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Holloway Prison and the Suffragettes Holloway Prison and the Suffragettes In the early 1900s, women who wanted equal rights with men began a high-profile campaign to demand ‘suffrage’: the right to vote. Many of these Suffragettes were jailed in Holloway Prison for taking militant action in their fight for the vote and the prison became the scene of the first Suffragette hunger strikes. This exhibition examines our local links to the campaign Suffragettes released from Holloway Prison in August 1908 after for votes for women. serving six-week sentences for disturbing the peace. Hundreds of well-wishers greeted the women. Photo: Mary Evans Picture Library. The start of militant action The Suffragettes were members of organisations such as the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and Women’s Freedom League. The name ‘Suffragettes’ was coined by the but adopted by the women themselves. The Suffragette campaigns began with public demonstrations but became increasingly Suffragettes from north Islington in a procession towards ‘Women’s Sunday’, militant. In particular, WSPU members, led by a mass demonstration in Hyde Park in June Emmeline Pankhurst, began new tactics such as 1908. Photo: Museum of London. breaking windows, damaging letter-boxes and confronting politicians. Anti-suffrage postcard, c1909. There is a striking contrast between the Suffragette Protesters across the country were imprisoned portrayed here and in the Votes for Women advertisement. for breaking the law and over 1,000 were jailed “We have touched the limit in Holloway Prison alone. Suffragette of public demonstration… motor scarf in the WSPU colours Nothing but militant action of purple, green and white. The Anti-Suffragette reaction WSPU encouraged is left to us now” members to wear these colours at The Suffragettes attracted great controversy, all times. Photo: Museum of including opposition from ‘anti-suffrage’ Emmeline Pethick London. groups. They were also criticised by other women’s suffrage campaigners who preferred Lawrence peaceful methods of protest. Suffragette arrested while demanding to see However, the WSPU had a substantial number the king at Buckingham Palace in 1914. Advertisement for the Photo: The Women’s Library, London of members and support from some Members WSPU newspaper Metropolitan University. of Parliament. Votes for Women, c1907. Hunger strikes in Holloway The campaign escalated further when In September, prison doctors began Suffragettes in Holloway Prison began hunger force-feeding women who refused to strikes in July 1909. eat. This was a violent and painful procedure, using a tube fed through the nose or throat. The first woman to refuse food was Marion Wallace Dunlop, who was in prison for Many women were force-fed between 1909 rubber-stamping a passage from the Bill of and 1914. In 1912, during a mass hunger Holloway Prison, c1906. Rights onto a wall of the House of Commons. strike at Holloway, one Suffragette prisoner She demanded to be treated as a political threw herself over a staircase to try to force prisoner rather than a criminal. the authorities to end the situation. Other Suffragettes in Holloway began hunger Reconstruction of a Suffragettes’ prison strikes a few days later and most were cell and uniform, staged Senior members of the WPSU, c1910, for a WSPU exhibition all of whom went on hunger strike. released within days. In response to their in 1909. Photo: The From left: Lady Constance Lytton, “Holloway became a place Women’s Library, London Annie Kenney, Emmeline Pethick complaints, MPs and the Home Secretary Metropolitan University. Lawrence, Christabel Pankhurst and Sylvia Pankhurst. Photo: Mary Evans visited the prison in August and conditions of horror and torment... Picture Library. were improved. sickening scenes of violence Suffragettes were still jailed as criminals, took place almost every however, and more hunger strikes followed in hour of the day as doctors Holloway and other prisons. went from cell to cell” Advertisement from The Suffragette for a book published in 1914 by Lady Emmeline Pankhurst Constance Lytton. After Feeding by force receiving preferential treatment in Holloway, Lytton disguised herself as a working-class woman. The government were unwilling to continue Jailed in Liverpool for a public protest, ‘Jane Warton’ was setting free Suffragettes who went on force-fed but released when her true identity became known. hunger strike. Cover of the WSPU magazine, The Suffragette, 10 Jan 1913, depicting the brutal process of force-feeding. National controversy Force-feeding was widely reported and Many politicians and commentators opposed debated in national newspapers. Two to the Suffragettes believed that women on well-known writers for the hunger strike should be allowed to starve to resigned when the newspaper supported the death. government policy. The government disagreed, still fearing that In Parliament, the Home Secretary argued if Suffragettes died in prison, there would be that force-feeding was neither dangerous overwhelming public support for votes for nor seriously painful. In response, the WSPU women. collected statements from doctors to confirm that it was not a safe procedure. “What remains? Only The policy continued and the WSPU produced posters and leaflets to describe the horrors imprisonment, with prison and dangers of being force-fed. They also held food and the natural WSPU poster campaigning against regular demonstrations in the streets outside force-feeding and the Liberal consequence of not taking government, 1914. Other, more violent Holloway Prison. illustrations were also produced, as Illustration from Punch magazine, 5 Mar 1913, already shown. Photo: The Women’s questioning the morality of the policy of food in a natural way - Library, London Metropolitan University. force-feeding. Punch frequently published illustrations and humorous cartoons commenting No change in government policy that is death. This seems on the Suffragette campaign. In the run-up to the 1910 general election, to me to be the plain truth, Suffragettes treated Suffragettes encouraged their supporters and the sooner we make up their fight for votes as a military campaign and paid – and others appalled by the practice great tribute to women our minds to it the better” jailed for the cause. of force-feeding – to vote against the Medals were awarded to WSPU members who government. served prison sentences ‘A Magistrate’, writing to and ‘Roll of Honour’ tables such as this example, dated 11 Apr 1913, were The Liberals won the election but with a The Times printed regularly in The Suffragette. Medal photo: reduced majority. The practice of force-feeding Museum of London. continued, although the majority of MPs wanted it to end. The Liberal Cat and Suffragette Mouse In March 1913, as the controversy continued, News reports of women released and the government introduced the re-arrested under the Act increased national concern about Suffragette prisoners. This law allowed prisons to release women However, there was also increasing public weakened by hunger strikes and imprison them hostility and alarm as the Suffragettes’ again when they recovered. It became known campaign became much more violent. They as the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’, after the way a cat resorted to frequent attacks on property, teases a captured mouse. including burning down empty buildings and attacking works of art. In December 1913, Women released under the act were often they also attempted to blow up a wall at News articles reporting that Suffragettes very unwell. Many Suffragettes discharged Holloway Prison. including Annie Kenney had been returned to prison (The Suffragette, 4 Jul 1913) from Holloway were taken to a house used by and that Kenney had again been released the WSPU in nearby Dalmeny Avenue. in poor health (The Times, 20 Oct 1913). WSPU poster campaigning against the Cat & Mouse Act and the “Methods of repression Liberal government, 1913. According to newspaper, women were still frail when they returned and expedients like the to prison, where they frequently resumed Cat-And-Mouse Act would their hunger strikes. Some avoided arrest and deserve ridicule, were it continued campaigning. Inside the prisons, despite the Act, some women were still being not for the sufferings they force-fed. involve.” WSPU protests and public reaction Bishop of London, writing News stand poster, c1913. to The Times Although the Suffragettes were The WSPU campaigned vigorously against the careful not to endanger human life, Report from the Islington Gazette, 22 Dec 1913, their heightened campaign created Act, gathering support from influential people of an explosion at Holloway Prison. an atmosphere of fear and anxiety. Photo: The Women’s Library, London including doctors and clergymen. Metropolitan University Outbreak of war The Suffragettes continued their campaign in Lasting legacy the build-up to the First World War, which they criticised as a ‘man-made’ conflict. The violent campaign of the WPSU has been the subject of much historical debate. Once war was declared, however, the WSPU campaign was suspended and its members However, one century on from the hunger pledged support for the war effort. The strikes in Holloway, the Suffragettes remain government agreed to release all Suffragettes the most enduring symbol of the fight for Headline from The Suffragette, 16 April 1915, highlighting from prison. votes for women. the recruitment efforts and war work of WSPU members. As men went away to fight, women made an important contribution to the war effort by filling the jobs left vacant by soldiers. “In times of war the rules of peace must be set aside WSPU members set up new campaigns to A woman voting in a parliamentary election and we must put ourselves for the first time, 1918. Photo: Mary Evans support women war workers and to propose Picture Library. compulsory war service for men and women. without delay upon a war basis, let women stand Votes for women granted shoulder to shoulder Members of the WSPU introduce Prime Minister David Lloyd George to female munitions workers in September 1918.
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