Holloway Women's Prison

HM Prison Holloway was a closed category prison for adult women and young offenders in Holloway, London, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. It was the largest women's prison in western Europe, until its closure in 2016.

History

Holloway prison was opened in 1852 as a mixed-sex prison, but due to growing demand for space for female prisoners, particularly due to the closure of Newgate, it became female-only in 1903.

Before the First World War, Holloway was used to imprison those suffragettes who broke the law. These included Emmeline Pankhurst, Emily Davison, Constance Markievicz (also imprisoned for her part in the Irish Rebellion), Charlotte Despard, Mary Richardson, Dora Montefiore, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, and Ethel Smyth.

In 1959, Joanna Kelley became Governor of Holloway. Kelley ensured that long-term prisoners received the best accommodation and they were allowed to have their own crockery, pictures and curtains. The prison created "family" groups of prisoners, group therapy and psychiatrists to support some prisoners where required.

In 1965, there was a change in responsibilities and the Probation Service was tasked with looking after prisoners once they had served their sentence. Kelley was not keen on the idea. With Kelley's encouragement, the Holloway Discharged Prisoners' Aide Society reformed into the ''Griffins Society'', the name coming from the statues of two griffins that had been either side of the entrance gates to Holloway. The Griffins Society provided more services than its previous iteration, including accommodations for discharged prisoners, a meeting ground for imprisoned mothers and their children, a psychotherapy group, and a coffee bar. By 1994, the Society offered five hostels for discharged women, holding up to 65 women, and enabling a great deal of independence to former prisoners seeking to re-establish life after release.

Until 1991, the Prison was staffed by Home Office appointed, female Prison Officers. Male hospital officers from Pentonville were on weekly secondments until 1976. Their mission was to provide support for the agency nurses who worked in Holloway. The first 'Male, basic grade' Prison Officer to be posted to HMP Holloway in its (Female inmates only) history, was Prison Officer (Trg) Thomas Ainsworth, who joined the establishment direct from HMP College Wakefield in May 1991.

After the death from suicide in January 2016 of inmate Sarah Reed, a paranoid schizophrenic being held on remand, the subsequent inquest in July 2017 identified failings in the care system. Shortly after Reed died, a report concluded she was unfit to plead at a trial.

Rebuilding

Holloway's Governor Joanna Kelley was promoted to assistant director of prisons (women) in 1966. In 1967, they began to rebuild Holloway Prison. The previous design had been a "star" design where a single warder could oversee many potentially troublesome prisoners and then act promptly to summon assistance. Kelley felt this was wrong as at the time most women prisoners were not violent. It was her ideas that inspired the redesigned prison based on her experience as governor. The rebuilding was completed in 1977. During that time she had become an OBE in 1973. The new design allowed for "family" groups of sixteen prisoners. Her ideas were in the design of the buildings but her ideas were never enacted.

The redevelopment resulted in the loss of the "grand turreted" gateway to the prison, which had been built in 1851; architectural critic Gavin Stamp later regretted the loss and said that the climate of opinion at the time was such that the Victorian Society felt unable to object.

Use

Holloway Prison held female adults and young offenders remanded or sentenced by the local courts. Accommodation at the prison was mostly single cells; however, there was also some dormitory accommodation.

Holloway Prison offered both full-time and part-time education to inmates, with courses including skills training workshops, British Industrial Cleaning Science (BICS), gardening, and painting.

There was a family-friendly visitors' centre, run by the Prison Advice and Care Trust (pact), an independent charity.

Closure

The then-Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced in his Autumn Statement on 25 November 2015 that the prison would be closed and demolished and the land sold for housing. It closed in July 2016, with the remaining prisoners being moved to HMP Downview and HMP Bronzefield, both in Surrey.

As of September 2017, the prison buildings still stand, with draft proposals for the site including housing, a public open green space, playground, women's centre and a small amount of commercial space.

Notable inmates

Suffragettes

For decades, British campaigners had argued for votes for women. It was only when a number of suffragists, despairing of change through peaceful means, decided to turn to militant protest that the "suffragette" was born. These women broke the law in pursuit of their aims, and many were imprisoned at Holloway for their criminal activity. They were not treated as political prisoners, the authorities arguing they were imprisoned for their vandalism, not their opinions. In protest, some went on hunger strike and were force fed so Holloway has a large symbolic role in the history of women's rights in the UK for those in sympathy with the movement. Suffragettes imprisoned there include Emmeline Pankhurst, Emily Davison, Violet Mary Doudney, Katie Edith Gliddon, Isabella Potbury, Evaline Hilda Burkitt, Georgina Fanny Cheffins, Constance Bryer, Florence Tunks, Janie Terrero, Doreen Allen, Bertha Ryland, Katharine Gatty, Charlotte Despard, Janet Boyd, Genie Sheppard, Mary Ann Aldham, Muriel and Arabella Scott, Alice Maud Shipley, Katherine Douglas Smith, Dora Montefiore, Christabel Pankhurst, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Emily Townsend, Leonora Tyson, Miriam Pratt, Ethel Smyth and the American Alice Paul. Detainees later received the Holloway brooch. In 1912 the anthem of the suffragettes – "The March of the Women", composed by Ethel Smyth with lyrics by Cicely Hamilton – was performed there.

Irish Republicans

Holloway held women closely associated with the Irish Easter Rebellion of 1916 and the women's paramilitary organisation Cumann na mBan: Maud Gonne, Kathleen Clarke, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Constance Markievicz.

Fascists

During World War II, Holloway was used to detain individuals under Defence Regulation 18B, which allowed the internment of persons suspected of posing a threat to national security. Among those held was Diana Mitford, who was later joined by her husband, Sir Oswald Mosley, following a personal intervention by the prime minister, Winston Churchill. The couple was permitted to live together in a cottage within the prison grounds until their release in 1943.

Norah Elam—previously known as Dacre Fox during her suffragette activism in World War I—was also detained under Regulation 18B in 1940. She had been imprisoned multiple times in 1914 and later became associated with the social circle surrounding the Mosleys during their early internment. After her release, Elam became the only former member of the British Union of Fascists known to have been granted a visit with Mosley during his detention.

Fridel Meyer, a German national who was not affiliated with fascist politics, was likewise interned at Holloway in 1939 under Regulation 18B due to her nationality. She was released after six months following the intervention of barrister Norman Birkett.

Executions

Between 1903 and 1955, five judicial executions by hanging were carried out at Holloway Prison:
* Amelia Sach and Annie Walters (3 February 1903)
* Edith Thompson (9 January 1923)
* Styllou Christofi (13 December 1954)
* Ruth Ellis (13 July 1955; last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom)

Following standard practice of the time, the bodies of those executed were buried in unmarked graves within the prison grounds. During a major redevelopment of the prison in 1971, the remains were exhumed. The remains of four of the women—Sach, Walters, Thompson, and Christofi—were reinterred in a shared grave at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey. Ellis was reburied in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church in Amersham. In 2018, Edith Thompson’s remains were moved again and reburied in her parents’ grave at the City of London Cemetery.

Other inmates

Noteworthy inmates that were held at the original 1852-era prison include Oscar Wilde, William Thomas Stead, Isabella Glyn

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