The first suffragettes to be sent to prison were Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney, in Manchester in 1905. Suffragettes were first sent to Holloway Prison in October 1906.

Once inside Holloway suffragettes were stripped and made to wear dark green dresses with white arrows marking them as prisoners. (A brooch in the shape of a white arrow was given to suffragettes emerging from prison as a badge of honor.) Their cells were 5 x 7 feet big, and they were confined there for 23 hours a day, with half an hour chapel and half an hour of exercise. They could not speak to one another, and could have no visits or letters for the first 4 weeks – after which they were allowed one letter, and one visit. They were given knitting and sewing to do, a book about housekeeping, and little else.

Annie Kenney described being imprisoned after so much activity outside: "I summed up prison as follows – Too much discipline, too little companionship, too much gloom, too little laughter. There is a sadness, an oppression, in every cell that goes to the building of that great structure."

Photo courtesy of the Museum of London