Oddlet: Ethel Smyth · 1 min read
Jul 4, 2026
The Toothbrush at Holloway
She trained Emmeline Pankhurst to throw rocks under a fir tree at twilight, and the first one flew backwards.
Dame Ethel Smyth studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, where Brahms looked over her work and Tchaikovsky thought her promising. Her Mass in D was sponsored by Queen Victoria. In 1903 she became the first woman to have an opera staged at the Metropolitan, a distinction no other woman would hold for one hundred and thirteen years.
In 1912 she threw a rock through the Colonial Secretary's window and was given two months in Holloway.
She had taken up the cause in 1910 and composed its anthem, "The March of the Women," to lyrics by Cicely Hamilton. She had also, on Hook Heath one twilight, personally trained Emmeline Pankhurst to throw stones, piling up a collection of nice round ones beneath a fir tree. Pankhurst's first stone flew backwards and nearly hit Ethel's dog. What Pankhurst made of this is not recorded.
Sir Thomas Beecham came to visit her in prison. The warden, he reported, was bubbling with laughter. In the quadrangle the noble company of martyrs was marching in circles, singing "The March of the Women" with great force. Leaning from an upper cell window, the composer beat time in Bacchic frenzy with a toothbrush.
She conducted whatever was in front of her.
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- Wikipedia — Ethel Smyth — Comprehensive biography covering birth/death dates and places, education at Leipzig Conservatory, major works, WSPU involvement, two-month Holloway sentence in 1912, the Beecham toothbrush anecdote, and 1922 damehood.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Dame Ethel Smyth — Authoritative encyclopaedia entry confirming birth (22 April 1858, London) and death (Woking, Surrey, 1944), education, mentorship by Brahms and Dvorak, principal compositions, and suffrage involvement.
- London Museum — Ethel Smyth: Composer & Suffragette — Museum source confirming March 1912 imprisonment, the Harcourt window-smashing as cause, Pankhurst's cell adjacent to Smyth's, and the full Beecham 'Bacchic frenzy with a toothbrush' quote.
- Wikipedia — The March of the Women — Details on the anthem: 1910 composition, Cicely Hamilton lyricist, 21 January 1911 Pall Mall premiere by the Suffrage Choir, 23 March 1911 Royal Albert Hall baton presentation, and the Beecham Holloway eyewitness account.
- Classic FM — Meet Ethel Smyth — Confirms the specific cause of arrest (rock through Lewis Harcourt's office window), the Beecham toothbrush story, opening lyrics of the March, and the 75th birthday Albert Hall concert.
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