is the most valuable argument in modern politics."
-- Emmeline Pankhurst,
Votes for Women, 23 February 1912
The Suffragettes, Black Friday and two types of window smashing
Katherine Connelly
18 November 2010
History
The photograph the government tried to hide. Suffragette Ada Wright collapses through police violence on Black FridayThe photograph the government tried to hide. Suffragette Ada Wright collapses through police violence on Black Friday
‘The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics’, declared suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst
A hundred years ago today (on Friday 18th November 1910) a suffragette deputation to the House of Commons met with a six hour onslaught of police brutality resulting in the Suffragettes beginning a huge window smashing campaign in protest.
The attack was so horrendous, the Suffragettes remembered the day it happened as ‘Black Friday’.
Today, when the government and right-wing press are declaring moral outrage at the smashing of a window in the Milbank Tower, many activists have been looking back to the inspiring examples of suffragette direct action.
The anniversary of Black Friday gives us an opportunity to ask why the Suffragettes attacked property and whether the tactic helped the movement.
Black Friday, police violence and the cover-up
On 18th November 1910 the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the main militant suffragette organisation, had called a ‘Women’s Parliament’ to challenge the legitimacy of the Westminster Parliament which excluded all women.
They had recently discovered that the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, who was deeply hostile to women’s suffrage, had announced that no more time would be given to a Bill which would give the vote to some women.
In response the ‘Women’s Parliament’ sent a deputation of 300 women to the House of Commons where they were met with ranks of police. For six hours women were batoned, beaten, punched, thrown to the ground, kicked on the floor and had their faces rubbed against railings in full view of the House of Commons. There were also widespread reports of police sexually abusing the demonstrators. They repeatedly pinched and twisted their breasts, lifted their skirts, groping and assaulting the women for hours.
The true cost of Black Friday would only be known some time after the event. At least two women died as a result of their injuries that day. Another woman who had been badly treated by the police and was arrested for stone throwing a few days later died after being released from prison on Christmas Day 1910. She was Emmeline Pankhurst’s sister, Mary Clarke.
The cover-up followed swiftly after. When the Daily Mirror published a photograph of suffragette Ada Wright lying collapsed on the ground, her hands clutching her face, the government tried to stop the newspaper being sold and ordered the negatives to be destroyed.
To add further shame to the government’s record, the Home Secretary, one Winston Churchill, refused to permit a Government inquiry into the events of Black Friday.
From the introduction of the Bill that Asquith sabotaged until Black Friday the WSPU had called a ‘truce’ on militancy. Now that truce was well and truly over as the WSPU launched a campaign of window smashing.
Black Friday – a turning point
The window smashing campaign and the suffragette attacks on property were in part a tactical response to police violence. Why let yourself be hurt and abused for hours before being arrested on a demonstration when you could shorten the whole process by smashing a window and obtaining instant arrest?
It was also a political statement. The suffragettes were exposing that the government cared more about a pane of glass than a woman’s life (force feeding for hunger striking suffragette prisoners had been introduced in 1909) or a woman’s political rights. If property was the government’s priority, then property was a target.
However, it was also part of a move away from the collective action and mass mobilisations that had characterised the early years of the militant suffragette movement. Christabel Pankhurst, one the of the leading figures in the WSPU, had become completely dismissive of the capacity of working-class women to fight for their rights. She now looked to heroic individuals or influential (generally rich) women to win the struggle.
Her sister Sylvia Pankhurst, a socialist suffragette, later recalled that Christabel felt ‘a working women’s movement was of no value: working women were the weakest portion of the sex: how could it be otherwise? Their lives were too hard, their education too meagre to equip them for the struggle’. [1]
It was not, however, the end to all suffragette demonstrations although they changed in character considerably. In June 1911 the WSPU organised a Coronation Procession in honour of the new King. The modern equivalent would be the anti-cuts protestors of last week suddenly deciding to celebrate Prince William’s already-tedious engagement!
Meanwhile, Christabel Pankhurst ensured that suffragettes kept their distance from the new social movements that were emerging. 1910 also marked the beginning of the Great Unrest – a huge wave of strike action which included women workers and which terrified the government. If the WSPU had wanted to co-operate with this new movement it is very likely their combined strength would have forced the government to concede.
The East London suffragettes around Sylvia Pankhurst did attempt to link up with the new movements, working with socialists and attending the May Day rally as suffragettes alongside huge numbers of East End workers. In the end it would be Sylvia’s attempts to unite with other progressive movements that would see her forced out of the WSPU by Christabel who was unable to tolerate Sylvia’s appearance on a platform alongside Irish trade unionist James Connolly at a meeting protesting at the employers’ lock-out of workers in Dublin.
Militancy from below
Was direct action, then, inevitably incompatible with collective action? In fact window-breaking emerged as a response to the government’s failure to listen to mass action.
In 1908 the government challenged the suffragettes to prove that votes for women had popular support. When the suffragettes organised one of the biggest demonstrations ever seen at that time in Hyde Park the government refused to alter its position. It was immediately after this, and an earlier bout of police violence, that the suffragettes threw their first stones – through the windows of 10 Downing Street.
Much of the direct action undertaken by suffragettes was pioneered by militants since described as ‘freelance’ [2] – they acted without the permission or foreknowledge of the WSPU’s more conservative leaders. These women were often closer to socialist ideas than their leadership.
Mary Leigh was one of the first two window-smashing suffragettes. She was a working-class woman with a deep commitment to militancy, and she was one of the first suffragettes to endure forcible feeding. She was also a socialist who worked with Sylvia in the East End campaigns and publicly spoke out against the WSPU leadership’s support for the British state in the First World War.
Her closest friend was Emily Davison – who committed the most famous militant act of all: disrupting the Derby Day race by running in front of the King’s horse, an action that, in collision with the horse, cost her her life. She too was sympathetic to socialist ideas and was involved with the newly-formed Workers Educational Association (WEA).
Sylvia Pankhurst herself was amongst the most militant of the suffragettes, suffering repeated imprisonments where she undertook hunger, thirst, sleep and rest strikes.
There were many other suffragettes with socialist sympathies who, like these examples, were at the forefront of the struggle, undertaking some of the most famous militant actions. For them, however, the individual acts of vandalism or sacrifice were part of a wider struggle against a system that not only excluded women from its political institutions but also oppressed working-class people and indulged in unjustifiable wars.
Suffragette militancy continues to inspire today. The broken pane at Milbank Tower has brought the suffragettes charging back into political debate. Activists insisting that smashing education is far worse than smashing a window are right when they point out that the Suffragettes did not win the vote by asking politely or avoiding windows.
However, there were two traditions of militancy. One began to substitute individual heroism for a mass movement and moved away from wider questions of equality in society. Its focus became increasingly narrow and began to reflect the politics of the richer women who Christabel sought to lead it.
The other tradition is the tradition that Sylvia Pankhurst stood in. Militancy was a part of the movement, not in opposition to it. They used militancy to capture peoples’ imagination and to pull them into a wider struggle against oppression everywhere. That is the tradition that can help us build the resistance today.
Notes
[1] E.S. Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement An Intimate Account of Persons and Ideals (London: Virago Press Limited, 1977 – first published 1931), p.517
[2] See L. Stanley and A. Morley, The Life and Death of Emily Wilding Davison (London: The Women’s Press, 1988)
Katherine Connelly
Kate Connelly is a writer and historian. She led school student strikes in the British anti-war movement in 2003, co-ordinated the Emily Wilding Davison Memorial Campaign in 2013 and is a leading member of Counterfire. She wrote the acclaimed biography, 'Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire' and recently edited and introduced 'A Suffragette in America: Reflections on Prisoners, Pickets and Political Change'.
"....while trying to find Our Way out of The Room, We discovered A Window, overlooking The Main Laboratory --"
Today, The Kaled Race is ended,
consumed in a fire of war,
but from its ashes will rise a new race,
the supreme creature, the ultimate
conqueror of The Universe,
The DALEK!
The Aktion you take today
is the beginning of a journey that
will take the Daleks to their Destiny
of universal and absolute Supremacy.
You have been conditioned and
programmed to complete A Task.
You will now carry out that programme.
DALEK :
We obey.
Destiny (n.)
mid-14c., "fate, over-rulingnecessity, the irresistible tendency of certain events to come about; inexorable force that shapes and controls lives and events;" also "that which is predetermined and sure to come True," from Old French destinée "purpose, intent, fate, destiny; that which is destined" (12c.), noun use of fem. past participle of destiner, from Latin destinare"make firm, establish" (see destination).
The sense is of "that which has been firmly established," as by fate. Especially "what is to befall any person or thing in the future" (mid-15c.). In Greek and Roman mythology, personified as the three Fates or powers supposed to preside over human life. Related entries & more fatal (adj.) ldlate 14c., "decreed by fate," also "fraught with fate," from O French fatal (14c.) and directly from Latin fatalis "ordained by fate, decreed, destined; of or belonging to fate or destiny; destructive, deadly," from fatum (see fate (n.)). Original senses are obsolete; the meaning "causing or attended with death" in English is from early 15c. Meaning "concerned with or dealing with destiny" is from mid-15c. necessitate (v.) 1620s, "force irresistably, compel, oblige," also "make necessary, render unavoidable," from Medieval Latin necessitatus, past participle of necessitare "to render necessary," from Latin necessitas "compulsion; destiny" (see necessity). Earlier verb in English was necessen (late 14c.). Related: Necessitated; necessitates; necessitating.
fado (n.) popular music style of Portugal, 1902, from Latin fatum "fate, destiny" (see fate (n.)). Because the songs tell the fates of their subjects. The music itself is from the earlier lundum, popular late 18c.-early 19c., said to be of African origin via Angola or Brazil. sortilege (n.) "act or practice of drawing lots," late 14c., "divination, sorcery," from Old French sortilege, from Medieval Latin sortilegium "divination by lots," from Latin sortem (nominative sors) "lot; fate, destiny; share, portion" (see sort (n.1)). Related: Sortileger; sortilegious; sortilegy.
fatality (n.) late 15c., "quality of causing death," from French fatalité, from Late Latin fatalitatem (nominative fatalitas) "fatal necessity, fatality," from Latin fatalis "ordained by fate; destructive, deadly" (see fatal). Senses in 16c.-17c. included "determined by fate" and "a destiny." Meaning "an occurrence resulting in widespread death" is from 1840. Related: Fatalities. Related entries & more sortition (n.) "casting or drawing of lots," 1590s, from Latin sortitionem (nominative sortitio) "a choosing or determining by lot," noun of action from past-participle stem of sortior "to draw lots," from sortem (nominative sors) "lot; fate, destiny; share, portion; rank, category; sex, class, oracular response, prophecy" (from PIE root *ser- (2) "to line up"). Related entries & more dree (v.) "to suffer, bear, endure," Old English dreogan "to work, suffer, endure" (see drudge (v.)). Phrase dree one's weird "abide one's fate or destiny" is from 14c. Perhaps from a tendency to be confused with draw, the verb faded from use but lingered in North of England and Scottish dialect and was revived as an archaism by Scott and his imitators. Related entries & more fate (n.) late 14c., "one's lot or destiny; predetermined course of life;" also "one's guiding spirit," from Old French fate and directly from Latin fata (source also of Spanish hado, Portuguese fado, Italian fato), neuter plural of fatum "prophetic declaration of what must be, oracle, prediction," thus the Latin word's usual sense, "that which is ordained, destiny, fate," literally "thing spoken (by the gods)," from neuter past participle of fari "to speak," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say." Often in a bad sense in Latin: "bad luck, ill fortune; mishap, ruin; a pest or plague."
From early 15c. as "power that rules destinies, agency which predetermines events; supernatural predetermination;" also "destiny personified." Meaning "that which must be" is from 1660s; sense of "final event" is from 1768. The Latin sense evolution is from "sentence of the Gods" (Greek theosphaton) to "lot, portion" (Greek moira, personified as a goddess in Homer).
The sense of "one of the three goddesses (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) who determined the course of a human life" (or, as Blount has it, "the three Ladies of destiny") is in English by 1580s. Their Greek name was Moirai (see above), from a verb meaning "to receive one's share." Latin Parca "one of the three Fates or goddesses of fate" (source of French parque "a Fate;" Spanish parca "Death personified; the Grim Reaper") might be from parcere "act sparingly, refrain from; have mercy upon, forbear to injure or punish" (if so, probably here a euphemism) or plectere "to weave, plait." The native word in English was wyrd (see weird).
J'y suivais un serpent qui venait de me mordre Quel repli de désirs, sa traîne!...Quel désordre De trésors s'arrachant à mon avidité, Et quelle sombre soif de la limpidité!
-- Paul Valéry,
from La Jeune Parque
Related entries & more assort (v.) late 15c., "to distribute into groups or classes," from Old French assorter "to assort, match" (15c., Modern French assortir), from a- "to" (see ad-) + sorte "kind, category," from Latin sortem (nominative sors) "lot; fate, destiny; share, portion; rank, category; sex, class, oracular response, prophecy" (from PIE root *ser- (2) "to line up"). Related: Assorted; assorting.
Related entries & more weird (adj.) c. 1400, "having power to control fate," from wierd (n.), from Old English wyrd "fate, chance, fortune; destiny; the Fates," literally "that which comes," from Proto-Germanic *wurthiz (source also of Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt "fate," Old Norse urðr "fate, one of the three Norns"), from PIE *wert- "to turn, to wind," (source also of German werden, Old English weorðan "to become"), from root *wer- (2) "to turn, bend." For the sense development from "turning" to "becoming," compare phrase turn into "become."
The sense of "uncanny, supernatural" developed from Middle English use of weird sisters for the three Fates or Norns (in Germanic mythology), the goddesses who controlled human destiny. They were portrayed as odd or frightening in appearance, as in "Macbeth" (and especially in 18th and 19th century productions of it), which led to the adjectival meaning "odd-looking, uncanny" (1815); "odd, strange, disturbingly different" (1820). Also see Macbeth. Related: Weirdly; weirdness.
Related entries & more *(s)mer- (2) Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to get a share of something."
It forms all or part of : demerit; emeritus; isomer; isomeric; meretricious; merism; meristem; merit; meritorious; mero-; monomer; Moira; polymer; turmeric.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Greek meros "part, lot," moira "share, fate," moros "fate, destiny, doom;" Hittite mark "to divide" a sacrifice; Latin merere, meriri "to earn, deserve, acquire, gain."
Related entries & more influence (n.) late 14c., an astrological term, "streaming ethereal power from the stars when in certain positions, acting upon character or destiny of men," from Old French influence"emanation from the stars that acts upon one's character and destiny" (13c.), also "a flow of water, a flowing in," from Medieval Latin influentia"a flowing in"(also used in the astrological sense), from Latin influentem (nominative influens), present participle of influere"to flow into, stream in, pour in," from in-"into, in, on, upon" (from PIE root *en "in") + fluere"to flow" (see fluent).
The range of senses in Middle English was non-personal, in reference to any outflowing of energy that produces effect, of fluid or vaporous substance as well as immaterial or unobservable forces. Meaning "exertion of unseen influence by persons" is from 1580s (a sense already in Medieval Latin, for instance Aquinas); meaning "capacity for producing effects by insensible or invisible means" is from 1650s. Under the influence (of alcohol, etc.) "drunk" first attested 1866.
Related entries & more sort (v.) mid-14c., sorten, "to arrange according to type or quality," c. 1400, "to classify by category," from Old French sortir"allot, sort, assort," from Latin sortiri"draw lots, divide, choose," from sors"lot, what is allotted; fate, destiny; share, portion" (see sort (n.)). In some senses, the verb is from the noun, or it is a shortened form of assort. Often with out (adv.). By 1948 as "resolve (a problem), clear up (a confusion)."
Related : Sorted; sorter; sorting. portion (n.) early 14c., porcioun, "allotted part, part assigned or attributed, share," also "lot, fate, destiny," from Old French porcion"part, portion" (12c., Modern French portion) and directly from Latin portionem (nominative portio) "share, part," accusative of the noun in the phrase pro portione"according to the relation (of parts to each other)," ablative of *partio"division," related to pars"a part, piece, a share, a division" (from PIE root *pere- (2) "to grant, allot").
Meaning "a part of a whole" is from mid-14c. From late 14c. in the general sense of "section into which something is divided."
mazel tov (interj.) Jewish salutation, 1862, from modern Hebrew mazzal tob"good luck, good fortune," literally "good star," from Hebrew mazzaloth (plural) "constellations," also "destiny" (compare schlemazel). Probably to English via Yiddish. disaster (n.) Origin and meaning of disaster "anything that befalls of ruinous or distressing nature; any unfortunate event," especially a sudden or great misfortune, 1590s, from French désastre (1560s), from Italian disastro, literally "ill-starred," from dis-, here merely pejorative, equivalent to English mis- "ill" (see dis-) + astro "star, planet," from Latin astrum, from Greek astron "star" (from PIE root *ster- (2) "star").
The sense is astrological, of a calamity blamed on an unfavorable position of a planet, and "star" here is probably meant in the astrological sense of "destiny, fortune, fate." Compare Medieval Latin astrum sinistrum "misfortune," literally "unlucky star," and English ill-starred. necessity (n.) late 14c., necessite, "constraining power of circumstances; compulsion (physical or moral), the opposite of liberty; a condition requisite for the attainment of any purpose," from Old French necessité"need, necessity; privation, poverty; distress, torment; obligation, duty" (12c.), from Latin necessitatem (nominative necessitas) "compulsion, need for attention, unavoidableness, destiny," from necesse (see necessary). Meaning "condition of being in need, want of the means of living" in English is from late 14c.
Necessity is the Mother of Invention.
-- Richard Franck, c. 1624-1708,
English author and angler,
"Northern Memoirs," 1658
To maken vertu of necessite is in Chaucer.
Related: Necessities. kismet (n.) "fate, destiny," 1834, from Turkish qismet, from Arabic qismah, qismat"portion, lot, fate," from root of qasama"he divided."
From a nation of enthusiasts and conquerors, the Osmanlis became a nation of sleepers and smokers. They came into Europe with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other : were they driven out of their encampment, it would be with the Koran in one hand and the pipe in the other, crying: 'Kismet! Kismet! Allah kehrim!' (God hath willed it! God is great!)
-- Dr. James O. Noyes,
"The Ottoman Empire,"
"The Knickerbocker," October 1858
Popularized as the title of a novel in 1877. Moira fem. proper name, also the name of one of the Fates, from Greek Moira, literally "share, fate," related to moros "fate, destiny, doom," meros "part, lot," meiresthai "to receive one's share" (from PIE root *(s)mer- (2) "to get a share of something"). Related entries & more manifest (adj.) Origin and meaning of manifest late 14c., "clearly revealed to the eye or the understanding, open to view or comprehension," from Old French manifest "evident, palpable," (12c.), or directly from Latin manifestus "plainly apprehensible, clear, apparent, evident;" of offenses, "proved by direct evidence;" of offenders, "caught in the act," probably from manus"hand" (from PIE root *man- (2) "hand") + -festus, which apparently is identical to the second element of infest.
De Vaan writes, "If manifestus may be interpreted as 'caught by hand', the meanings seem to point to 'grabbing' or 'attacking' for -festus." But he finds none of the proposed ulterior connections compelling, and concludes that, regarding infestus and manifestus, "maybe the two must be separated." If not, the sense development might be from "caught by hand" to "in hand, palpable."
Manifest destiny, "that which clearly appears destined to come to pass; a future state, condition, or event which can be foreseen with certainty, or is regarded as inevitable" was much used in American politics from about the time of the Mexican War "by those who believed that the United States were destined in time to occupy the entire continent" -- Century Dictionary.
Other nations have tried to check ... the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the Continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.
-- John O'Sullivan (1813-1895),
"U.S. Magazine & Democratic Review," July 1845
The phrase apparently is O'Sullivan's coinage; the notion is as old as the republic.
doom (n.) Middle English doome, from Old English dom"a law, statute, decree; administration of justice, judgment; justice, equity, righteousness," from Proto-Germanic *domaz (source also of Old Saxon and Old Frisian dom, Old Norse domr, Old High German tuom"judgment, decree," Gothic doms"discernment, distinction"), perhaps from PIE root *dhe-"to set, place, put, do" (source also of Sanskrit dhaman- "law," Greek themis "law," Lithuanian domė "attention").
Originally in a neutral sense but sometimes also "a decision determining fate or fortune, irrevocable destiny." A book of laws in Old English was a dombec. Modern adverse sense of "fate, ruin, destruction" begins early 14c. and is general after c. 1600, from doomsday and the finality of the Christian Judgment. Crack of Doom is the last trump, the signal for the dissolution of all things. meet (v.) Middle English mēten, from Old English metan "to find, find out; fall in with, encounter, come into the same place with; obtain," from Proto-Germanic *motjanan (source also of Old Norse mæta, Old Frisian meta, Old Saxon motian "to meet," Gothic gamotijan), from PIE root *mod- "to meet, assemble." Related to Old English gemot "meeting." By c. 1300, of things, "to come into physical contact with, join by touching or uniting with;" also, of persons, "come together by approaching from the opposite direction; come into collision with, combat." Abstractly, "to come upon, encounter (as in meet with approval, meet one's destiny) by late 14c. Sense of "come into conformity with, be or act in agreement with" (as in meet expectations) is by 1690s. Intransitive sense, of people, "to come together" is from mid-14c.; of members of an organized body or society, "to assemble," by 1520s. Related: Met; meeting. To meet (someone) halfway in the figurative sense "make mutual and equal concessions to" is from 1620s. Well met as a salutation of compliment is by mid-15c. Related entries & more sort (n.) late 14c., sorte, "group of people, animals, etc.; kind or variety of person or animal," from Old French sorte "class, kind," from Latin sortem (nominative sors) "lot; fate, destiny; share, portion; rank, category; sex, class, oracular response, prophecy," from PIE root *ser- (2) "to line up." The sense evolution in Vulgar Latin is from "what is allotted to one by fate," to "fortune, condition," to "rank, class, order." Later (mid-15c.) also "group, class, or category of items; kind or variety of thing; pattern, design." The classical sense of "fate or lot of a particular person" was in Middle English but is now obsolete. The computing sense of "act of arranging (data) in sequence" is by 1958, from the verb. Related to assort, consort, sorcery, but not resort. Colloquial sort of as a qualifier expressing hesitation or "to some extent" is attested by 1790; sometimes contracted to sorta, sorter. Out of sorts "not in usual good condition" is attested from 1620s, perhaps with a literal sense of "out of stock, out of equipment." In the original citation it is paired with out of tune. The type-setting sort is attested only from 1660s. Related entries & more *wer- (2) Proto-Indo-European root forming words meaning "to turn, bend." It forms all or part of: adverse; anniversary; avert; awry; controversy; converge; converse (adj.) "exact opposite;" convert; diverge; divert; evert; extroversion; extrovert; gaiter; introrse; introvert; invert; inward; malversation; obverse; peevish; pervert; prose; raphe; reverberate; revert; rhabdomancy; rhapsody; rhombus; ribald; sinistrorse; stalwart; subvert; tergiversate; transverse; universe; verbena; verge (v.1) "tend, incline;" vermeil; vermicelli; vermicular; vermiform; vermin; versatile; verse (n.) "poetry;" version; verst; versus; vertebra; vertex; vertigo; vervain; vortex; -ward; warp; weird; worm; worry; worth (adj.) "significant, valuable, of value;" worth (v.) "to come to be;" wrangle; wrap; wrath; wreath; wrench; wrest; wrestle; wriggle; wring; wrinkle; wrist; writhe; wrong; wroth; wry. It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit vartate "turns round, rolls;" Avestan varet- "to turn;" Hittite hurki- "wheel;" Greek rhatane "stirrer, ladle;" Latin vertere (frequentative versare) "to turn, turn back, be turned; convert, transform, translate; be changed," versus "turned toward or against;" Old Church Slavonic vrŭteti "to turn, roll," Russian vreteno "spindle, distaff;" Lithuanian verčiu, versti "to turn;" German werden, Old English weorðan "to become;" Old English -weard "toward," originally "turned toward," weorthan "to befall," wyrd "fate, destiny," literally "what befalls one;" Welsh gwerthyd "spindle, distaff;" Old Irish frith "against." Related entries & more astrology (n.) late 14c., "calculation and foretelling based on observation of heavenly bodies," from Latin astrologia "astronomy, the science of the heavenly bodies," from Greek astrologia "astronomy," literally "a telling of the stars," from astron "star" (from PIE root *ster- (2) "star") + -logia "treating of" (see -logy). Originally identical with astronomy and including scientific observation and description. The special sense of "astronomy applied to prediction of events" was divided into natural astrology "the calculation and foretelling of natural phenomenon" (tides, eclipses, dates of Church festivals, etc.), and judicial astrology "the art of judging occult influences of stars and planets on human affairs."
In Latin and later Greek, astronomia tended to be more scientific than astrologia. In English, the differentiation between astrology and astronomy began late 1400s and by late 17c. this word was limited to the sense of "reading influences of the stars and their effects on human destiny."
And consequently, an Astrology in the World before Astronomy, either in Name or Science. so that ( Non obstante whatever any Astronomer shall oppose to the contrary) Astrology hath the right of Primogeniture. And all the Sober and Judiciously Learned must needs acknowledge the Truth hereof.—Howbeit, it were to be wished that the Astrologer understood Astronomy, and that the Astronomer were acquainted with Astrology: Although I do in truth despair of ever finding many to be so happily Accomplished. [John Gadbury, introduction to "Ephemerides of the Celestial Motions," London, 1672]
It is ... an extremely just observation of M. Comte, that [the study of astrology] marks the first systematic effort to frame a philosophy of history by reducing the apparently capricious phenomena of human actions within the domain of law. It may, however, I think, be no less justly regarded as one of the last struggles of human egotism against the depressing sense of insignificance which the immensity of the universe must produce. [W.E.H. Lecky, "History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," 1866] Related entries & more lot (n.) Old English hlot "object used to determine someone's share" (anything from dice to straw, but often a chip of wood with a name inscribed on it), also "what falls to a person by lot," from Proto-Germanic *khlutom (source also of Old Norse hlutr "lot, share," Old Frisian hlot "lot," Old Saxon hlot, Middle Dutch, Dutch lot, Old High German hluz "share of land," German Los), from a strong verb (the source of Old English hleotan "to cast lots, obtain by lot; to foretell"). The whole group is of unknown origin. The object was placed with others in a receptacle (such as a hat or helmet), which was shaken, the winner being the one whose name or mark was on the lot that fell out first. Hence the expression cast lots; to cast (one's) lot with another (1530s, originally biblical) is to agree to share winnings. In some cases the lots were drawn by hand, hence to draw lots. The word was adopted from Germanic into the Romanic languages (Spanish lote, and compare lottery, lotto). Meaning "choice resulting from the casting of lots" first attested c. 1200. Meaning "share or portion of life" in any way, "that which is given by fate, God or destiny" is from c. 1300. Meaning "number of persons or things of the same kind" is from 1570s (compare Latin mala merx, of persons, literally "a bad lot"). Sense of "plot of land" is first recorded 1630s, American English (distribution of the most desirable properties in new settlements often was determined by casting lots), then especially "parcel of land set aside for a specified purpose" (the Hollywood sense is from 1928). The common U.S. city lot was a rectangle 25 feet wide (along the street) by 100 deep; it was so universal as to be sometimes a unit of measure. Meaning "group, collection" is 1725, from the notion of auction lots. Lots in the generalized sense of "great many" is attested by 1812; lotsa, colloquial for "lots of," is from 1927; lotta for "lot of" is by 1906. Related entries & more fairy (n.) c. 1300, fairie, "the country or home of supernatural or legendary creatures; fairyland," also "something incredible or fictitious," from Old French faerie "land of fairies, meeting of fairies; enchantment, magic, witchcraft, sorcery" (12c.), from fae "fay," from Latin fata "the Fates," plural of fatum "that which is ordained; destiny, fate," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say." Also compare fate (n.), also fay.
In ordinary use an elf differs from a fairy only in generally seeming young, and being more often mischievous. [Century Dictionary]
But that was before Tolkien. As a type of supernatural being from late 14c. [contra Tolkien; for example "This maketh that ther been no fairyes" in "Wife of Bath's Tale"], perhaps via intermediate forms such as fairie knight "supernatural or legendary knight" (c. 1300), as in Spenser, where faeries are heroic and human-sized. As a name for the diminutive winged beings in children's stories from early 17c.
Yet I suspect that this flower-and-butterfly minuteness was also a product of "rationalization," which transformed the glamour of Elfland into mere finesse, and invisibility into a fragility that could hide in a cowslip or shrink behind a blade of grass. It seems to become fashionable soon after the great voyages had begun to make the world seem too narrow to hold both men and elves; when the magic land of Hy Breasail in the West had become the mere Brazils, the land of red-dye-wood.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien,
"On Fairy-Stories," 1947
Hence, figurative adjective use in reference to lightness, fineness, delicacy. Slang meaning "effeminate male homosexual" is recorded by 1895. Fairy ring, of certain fungi in grass fields (as we would explain it now), is from 1590s. Fairy godmother attested from 1820. Fossil Cretaceous sea urchins found on the English downlands were called fairy loaves, and a book from 1787 reports that "country people" in England called the stones of the old Roman roads fairy pavements.
