Printed Abstract of the Regulations Relating to the Treatment and Conduct of Convicted Suffragette Prisoners, Holloway

Women's Suffrage

Printed Abstract of the Regulations Relating to the Treatment and Conduct of Convicted Prisoners, outlining 14 rules of conduct, printed recto and verso on stiff card, holes for hanging at upper edge, 330 x 202mm, with a printed lending library order form issued to prisoners with manuscript insertions, 230 x 153mm., dated 29 June [19]13. Holloway became a focal point of the suffragette struggle in the early twentieth century, with more than 300 suffragettes seeing the inside walls of the prison. Holloway Prison made a name for itself for being the site of the Suffragette's hunger strike and consequently the force feeding that the Suffragettes endured beginning with Marion Wallace Dunlop in 1909. This process involved the prison guards forcing tubes down the inmates' throats to ensure that they did not die of malnourishment. The severity and national backlash of this movement led to the Cat and Mouse Act in 1913 which brought in legislation permitting women on hunger strike to be released back into the community, only for them to be re-arrested once deemed healthy enough.

Anti-Suffrage Doll

Women's Suffrage

Novelty doll, wearing a brown dress and hat and holding a 'Votes for Women' placard, the head made from a ping pong ball with a hand painted face, stuffed canvas body, pins for hands and around the hat, another pin in the middle of her chest, brim of hat detached, on square card base bearing retailers label 'Sold by Fred Franklin/ Drapery & Fancy Stores/ 11 High Street Deal/ family/ Established 1808', 150mm. high, base measuring 70mm x 70mm.
Organized campaigns against women's suffrage began around the same time that suffragettes were turning to militant tactics. Most ordinary women had prioritised family life over political activism when it came to the issue of suffrage. Most historical evidence shows that ordinary women did not have much interest in the right to vote before the First World War and also after suffrage had been granted to women. The National Museum of Wales holds a similar doll, described as a 'Voodoo doll' which was posted through a suffragette's letter box in West Wales in the early twentieth-century.