Edith Garrud—The Small But Mighty Ninja Who Protected Mrs. Pankhurst

According to most sources, Edith Margaret Garrud (1872-1971) stood slightly under five foot tall in her stockinged feet. She was small but mighty.

Garrud was the first woman to become an instructor in the martial arts (specifically jujitsu, which was then known as jujutsu) in the Western world. Some sources prevaricate and say she was “amongst the first women” but we’ve never found anyone who was instructing before her, so we’re sticking our necks out.

Edith and her husband William were students of Sadakazu Uyenishi (who himself had been a student of Edgar Barton-Wright, the man who developed Bartitsu). The Garruds attended Uyenishi’s jujutsu school in Golden Square, Soho, until Uyenishi left England in 1907. William took over the school in 1908, and Edith took charge of the classes for women and children.

In 1908 Edith started to teach classes in self-defence for Suffragettes, open only to members of the women’s suffrage movement. In 1913, in response to the Asquith government’s Cat & Mouse bill, Garrud established a thirty-women-strong Suffragette bodyguard to protect the leadership (particularly Emmeline Pankhurst) and other fugitives. This unit was known variously as ‘The Bodyguard’, ‘The Amazons’, and ‘The Jiujitsuffragettes’.

The exploits of The Bodyguard are recorded in the unpublished memoir Suffragette Escapes and Adventures by Katherine (Kitty) Marshall.

The Bodyguard was disbanded just after the beginning of the First World War.

The claim that Edith Garrud trained Bethany Whatton-Whiffle (close friend of Mr. Algernon Quasley-Botham-Squyre, sometimes dubbed the Alchemist of Slaithwaite Hall) in the art of jujutsu is feasible, but unproven. She would have had to travel up to Manchester from London on a fairly frequent basis. This is certainly something Christabel Pankhurst did herself. Would Edith Garrud have accompanied her? We may never know.

X.T. Pfuffenstoffel

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Edith Garrud—The Small But Mighty Ninja Who Protected Mrs. Pankhurst

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