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“FIGHT TAUGHT RIGHT”:1 EDITH GARRUD AND THE
ART OF SUFFRAJITSU IN OLD BAGGAGE
AND ENOLA HOLMES
“LA LUCHA BIEN ENSEÑADA”: EDITH GARRUD Y
EL ARTE DEL SUFFRAJITSU EN OLD BAGGAGE
Y ENOLA HOLMES
<https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202511192>
MARIANA RIPOLL-FONOLLAR
Universidad de las Islas Baleares
mariana.ripoll@uib.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3284-5820>
Abstract
This article explores the revival and representation of Edith Garrud, the art of
suffrajitsu and the jujitsuffragettes in Lissa Evans’s novel Old Baggage (2018) and
Harry Bradbeer’s Enola Holmes films (2020, 2022). These works revisit the figure
of this jujitsu instructor and her fellow suffragette trainees to respond to certain
misrepresentations of these women in both historical and contemporary narratives
and depictions of the suffragette movement. By resorting to the figure of Garrud
and her self-defence lessons for suffragettes, the novel and films vindicate the
contributions of these women to feminism. The works not only shed light on
jujitsu’s usefulness and relevance for women’s own protection, but also on the
potential of this martial art to empower women and subvert gender stereotypes.
Old Baggage and Enola Holmes offer more accurate and faithful versions of the
jujitsuffragettes and their trainer than those offered by detractors of women’s
suffrage during the period, thus restoring and commemorating the contribution
of these women to first-wave feminism.
Keywords: suffragette, Edith Garrud, Old Baggage, Enola Holmes, feminist self-
defence.
Resumen
Este artículo explora el resurgimiento y la representación de Edith Garrud, el arte
del suffrajitsu y las jujitsuffragettes en la novela Old baggage (2018), de Lissa Evans
y las películas de Enola Holmes, de Harry Bradbeer (2020, 2022). Estos productos
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rescatan la figura de esta instructora de jiu-jitsu y sus compañeras y aprendices
suffragettes para responder a ciertas tergiversaciones sobre estas mujeres presentes
en narrativas y representaciones del movimiento sufragista tanto históricas como
contemporáneas. Al recurrir a la figura de Garrud y sus lecciones de autodefensa
a las suffragettes, la novela y las películas reivindican las contribuciones de estas
mujeres al feminismo. Estas obras no sólo iluminan la utilidad y relevancia del
jiu-jitsu para la propia protección de las mujeres, sino también el potencial de
este arte marcial para empoderar a las mujeres y subvertir los estereotipos de
género. Old Baggage y Enola Holmes ofrecen versiones más precisas y fieles de las
jujitsuffragettes y su entrenadora que las ofrecidas por los detractores del sufragio
femenino durante ese período restaurando y conmemorando así la contribución de
estas mujeres a la primera ola del feminismo.
Palabras clave: suffragette, Edith Garrud, Old Baggage, Enola Holmes, autodefensa
feminista.
1. Introduction
There has recently been a growing offer of women’s self-defence courses
worldwide, triggered by women’s “desire to overcome fear” (Burman 2024)
and “tak[e] responsibility for their own safety” (Roussel 2023) due to the never-
ending threat of, and potential exposure to male violence in both the domestic and
public domains. Just to give a few examples, a “Women Fight Back class” teaching
the Israeli self-defence method Krav Maga is offered in Paris. A new self-defence
course in mixed martial arts, including boxing and jujitsu, is also available for
Torontonian women as a result of the “partner violence […] epidemic in Ontario”
(Burman 2024). Its founder, Nikki Saltz, explains that she aims to provide women
with a “safe space beyond self-defence training” (2024), a space where they can
share their experiences, support each other and feel empowered. Sisterhood and
emancipation, the core course teachings, elucidate the links between women’s
self-defence training and feminism. Yet these ties are not new, since feminist self-
defence is not a phenomenon of the present, and neither is gender violence.
In order to trace the origins of feminist self-defence it is pertinent to go back
to the suffragette movement. Members of Emmeline Pankhurst’s organisation of
suffragettes, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), showed interest in
self-defence techniques after the physical and sexual violence used by the police
during a march to the House of Commons on 18 November 1910 (Elliott 2018:
318). The police attacks lasted for around six hours and concluded with the
arrest of 115 women and 4 men (Green 1997: 20). This event became one of the
most violent episodes experienced by Pankhurst’s troops, for many suffragettes
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were “beaten, pinched and mistreated, and [some of them were even] indecently
assaulted” (Billington 1982: 671). This episode was commonly known as Black
Friday due to the brutality several WSPU members faced at hands of the police
(Nym Mayhall 2003: 101). Black Friday marked a turning point, for it not only
accelerated WSPU’s shift towards more radical and violent forms of militancy but
also encouraged suffragettes to take up jujitsu, a Japanese martial art based on self-
defence that consists of deploying the attacker’s strength and weight against him
(Godfrey 2012: 91).
Suffragettes’ deployment of jujitsu set an example for future feminist movements,
since it emphasises the relevance and correlation of physical independence and
empowerment. In this context, it is important to revisit the figure of one suffragette
in particular: Edith Garrud, who in the early twentieth century became one of the
British pioneers of jujitsu (Kelly 2019: 9). Together with her husband, William,
Garrud first learnt jujitsu at Mr. Barton-Wright’s Bartitsu2 School in London,
and then at the Golden Square’s training school run by two Japanese instructors
Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi. William and Edith Garrud eventually took
over the ownership of Tani and Uyenishi’s martial arts hall —or dojo as referred
to in Japan— as well as of their jujitsu teachings (2019: 11-12). Subsequently,
Edith opened her own training centre at Argyll Place and offered jujitsu lessons
for women and children (Godfrey 2012: 99-100). In 1909, Garrud gave a jujitsu
demonstration at the Prince’s Skating Rink’s Bazaar, organised by the WSPU,
where she showed her ability to throw a policeman to the ground despite his
physical advantage over her (2012: 99). After this event, Garrud became involved
in the Cause3 and offered jujitsu classes exclusively to suffragettes twice a week
(Godfrey 2012: 99; Callan et al. 2019: 536). She was in charge of training Mrs.
Pankhurst’s Amazons or ‘The Bodyguard’, a group of around thirty women whose
role was to protect the WSPU’s leaders from (re)arrest (Godfrey 2012: 99-100;
Kelly 2019: 9). The term ‘suffrajitsu’ was coined to refer specifically to suffragettes’
deployment of jujitsu (Callan et al. 2019: 531) and the term ‘jujutsufragettes’ to
allude to the union’s bodyguard (Kelly 2019: 13-14). Garrud’s jujitsu instructions
provided suffragettes with valuable skills and tools to defend themselves from anti-
suffragist assaults, police attacks and arrest.
Despite her significant contributions to the Cause, Garrud has remained mostly
unknown until recently, and absent from the popular imagery of the British suffrage
movement. Scholar Simon Kelly claims the material about Garrud is reduced to a
few newspaper articles, satirical drawings and magazine reports (2019: 19). Like
many other WSPU members, Garrud has probably been forgotten because, when
revisiting the suffragette movement, the focus has been mostly placed on the
leaders of the organisation, more specifically, on the Pankhursts (Kelly 2019: 21).
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Nevertheless, there has been a growing interest in honouring “this little-known
suffragette” (Williams 2012) and rescuing her from oblivion. Such concern started
in 2012 with the unveiling of a commemorative plaque —“Edith Garrud 1872-
1971: The suffragette who knew jiu-jitsu lived here”— at her former house in
London. The increasing popularisation of self-defence training for women has
probably sparked curiosity towards the origins of feminist self-defence, and thus,
towards Garrud. When looking into the roots of feminist self-defence, however,
one realises the limited sources available about the pioneering role of Garrud, which
has “added mystery surrounding Edith and her fellow jujutsuffragettes” (Kelly
2019: 19-20). The wish to unravel such a mystery has resulted in a diverse range
of cultural, literary and media products and references related to the suffragettes’
jujitsu instructor and her trainees.
Accounts of Garrud’s resurgence have appeared in different fields ranging from
the press —with magazine and newspaper articles including El Pais’s “Suffrajitsu:
The women who used martial arts to fight for the vote” (Bravo 2023) and Stylist’s
“Everything You Need to Know about The Awesome Art of Suffrajitsu” (Keegan
2018)— to media productions like Katherine and Tony Wolf’s 2018 documentary
No Man Shall Protect Us: The Hidden History of the Suffragette Bodyguards and
Sarah Gavron’s film Suffragette (2015). This offers an overview of the suffragette
movement through Maude Watts, a working-class woman who progressively
becomes involved with Pankhurst’s union. Although Edith Garrud is not present
in the film, there are some allusions to her, once again through the actress Helena
Bonham Carter, who renames her character Edith in homage to the suffragette
jujitsu instructor (Kelly 2019: 20). In addition, there is a short scene in which
Maude, played by Carey Mulligan, is thrown to a mat by Edith, which hints at
suffragettes’ usage of martial arts to defend themselves from potential male attacks
and sexual aggressions.4 The figure of Garrud also reappeared on stage thanks to
Kate Prince and Priya Parmar’s musical Sylvia (2023). With a predominantly Black
cast, the musical addressed the often-ignored racial aspect of the women’s suffrage
movement while emphasising the underrepresentation of Black people in both
history and the arts. Although the musical focuses on Sylvia Pankhurst, it offers
an overview of the suffragette campaign, devoting a scene to choreograph jujitsu
moves, and pays homage to Garrud, whose role is here played by the Black actress
and dancer Jade Hackett.
Literature has also been the target of Garrud’s comeback. The 2018 centenary of
partial voting rights for some British women generated manifold publications about
the suffrage movement such as David Roberts’s children’s book Suffragettes: The
Battle for Equality (2018), which includes a few pages about the art of suffrajitsu
and the Amazons. Other authors writing suffragette stories for child audiences
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include Iszi Lawrence, whose book The Unstoppable Letty Pegg (2020) follows
a protagonist learning jujitsu from the suffragettes, and features Garrud as a key
character. Additionally, it is important to highlight two graphic novels for young
adults centred exclusively on the figure of Garrud and the suffragettes’ bodyguard:
Tony Wolf and Joao Vieira’s trilogy Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst’s Amazons (2015),
and Jujitsufragistas: Las Amazonas de Londres, published in Spain in 2023 (Xavier
et al.) at the same time as the English version in the US, but originally published
in 2020 in France. The fact that not all products of and references to Garrud
and the suffragettes’ self-defence have arisen from the British context reveals the
transnational interest towards the origins of feminist self-defence as well as the
popularisation of Garrud and the present-day relevance of her training in other
countries beyond the UK.
All these literary and cultural representations revive the herstory5 of suffrajitsu to
commemorate the movement, as they give voice to Garrud and the Amazons and
emphasise their courage, bravery and empowerment. Against this background,
this article focuses on two other examples that update the figure of Garrud and
the jujitsuffragettes for contemporary audiences: Lissa Evans’s novel Old Baggage
(2018) and Netflix’s Enola Holmes film (2020) and its sequel, Enola Holmes II
(2022), the last two based on Nancy Springer’s young adult series of detective
novels The Enola Holmes Mysteries (2006-2023). These examples have been
chosen because of their instructive potential in presenting feminist self-defence
and the history of women’s resistance to younger audiences and general readers
unfamiliar with the suffragette movement. Both Evans and Bradbeer resort to
fiction to offer accessible and captivating stories that emphasise the contribution
of martial arts to women’s emancipation and political activism. The didactic
approach behind Evans’s work of historical fiction is clear in its inclusion of a
protagonist that teaches lessons about the women’s suffrage movement and later
creates a girls’ club and trains them in jujitsu. The Enola Holmes films exploit the
inherent didacticism of the young adult books on which they are based, prompting
audiences to (un)learn certain ideas about the suffragette movement. Although
Springer’s books refer to Enola’s mother Eudoria and her involvement with the
women’s suffrage movement, they do not develop this aspect. Hence, for this
study, I have chosen to focus on the films, as they incorporate the figure of Garrud
into the story, which is not present in the books. The films develop Eudoria’s role
as a suffragette who knows jujitsu and teaches it to her daughter, thus becoming
“the first mainstream production to feature suffrajitsu-style action as a major plot
point” (“Martial Arts” 2020). This article thus analyses Old Baggage and Enola
Holmes as representative examples of contemporary cultural artefacts revisiting
Garrud and the Amazons. I claim that the novel and the movies under analysis
challenge certain misrepresentations of the women’s suffrage movement and the
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suffragettes, such as their portrayal as inherently violent individuals and their
association with terrorism and prejudices stemming from their use of military
tactics such as arson and bombing. Additionally, I argue that by revisiting the
art of suffrajitsu, Evans and Bradbeer highlight the suffragettes’ contribution to
feminism by representing the politicisation of women’s bodies through jujitsu.
Such a portrayal underscores suffragettes’ use of this martial art to challenge
gender prejudices and empower women.
Old Baggage follows the story of Mattie Simpkin, a middle-aged Londoner who
was active in the suffragette movement. Set primarily in 1928, as universal suffrage
nears approval, Mattie believes the fight for equality is not over, so she delivers
lectures on the women’s struggle and then founds the Hampstead Heath Girls’
Club. Drawing from the martial art of jujitsu, she trains the club members —called
the Amazons— in both combat techniques and the ideological skills needed to
embrace their new roles as enfranchised citizens. The Enola Holmes films are about
Sherlock Holmes’s little sister Enola, who in each movie must solve a mystery. To
accomplish her missions and fight back against her enemies, Enola resorts to the
art of jujitsu she learnt thanks to her suffragette mother Eudoria, played by Helena
Bonham Carter. Eduoria’s knowledge of jujitsu comes from lessons received from
Edith Grayson, a self-defence instructor whose character clearly alludes to Garrud,
here represented again by a Black actress, Susan Wokoma.6
In the first section of this article, I will deploy different analyses of feminist
historiography and women’s suffrage (Billington 1982; Green 1997; Nym Mayhall
2003; Purvis 2013; Elliott 2018; Cooper-Cunningham 2019) to unravel how
the novel and films contest suffragettes’ traditional association with violence and
account for their deployment of insurgent tactics, either as a means of protest or
self-defence, but never to hurt anyone. Subsequently, I will examine suffragettes’
association with terrorism, drawing on examples from Evans and Bradbeer to
illustrate how the novel and films strategically engage with this theme to contest
the presentation of WSPU members as terrorists. Finally, I shall point out how
the analysed products also disprove the falsehood that women only became
enfranchised thanks to their contributions during wartime, focusing rather on
the suffragettes’ bravery. In the second section, I will first delve into the political
functions of jujitsu training halls to illustrate they were not just seen as sports or
self-defence clubs but as safe spaces for suffragettes. Then I shall focus on the
novel and films’ references to the dual potential of suffrajitsu to defy gender biases
and expectations. To explore these ideas, I rely on historical studies on women’s
involvement in sport (Kay 2008; Harvey et al. 2013; Cahn 2015), archival material
related to Edith Garrud and the suffragettes (Godfrey 2012: 100; Rouse 2017;
Callan et al. 2019; Kelly 2019) and a variety of contemporary feminist theoretical
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frameworks (Butler 1990; Butler 1993; Ahmed 2004; Gillis et al. 2004; Budgeon
2011; Ahmed 2017; Rivers 2017; Genz 2021). These studies will be helpful to
illustrate jujitsu’s political and feminist potential since suffragettes’ deployment of
this martial art served both as a strategy to challenge prejudices about women’s
physical strength and power, and as a method of empowerment and emancipation
for women.
2. Suffragettes Fight Back: From Defencelessness to Self-
Defence
As explained in the introduction, Old Baggage and Enola Holmes are works that
incorporate the figure of Garrud and the art of jujitsu to contest one of the most
recurrent stereotypes of the suffragettes: their portrayal as violent subjects by
nature. During the women’s movement, its detractors resorted to various images
—mainly propagandistic posters— to promote a counter-discursive narrative
against the Cause. These biased representations were mostly disseminated by
members of openly anti-suffrage groups. One of the largest anti-suffrage parties
was the National League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage (NLOWS), which was
created by Mrs. Humphry Ward in 1910, and by 1914 had a total of 42,000
members. The NLOWS resulted from the union of two existing anti-suffrage
societies: The Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League and the Men’s League for
Opposing Woman Suffrage. Among its members were renowned personalities,
most notably Queen Victoria (1819-1901), who considered the Cause “a wicked
folly” (Roberts 2018: 48); PM Asquith, known as the most resentful enemy by
the suffragettes; and Home Secretary Winston Churchill (1874-1965), who was
much criticised for his cruelty when ordering repressive actions against suffragette
activists during Black Friday. The most reactionary and anti-pedagogical
representations against the women’s suffrage campaign presented its members as
the instigators of violence, and policemen and anti-suffragists as the victims (Rouse
2017: 131-133), grotesquely depicting suffragettes as aggressive, dehumanised
cannibals, even inciting violence against them.7 Such inaccurate depictions
deliberately reversed roles, since the police and some men from the crowd were
the ones throwing spoiled fruits and vegetables at suffragettes, and even verbally
abusing and sexually assaulting them, often making of suffragettes the victims of
taunts, pushes, kicks and blows (127). Different suffrage societies responded to
such an array of misrepresentations with their own images and artistic productions
to clarify that women were not the agents but the object of violent attacks, and to
vindicate their true objective: equality between men and women, specifically in the
political terrain.8 Garrud herself sought to challenge anti-suffragists’ perception
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of jujitsuffragettes as “masculinised Amazons preying on innocent policemen”
(133). Mattie, the protagonist of Old Baggage, voices Garrud’s preoccupations in
emphasising suffragettes’ role as victims of aggression, for she claims that
women asking questions of Cabinet Ministers at public discussions would be dragged
from the hall, punched and kicked, shaken and indecently manhandled, often in full
view of an unprotesting audience. I myself have a permanent depression in one calf
resulting from a steward jabbing the ferrule of his umbrella directly into the muscle.
(Evans 2018: 31-32)
Garrud declared that the martial art was only taught for self-defence (Callan et
al. 2019: 540) to provide suffragettes with methods to protect themselves from
possible attacks and (sexual) assaults, thus alluding to jujitsu’s principles of using
“soft flowing movements to absorb, disrupt and redirect force and aggression
rather than seeking to oppose [the attackers] with brute strength” (Kelly 2019: 9).
Besides jujitsu moves, Garrud trained women in the use of domestic tools and
homemade arms such as the wooden Indian club that jujitsuffragettes concealed
under her garments and used for defensive ends (Godfrey 2012: 100; Kelly 2019:
17). Like Garrud, Mattie combines her jujitsu tactics with the use of weapons to
face potential enemies. The novel opens with a reference to a club that Mattie
usually carries in her bag for protection, which in turn hints at the title “old
baggage”, possibly in reference to the equipment that Mattie would carry. She is
later depicted practicing jujitsu using domestic weapons: “she windmilled through
another exercise, then tucked the rolling pin under one arm and lunged with the
club towards an imaginary policeman, feinting and thrusting” (Evans 2018: 57).
Mattie reproduces Garrud’s methodology, for she bases the training of her girls’
club on the art of jujitsu and instructs her pupils to rely on the use of weapons “as
a protest; as a means of defence: as an exercise in coordination”, adding that arms
do not just serve to initiate conflicts but are also useful to stop them (67). This
claim further calls into question the belief that suffragettes were the instigators of
violence and proves that Mattie serves as the voice for Garrud, for she also warns
her pupils that “violence should always be a last resort and have a purpose” (69)
and claims, “I am not teaching these skills with violence in mind […]. I also make
certain there is no one at all in the next-door gardens during our practice sessions”
(78). This latter statement in turn appears as an illustration that jujitsu’s philosophy
fits well with the WSPU’s ideology, which was based on Mrs. Pankhurst’s premise
of not hurting anyone in the name of the Cause (Purvis 2013: 584).
The Enola Holmes films also defy the idea of suffragettes being the perpetrators
rather than the object of violent attacks. The jujitsu scenes included in the movies
illustrate either women practicing this martial art between them or using it to
defend themselves when facing aggression or being chased. For instance, in the first
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film, Enola puts her jujitsu skills into practice with Edith Grayson, unsuccessfully
trying to throw her to the ground with “the corkscrew manoeuvre”, one of the
jujitsu moves that she later tries again to combat a man in the street who pushes
her into a wall and her head into a water barrel. In the same manner that Arthur
Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes use Bartitsu skills to fight Professor Moriarty in
“The Adventure of the Empty House” (1903), the movies depict Enola practicing
and using jujitsu to repel her enemies. This is a novelty that Bradbeer incorporates
into the story, emphasising jujitsu’s potential for women’s self-defence not only
through its protagonist but also through other characters, including Eudoria
and Edith Grayson. As reflected in the second film, mother and daughter appear
together with Grayson using their jujitsu moves against three police officers who
are running after them. The aforementioned examples highlight the actual purpose
of jujitsu, particularly in the context of the suffrage movement, and suggest that
similar to Conan Doyle’s popularisation of Bartitsu (Dorlin 2022: 207), Bradbeer
contributes to the re-popularisation of jujitsu for women’s agency, independence
and empowerment. In turn, his film adaptations memorialise women pioneers in
feminist self-defence, for they simultaneously pay homage and give visibility to
the sometimes silenced voices of Garrud and those suffragettes who bravely and
exclusively used this martial art in self-defence.
The films further address the connection between suffragettes and violence by
denying the links established between the movement and terrorism. WSPU
members such as Emily Davison and other suffragettes involved in acts of bombing
and arson have at times been related to terrorism (Pugh 2013: 5), and they have
been even referred to as “Britain’s forgotten terrorists” (Webb 2014). Historian
Simon Webb argues that the violence that these suffragettes conducted has been
frequently omitted from the history of suffrage and questions the extent to which
such violent tactics postponed rather than contributed to the achievement of
the franchise. The Enola Holmes films somehow respond to Webb’s claim of the
omission of suffragettes’ more combative tactics, including numerous references
to their acts of arson. One of the first allusions to explosive material appears in the
first film, in Edith Grayson’s dojo, where Enola sees a box with bangers — the
same she sees at her home, in the meeting room where her mother and other
suffragettes plan to set fire to different locations around London. After this episode,
Enola discovers a storehouse filled with bombs, bangers and barrels inscribed with
“dragon firework”, “gun powder” and “black gunpowder amberlite”. There are
also pamphlets that read “Votes for Women. Make Your Voices Heard”, “Protest
unrest and civil disobedience” featuring the “Orsini bomb” (Bradbeer 2020: min.
48),9 and a newspaper with the headline “The dynamite outrages at the West End
London” featuring images of a bombed-out building and a post box burnt down.
The sequel also contains references to suffragettes’ acts of arson since it opens with
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an image of Eudoria dropping an incendiary device into a post box and becoming
the target of search and arrest as a result. These examples contribute to the
questioning of suffragettes’ image as terrorists since they show that the WSPU’s
used incendiary devices against property, not against people, and simultaneously
bring to light what suffragettes were willing to do for the Cause.
The Enola Holmes films not only challenge the scepticism towards the WSPU’s
more combative approach but also defy other deep-rooted misconceptions
about suffragettes. By giving visibility to their more extreme militant tactics, the
films emphasise the extent of suffragettes’ courage and bravery to question the
recurrent misbelief that women’s suffrage was approved exclusively thanks to their
contributions during wartime (Nym Mayhall 1995: 334). The movies in turn
question other prejudices and stereotypical representations of the suffragettes as
careless mothers.10 This becomes clear at the end of the first film, when Eudoria
tells Enola, “I didn’t leave you because I didn’t love you, I left for you because
I couldn’t bear to have this world be your future. So I had to fight. You have to
make some noise if you want to be heard” (Bradbeer 2020: min. 113), in turn
recalling Emmeline Pankhurst’s “make some noise” motto.
Evans’ novel refutes the same misrepresentations of Pankhurst’s followers as those
contested in Enola Holmes. On the one hand, Mattie’s lectures are oriented toward
resisting suffragettes’ role as terrorists. In one of these lectures, she argues that
suffragettes never intended to harm anyone despite being the target of violent
attacks. A man from the audience contests her claim, referring to the arson and
bombing campaign some suffragettes carried out during 1913-1914 (Bearman
2007: 864), which included burning golf courses, cricket pavilions, the orchid
house at Kew Gardens and the Oxford boathouse (Roberts 2018: 98). When
asked about suffragettes’ “criminal acts of arson”, Mattie replies that “men have
been allowed to use bloodshed and disorder to gain their freedom —have been
celebrated for their passion in pursuit of the vote— and yet the suffragettes, who
hurt not a single person with their fires, are condemned” (Evans 2018: 33). On
the other hand, Mattie denies that women won the right to vote due to their work
during wartime. This becomes evident when a member of the audience suggests
this idea and she responds that it was “only the Government’s fear that militancy
would return after the war that forced the bill through” (37). Mattie thus devotes
her lectures to the suffragettes’ pre-war contributions to reinforce the idea that the
right to vote was achieved thanks to suffragettes’ deeds and sacrifices, a purpose
that becomes clear in her first lecture when she claims
I hope over the next hour and a half, to convey something of the history and
methods of the militant suffragette movement, to slice through the integument of
myth and slander that has so often overlaid the truth of its beliefs and actions, and to
expose to clear view those of its aims that have yet to be achieved. (28)
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Therefore, by challenging the different misbeliefs about the WSPU and their
members, Evans and Bradbeer prove their interest in counteracting biased
references to suffragettes such as their perception as the UK’s “forgotten terrorists”
and rather reclaiming their role as Britain’s (at times) forgotten feminist pioneers.
3. Suffragettes’ Bodies as Battlegrounds: The Politicisation
of Jujitsu
Old Baggage and Enola Holmes not only revisit the herstory of suffrajitsu and
the figure of Garrud to question some of the aforementioned misapprehensions
surrounding the WSPU and its members, but also to emphasise their courage
and empowerment. Both the novel and the films mirror how jujitsu underwent
a politicisation process in the context of the suffrage movement, as this martial
art was not only seen as a sport or a self-defence tool but also as a vehicle to
challenge gender biases regarding women’s capabilities. Suffragettes’ deployment
of jujitsu can be seen as a performative expression defying traditional gender
constructs, which echoes Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity (1990).
Butler argues that “gender is performatively produced [adding that] there is no
gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively
constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (Butler 1990:
34). Suffragettes’ expression of strength and resilience through jujitsu thus
contributed to the resignification of female bodies in the public domain and the
political context. It is not surprising that Evans and Bradbeer resorted to suffrajitsu
to make visible and reclaim suffragettes’ contribution to feminism, since it became
a form of literally embodying the political as jujitsu offered suffragettes a vivid
and concrete manifestation of their political struggle. Pankhurst’s followers
relied on the politicisation of their bodies throughout their campaign. WSPU
members turned to militancy, convinced that the women’s movement needed “a
new approach, a shift from the gently audible to the boldly visible” (Evans 2018:
30), as Mattie replicates. At the beginning of their campaign, they believed in the
relevance that the body on display had for the Cause and combined fashionable
femininity with activism based on the idea of an “ornamental body as a civic body”
(Green 1997: 3). At this stage, marches, processions and demonstrations became
their main strategies to demand enfranchisement. At a more advanced phase of
the movement, many suffragettes resorted to acts of civil disobedience and were
consequently incarcerated. While in prison, they needed to find a way to keep
fighting, which resulted in their shift from the ideal of the “ornamental body”
to the image of the “docile body”, as they decided to go on hunger strikes and
undergo forcible feeding for the Cause (25). In her work Living a Feminist Life,
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Sara Ahmed discusses the notion of wilfulness in the context of contemporary
feminism as “the persistence in the face of having been brought down” and
presents persistence as “an act of civil disobedience” (2017: 84). Against this
background, suffragettes’ willingness to adopt militant tactics and sacrifice their
bodies for the Cause can also be read as an act of feminist wilfulness. Towards
the end of their campaign, a significant number of suffragettes took up jujitsu
lessons and self-defence training became a further way of turning the physical into
something political (Rouse 2017: 6-7). Hence, Ahmed’s theorisation proves to be
relevant once again. Her notion of “feminist killjoy” resonates with the actions of
the suffragettes who can be seen as “willing to get in the way” (2017: 66) —to
borrow Ahmed’s phrasing— since they refused to conform to the Edwardian ideal
of a woman based on passivity and subjugation and persistently used their bodies
to challenge this traditional perception of womanhood.
Yet researchers have constantly ignored or failed to recognise the potential that
practicing jujitsu had in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries
for women’s personal and political empowerment and have merely focused on
the usefulness of this martial art for purposes of self-defence (Rouse 2017: 8).
Sport historians, however, have often perceived women’s involvement in sports
as part of the emancipation movement (Kay 2007: 539). Either consciously or
not, women’s participation in physical activities and competitions became a tool
to claim the control and enjoyment of their bodies, so advocates of women’s
sports “shared an agenda and an activist spirit with self-defined feminists involved
in reproductive rights campaigns, antirape organising, women’s health clinics,
women’s self-defence classes, lesbian feminist activism, and self-help efforts that
encouraged women to explore their own sexuality” (Cahn 2015: 252). In the
context of the women’s suffrage campaign, the Gymnastic Teachers’ Suffrage
Society, founded in 1909, was the only women’s sport association that actively
took part in the suffrage movement (Kay 2008: 1347-1348). Nevertheless, when
it comes to the involvement of women sport instructors and practitioners in the
Cause, Garrud’s contribution to women’s emancipation as a jujitsu pioneer for
women in Western Europe was unique (Callan et al. 2019: 531). Garrud not
only helped to popularise jujitsu at the beginning of the twentieth century with
her self-defence lessons for women, but also delved into its political potential
through her writings (Kelly 2019: 14). Garrud emphasised women’s situation
of vulnerability in England during the Edwardian period and relied on jujitsu’s
reformative capability in conjunction with the suffragette movement (Callan et
al. 2019: 536). WSPU members also acknowledged that women’s lack of political
emancipation was related to their physical and sexual oppression (Rouse 2017:
149). Suffragettes believed that this martial art offered them a means of rebellion
against their subjugation; a way to put equality “into motion” (Dorlin 2022: 43),
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and challenge definitions of women as “the weaker sex”. During the suffrage
campaign and the post-suffrage era, women’s sport instructors advocated women-
only lessons, since they defended the idea of physical exercise exclusively offered by
and for women (Kidd in Harvey et al. 2013: 54). Against this background, Garrud
taught jujitsu to women and offered sessions exclusively to suffragettes twice a
week in her dojo at Argyll Place (Callan et al. 2019: 536; Kelly 2019: 14). Inspired
by Garrud’s writings, demonstrations and instructions, suffragettes “politicized
their bodies”, embracing the possibilities that jujitsu offered them to “struggle
together, for themselves and by themselves” (Dorlin 2022: 46), and used this
martial art as a tool to defy and both literally and metaphorically overthrow the
patriarchal system that oppressed them (Kelly 2019: 9). Thus, the figure of Garrud
attests to the “politicization of women and sport” (Callan et al. 2019: 531) since
her dojo was not just perceived as a training centre but also as a political site of
struggle.
The political dimension jujitsu acquired in the context of the women’s movement
is manifested in both Old Baggage and Enola Holmes. Mattie’s and Edith
Grayson’s sessions recall Garrud’s exclusive lessons for women and suffragettes,
because the club Mattie creates is only for girls, and when Edith’s dojo features
in the films, only women appear training in the background. Mattie’s house and
Edith’s dojo also serve the political functions of Garrud’s training halls. Garrud’s
dojos in Argyll Street and Golden Square provided suffragettes a place to train
for physical combat, but also became “safe spaces” for their gatherings and, more
specifically, for those campaigners who sought a place to hide from the police and
avoid being (re)arrested, and to recover physically after being released from prison
(Godfrey 2012: 101; Callan et al. 2019: 539; Kelly 2019: 17). Mattie’s place, for
instance, is referred to as “the Mousehold” because, during the suffrage campaign,
it was used as a refuge and a place of recovery for suffragettes, known as “mice”,
once liberated from jail under the Cat and Mouse Act (Evans 2018: 54).11 Edith
Grayson’s training centre, for instance, is used to store explosive material. Besides,
both Enola and Sherlock visit Edith’s dojo to see if their missing mother is hiding
there, which again reminds us of the political ends of Garrud’s training halls. These
examples illustrate that jujitsu was not only an expression of anger and defiance but
also a reflection of female solidarity. The sisterhood linked to jujitsu’s practices and
spaces reveals “how emotions work as a form of cultural politics” (Ahmed 2004:
210) for emotions like solidarity between women became political tools that define
collectives such as the suffragette movement.
Old Baggage and Enola Holmes further depict how the Japanese martial art
became political when practiced suffragettes through Mattie’s instructions to
the girls and Eudoria’s education of Enola. Both women train their pupils in
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mind and body, taking as their point of departure the philosophy of the suffrage
movement, which encouraged the notion of mens sana in corpore sano to
prove that women were both physically and mentally capable and thus met the
requirements to exercise their right to vote (Godfrey 2012: 86). Mattie thus
argues that her lessons on self-defence “nicely balance the brain work which is
also part of the club regime” (Evans 2018: 87). The opening scenes of Enola
Holmes I illustrate that Eudoria teaches different skills to her daughter, ranging
from reading, science and chess to darts, archery, fencing and jujitsu. As Enola
herself explains, a working day with her mother consisted of history, lunch
and fitness followed by fight combat (Bradbeer 2020: min. 50). By equipping
Enola with both intellectual and physical skills, Eudoria is teaching her to think
critically and defend herself, thus challenging traditional Victorian educational
norms for girls based on domestic skills. Eudoria’s reluctance to comply with
the educational expectations of the period when teaching her daughter recalls
Butler’s theorisation on gender and subversion. Butler argues that gender identity
is based on a set of “regulatory ideals” (1993: 26) and explains that such ideals
depend on specific manifestations of femininity and masculinity (176). Therefore,
failing to embody pre-established notions of femininity implies subversion, which
is what Eudoria demonstrates in the films. She relies on self-confidence and
independence as the basis of her teaching in a world that often restricts women.
Considering Eudoria’s involvement in the suffragette movement, her training can
also be read as Eudoria’s way of preparing Enola to follow in her footsteps and
take part in broader societal struggles.
Mattie and Eudoria not only teach jujitsu for self-defence, but also rely on the
possibilities that Garrud saw in jujitsu to “introduce women to new ideas about the
possibilities for their gender and undermine assumed notions of their vulnerability”
(Callan et al. 2019: 541). Both Mattie and Eudoria decide to transmit this idea to
their trainees, which indicates that the novel and films represent intergenerational
female interactions as encouraging and motivating (Gillis et al. 2004: 3). Mattie
argues that “a woman who can unerringly thread a needle can accurately throw
a stone” (Evans 2018: 66). Similarly, Eudoria passes her suffrajitsu skills on to
her daughter, insisting on the need to be autonomous and self-sufficient, which
is something that Enola’s name symbolises (when read backwards it becomes
“alone”). Eudoria clarifies that the choice of her daughter’s name is not meant to
imply Enola should be a lonely woman, but an independent one. Both characters
thus echo and vindicate Garrud’s perception of self-defence as “an ongoing
process of embodying equality and putting it into practice” (Dorlin 2022: 48) and
encourage their pupils to understand and deploy jujitsu in the same terms. Against
this background, a feminist ideal based on female bonds and intergenerational
connections (Rivers 2017: 5) is promoted in Old Baggage and Enola Holmes to
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reproduce an ongoing perception of common fight (Cooper and Short 2012: 166-
167). This idea of a mutual struggle is what Eudoria and Mattie seek to convey to
Enola and the Amazons, respectively.
Mattie and Eudoria therefore promote a new understanding of femininity inspired
by Garrud and the jujitsuffragettes, acknowledging their contributions to the
feminist movement. Garrud sought to redefine femininity and present it more
dynamically while insisting that women’s practice of jujitsu did not mean losing
their ladylike attributes (Godfrey 2012: 103). This is evident in Enola Holmes II,
when Eudoria, Enola and Edith demonstrate their jujitsu skills against three police
officers despite wearing corsets and long skirts, in typical Edwardian fashion. This
scene proves that jujitsu could be practiced even while out of uniform and despite
wearing these most uncomfortable and constrictive garments. However, the scene
is also relevant for other reasons. On the one hand, having the three characters
fight together contests the notion that women tend to relate better to people of
the same or similar age than to other women, and thus recognises the potential
for feminist interactions among women from other generations (Budgeon
2011: 280). On the other hand, it recalls Garrud’s intentions to dismantle ideas
about women’s inherent weakness and to encourage them to interact with and
understand their bodies differently so that they could defend themselves against
attacks from men. Suffragettes also recognised jujitsu’s potential to provide a new
idea of womanhood based on empowerment and self-confidence (Rouse 2017:
8) and to challenge gender stereotypes that presented men as strong, aggressive
and violent and women as fragile, passive and peaceful (116). Although Mattie
and Eudoria clearly question gender prejudices through their lessons, Enola also
participates in this disruption. For instance, in the second movie, there is a scene
that reverses gender roles by presenting Enola as capable of fighting and teaching
Lord Tewksbury, one of the leading male characters, who is unskilful in physical
combat, how to punch and deflect the blows of his enemies. The Enola Holmes
films thus vindicate the relevance of self-defence training to empower women and
deny the misbelief that they needed male protection.
Similarly, the fact that Mattie deploys the jujitsu skills she learnt as a suffragette
as the grounds of her teaching to girls for their new life as enfranchised subjects
not only reclaims the connections between women’s physical empowerment and
their (political) emancipation (Rouse 2017: 117), but also reinforces the relevance
of intergenerational dialogues and lessons. Eudoria and Mattie’s teachings to
the younger generations prove to be helpful to show that although the different
feminist phases have had their specific aims, the movement as a whole has equity
among men and women as its common goal (Genz 2021: 202). In this context,
jujitsu is presented as one of the means to vindicate equality between the sexes,
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since by training and practicing this martial art, suffragettes “literally used their
physical stamina to fight for the vote” (Rotunno 2016: 42). Old Baggage and
Enola Holmes therefore echo Garrud’s and the suffragettes’ perception of the
physical being political (Schultz 2010) and reaffirm the contributions of the
jujitsuffragettes and their instructor to feminism. That is why they can nowadays
be remembered and commemorated —deploying Ahmed’s terminology— as
“feminist killjoys and wilful subjects” (2017:11) for they refused to abide by
gender norms, and “stood up, [spoke] back, [and put their lives at risk] in the
struggle for more bearable worlds” (1).
4. Conclusion
In sum, Old Baggage and Enola Holmes resort to suffrajitsu for revisionist
purposes, offering a corrective and more accurate portrayal of the history of
the suffragette movement, which undermines specific misrepresentation of
suffragettes such as their image as intrinsically violent subjects. Both the novel
and films provide faithful versions of these first-wave feminist icons because they
emphasise their bravery and empowerment by revisiting Edith Garrud and the
jujitsuffragettes. Rather than seeing jujitsu as a mere vehicle of physical self-
defence, the novel and films acknowledge the political potential of this martial
art as a tool to defy gender norms and express women’s agency and solidarity.
Borrowing Barbara Kruger’s famous statement “Your body is a battleground”
(1989), these cultural products demonstrate that by means of jujitsu, suffragettes
literally made their bodies a battleground to fight back against the patriarchy
and metaphorically questioned the inequalities of the patriarchal institutions and
system that oppressed them.
Through the depiction of figures such as Mattie and Eudoria transmitting their
knowledge and physical abilities to the younger generations, Evans and Bradbeer
also remind contemporary audiences of the relevance of intergenerational
interactions for the feminist mission. The exchanges and bonds among women
from different (feminist) generations not only serve to emphasise the importance
of carrying on the fight for equality, but also to insist on the undeniable link
between physical autonomy and political emancipation. These contemporary
representations thus illustrate the politicisation of women’s bodies as a valuable
tool to advocate for equality between men and women. Therefore, Old Baggage
and Enola Holmes recover the figure of Garrud and her suffragette practitioners
with reparative and commemorative aims, seeking to dissociate the suffragettes
from violence while highlighting their revolutionary potential and lasting
contribution to feminism.
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Acknowledgements
This article is part of the research project PID2021-122249NB-I00, funded by
MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF/EU.
Notes
1. “Fight Taught Right” features in one of Netflix’s promotional posters of the first
Enola Holmes film together with a picture of Susan Wokoma, the actress playing Edith Garrud,
who appears wearing jujitsu training clothes.
2 Resulting from a blending of its creator’s name and the Japanese martial art of
jujitsu, Bartitsu was the term given to a method of self-defence combining boxing, French
kickboxing and jujitsu that Edward William Barton-Wright introduced in Britain and taught in
his Bartitsu Club, founded in 1898 (Godfrey 2012: 91).
3. Historically, the term ‘the Cause’ has been used to refer to the British women’s
suffrage movement. An illustration of this is The Common Cause, the name given to the
newspaper of the largest suffrage association (National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies
(NUWSS)). Ray Strachey’s work The Cause: A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great
Britain (1928) is also an example of the common usage of the term to denote the suffrage
campaign.
4. Although the scene about suffragettes’ self-defence is brief, it can be inferred
that they resort to this martial art to defend themselves not only against physical attacks but
also against sexual assaults by males. In the movie there are various scenes in which women
face violence from different men, including male bystanders, police officers and their own
husbands. Gavron also draws particular attention to sexual abuse through the character of
Mr. Taylor (played by Geoff Bell), the boss of the laundry company where Maud works. In one
scene, Violet, one of Maud’s coworkers, is sexually harassed by Mr. Taylor, who also abuses
Maude. Gavron’s inclusion of this topic in the film reveals her intention to denounce the
patriarchal system’s abuse of women’s bodies and recalls one of the reasons that motivated
suffragettes’ use of jujitsu.
5. This notion refers to the re-examination of history from a feminist lens (Colman
2015). In the context of this article, the term proves to be useful to refer to suffragettes’
deployment of jujitsu from a feminist perspective.
6. The choice of a Black woman to play Garrud’s role has generated some
controversy. Although it can be read as a way to recognise the contributions of people of colour
to the fight for women’s suffrage and position women of colour as pioneering feminist role
models for contemporary audiences, having a Black woman represent a white suffragette has
also been related to whitewashing and colour-blindness strategies. For instance, a review of
the film presents the incorporation of people of colour into the show “more like boxes checked
than meaningful characters” (Johnson 2020). In addition, having a Black woman represent the
figure of suffragettes’ jujitsu can be read as a form of reproducing the exoticization of Black
women and their stereotypical portrayal as being “sexually aggressive” (Hill Collins 2000: 82),
“unfeminine and too strong” (76).
7. An example of this portrayal is the anonymous poster “We want the vote” (1908),
which can be found in Cooper-Cunningham’s article about posters from the British women’s
suffrage movement (2019).
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8. An example of pro-sufffrage propaganda highlighting suffragettes’ goal of
achieving the franchise, and equality for all people, appears in the poster “The Appeal of
Womanhood” (Gosling et al. 2018: 57).
9. Named after its creator, the Italian revolutionary Felice Orsini, the artifact
was initially designed to kill Napoleon III in 1858. However, replicas and adaptations of this
explosive device became tools of radical combat used by terrorists and insurgents for different
revolutionary purposes until the 1910s (Crossland 2023: 355).
10. An example of this biased portrayal of suffragettes appears in Walt Disney’s film
Mary Poppins (1964). Its director, Robert Stevenson, depicts women’s suffrage as a pastime
and comically represents Mrs. Banks giving support to Emmeline Pankhurst, participating in
suffragette marches and neglecting her duties as a mother. Ms. Poppins, the nanny, is cast
as the one in charge of restoring the family order and fulfilling the tasks that Mrs. Banks
disregards. The messages implied in this Disney production are therefore similar to those
conveyed by anti-suffrage propaganda like the poster “A Suffragette’s Home” (Devaney 2018)
and the postcard “What is a suffragette without a suffering household?” (Nikolic 2019), which
presented suffragists and suffragettes negatively to emphasise women’s role as “the angel of
the house”.
11. This was the common name given to The Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health Act
of April 1913, which consisted of liberating those imprisoned suffragettes who had become
physically weak after going on hunger strikes to avoid their death in jail and foster their recovery
outside prison. Once their health improved, the police, commonly known as “cats”, rearrested
the temporarily released suffragettes, metaphorically known as “mice”, and sent them back to
jail (Brown 2002: 635).
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Received: 02/09/2024
Accepted: 29/05/2025
Accepted: 11/07/2025
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
