holding in the Birmingham Daily Gazette photograph does not match contemporary descriptions and illustrations of the whip she used in 1909. There is a drawing of this whip in Bristol Times and Mirror (BTM), 16 November 1909. It is depicted in one piece, having been produced in court at the breach of the peace hearing on 15 November 1909.

A comparison of the whip depicted in the Bristol Times and Mirror with the whip in the London Museum (LM) reveals several differences. The most obvious is that the BTM whip has a handle, whereas the LM whip does not. The curator at the LM also noted several differences. The BTM whip has a metal ferrule on the handle and a rounded end. The whip in the LM has no handle and a hook at the end.

What’s more, by the time Theresa Garnett’s request for the return of the whip came to court, it was already broken into three pieces (reported in Bristol Times and Mirror, 23 December 1909 and Western Daily Press, 23 December 1909). This, according to Theresa Garnett’s solicitor, had made it “wholly ineffective” and so there was no possibility that she could use it as a weapon again.

Clearly, then, the whip produced in court on 15 November 1909 and again on 22 December 1909 is not the same as the whip Theresa Garnett is holding in the Birmingham Daily Gazette photograph.

Provenance

An article in the Evening News, 5 February 1947, refers to a whip in the Suffragette Fellowship collection but states that it belonged to Maud Arncliffe Sennett. The Suffragette Fellowship’s own records confirm this. The curator at the LM checked the ‘List of Records’ prepared by the SF itself. It includes a reference to “Whip used by Mrs Arncliffe Sennett”. This is the whip which the LM holds today. There is no reference to a whip belonging to Theresa Garnett.

The whip Theresa Garnett is holding in the Birmingham Daily Gazette photograph is not the whip she used to assault Churchill. It is Maud Arncliffe Sennett’s whip. And this raises a new question. Why did Theresa Garnett claim it was her whip?

It could be that the Gazette journalist made a mistake. Or perhaps Theresa Garnett’s memory was at fault and she thought the whip was hers, though why she should do so if she had not donated it herself is another puzzle. Perhaps she only meant to show it as a type of whip used by suffragettes when they attacked politicians.

In the end, the fate of Theresa Garnett’s whip remains a mystery. Did the police destroy it or is it gathering dust in a police store room? Is it in another collection somewhere, given that some of the SF collection was sent to other museums?  [1]  Or is it even among Winston Churchill’s possessions – we know that he wanted to keep it himself!

Whatever has become of it, the story that the whip in the Birmingham Daily Gazette photograph is the whip used on Churchill has persisted. The photograph was reprinted in the Birmingham Weekly Mercury, 27 September 1964, where it was again described as the whip she used to attack Churchill. More recently, History and Legacy of the Suffragette Fellowship: Calling All Women (2024) by Eileen Luscombe refers to the photograph of Theresa Garnett “holding the whip that struck Churchill in 1909 at Bristol Temple Meads” (p. 120).

All of which goes to show how hard it is to be sure about the provenance of artefacts. Personally, I don’t think that going around attacking people is anything to be proud of. Perhaps it is no great loss that a weapon used in so notorious an attack has disappeared.

[1] I contacted the People’s History Museum, Manchester who advised they do not have the whip.

You might also be interested in ‘The Suffragette Who Beat Win C: Theresa Garnett and the International Alliance of Women’.

Picture Credit:-

Theresa Garnett, Bristol Reference Library