A feather-hat-wearing, 4ft11in woman isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind when you think of martial arts. But Edith Garrud, aged 42 in 1914, taught her suffragette sisters how to defend themselves while wearing the heavy clothes of an Edwardian lady.

Introduced to martial arts by Europe’s first ju-jitsu trainer in 1899, Garrud ran a martial-arts school in London with her husband. As suffragette protests became increasingly violent, Garrud started to train protesters in ju-jitsu, equipping her fellow activists with self-defence skills that would let them defeat police brutality or attacks from bystanders.

These smartly dressed, demure-looking women soon learnt how to put  a confused man in a headlock in seconds. “The suffragettes were smart,” explains ju-jitsu instructor Adrienne Till, who runs women-only classes in Bristol. “Ju-jitsu is an art where you can’t always see what’s happening until you’re both suddenly in the middle of it; it’s not just physical, it’s also psychological. The women would have known that.”

The Women’s Social and Political Union formed the ‘suffrajitsu’ trainees into  a 30-strong bodyguard to protect their figurehead Emmeline Pankhurst. They evaded capture by police and became expert at outwitting opponents. Their training came in particularly useful during a famous clash with police in 1914, the ‘Battle of Glasgow’.

Mrs Pankhurst, out of jail under the Cat and Mouse Act (which released hunger strikers until they were well enough to be  put back in prison), was to speak at St Andrew’s Hall and police were hoping  to recapture her. The bodyguard, however, had clubs under their dresses and surrounded the stage as the speech began. When the police charged, they faced a bloody fight to reach Mrs Pankhurst.

The pictures of smart Edwardian ladies tackling men may seem absurd, but the suffragettes’ message was clear: beware,  female doesn’t  mean feeble.

Everything you need to know about the awesome art of Suffrajitsu