SUFFRAGE – HOLLOWAY PRISON Collection of letters and papers relating to Frances and Margar...

SUFFRAGE – HOLLOWAY PRISON Collection of letters and papers relating to Scottish suffragettes, Frances and Margaret McPhun, including a series of letters smuggled out of Holloway Prison, and a letter from Christabel Pankhurst, comprising: i) Series of five autograph letters signed ('Frances', 'Fanny', 'Fanny Campbell') to fellow suffragette Laura Underwood ('Dear Miss Underwood'): the first written from Holloway whilst on remand ('...I was sent off in Black Maria before the other Scotch people... the most dreadful hole of a cell... so dark... & so stuffy...'), fearing for her sister Margaret, and speculating on rumours of punitive sentences; the second shocked at her punishment ('...2 months hard labour for 4/- damage!...') and giving instructions for breaking the news to the family ('...Robert must hear first...'); with a 'list of things sent' including nightwear ('...please send parcel of lux...'); the next reporting her delight at having won privileges through hunger strike ('...a splendid weapon... for a few weeks it was pandemonium here...'), describing force feeding by the cup ('...the doctor and nurse rushed in, a sheet was thrown round me, and I was held down in a chair and two pints of milk were poured down my throat. Don't gasp with horror...'), Janie Allan's '...brave fight... she barricaded her cell and it took 3 men with iron bars ¾ hour to break in...', and that of Miss Hudson fed by nasal tube ('...using her head as a battering ram she kept them at bay... the fat nurse reposed on her tummy, a wardress on each foot, the doctor supporting her head between his knees!... One girl was hurt – her nose bled and she was unconscious for some minutes...'); the next expressing anger at their punishment and the lack of books and food ('...dry and uneatable...'), but that it '...was fun to see Dr Ethel Smyth packing away cigarettes in the legs of her combinations!... Dr Garrett Anderson is in the cell under me – 6 weeks hard labour!...'; the last complaining of cruel wardresses, on exercising with '...little Miss Crawford. She receives me with tears in her eyes, she is lucky, only got one month, not having hard labour... Then she has the satisfaction of doing 10/ worth damage... I wish I had smashed the whole place and Mr Curtis Bennets head!...', has not bathed ('...I shall look quite prehistoric in a few weeks!...'), continuing on an envelope the following day ('...I have to carry my paper about with me in my coat pocket in case they find it and take it away...'), and has been moved to a freezing cell ('...We are all asking to see the Governor... but he never turns up...') 15 pages, in pencil and later ink, five pages on official Holloway Prison notepaper, one with printed prison regulations on reverse, another on a scrap of WSPU headed paper, two pages on lined paper torn from an exercise book, four from a notebook with perforated top edges, dust-staining, marks and creases, small tears, 4to and 8vo, Holloway Prison, March 1912 ii) Two autograph letters from Margaret McPhun to her brother Robert ( 'My dear Robert'), the first unsigned and incomplete, in pencil, on the post ('...I am smuggling it out...'), noting her 'vindictive' sentence is '...the greatest possible help to the cause...', finding hard labour is not difficult ('...merely sewing shirts for the convicts – wearisome and monotonous, but not killing...'), describing her cell ('...a chair and plank bed... straw mattress... small window high up... The view is not inspiring...'), her proximity to the ash pit ('...smoke and dust ascend like incense to my window... one of the events of the day...') and mentioning the food ('...diet is not bad – oceans of hot milk and mountains of bread. The meat... is uneatable but we are down as vegetarians and get an egg every day...'); the second advising him they have been on hunger strike to obtain 'Churchill Privileges' for all suffrage prisoners ('...worth while making a stand for the principle of the thing. So we started on Tuesday morning... My next meal was yesterday about 3pm – egg and milk administered very much against my will... To tell the truth I felt wonderfully well... We have just had our first solid meal today...'), delighted with their success and, as a result, asking for provisions to be sent in ('...One jar Wyeth's Meat Juice (Chemist)/ ½lb butter (butter here is awful)... in 2 parcels – one to each of us...'), on official Holloway Prison notepaper under the alias 'M. Campbell', 12 pages, top edge of 8 pages perforated, dust-staining, marks and creased, 8vo (135 x 88mm.) and 4to (238 x 186mm.), Holloway, 30 March 1912 and 19 April 1912 iii) Autograph letter signed ('Christabel Pankhurst') to 'Miss McPhun' [probably Margaret], apologising for a mistake relating to her report in the Suffragette ('...the paper is a great problem every week...'), and hoping she will write an article on the South Lanark election '...not withstanding past contré temps...', ending '...You must have been shocked to hear of the Governments new attack upon mother... it certainly moves women!...', note in another hand 'Letter from Christabel Pankhurst' at head, four pages on a bifolium, dust-staining, creased at folds, 8vo (190 x 150mm.), 11 avenue de la Grande Armée, Paris, 6 December 1913; with autograph envelope bearing docket 'Letter from Christabel Pankhurst and one from Janie Allan smuggled out of prison' [the latter not present] iv) Other papers including: manuscript biographies of the sisters, the second page bearing note stating 'Copy sent to Mrs Duval'; with three photographic postcards (portrait of Frances and WSPU processions in Edinburgh); cabinet card of Margaret, Frances and Nessie McPhun as children, by F. Wunder Sohn of Hannover, 104 x 65mm.; and Frances McPhun's certificate from University of Glasgow, 1901-2 Footnotes: 'A SHEET WAS THROWN ROUND ME, AND I WAS HELD DOWN IN A CHAIR... THE HUNGER STRIKE IS A SPLENDID WEAPON': AN EXTRAORDINARY SERIES OF LETTERS BY THE MCPHUN SISTERS FROM INSIDE HOLLOWAY PRISON, describing at first hand the conditions experienced by suffragettes and the harshness of forcible feeding. Smuggled out of Holloway Prison, this remarkable collection documents reveal the harsh sentences meted out to women arrested during the window smashing campaign of March 1912, and the conditions in which they found themselves. Railing at the unfairness of their punishment throughout the correspondence, the sisters remain angry and defiant. Most striking is the description by Frances of hunger strike and forcible feeding, believed by both sisters to be a necessary tool to achieve their aims, showing the bravery and fierce determination shown by their fellow inmates. Their issue was with the so-called 'Churchill Privileges', brought in by Winston Churchill as Home Secretary, which gave suffragist prisoners permission to write and receive letters, to see a visitor once a month and to receive food from the outside. These privileges, however, were negated once the sentence of 'hard labour' was added: '...a piece of vindictiveness...', writes Margaret, and their only option was to take a stand ('...we are determined to 'strike'...'). Both sisters, according to this account '...stood it very well...' but after several days fasting, they were subjected to forcible feeding by their captors. Both sisters opted for the feeding cup, rather than a nasal tube, but it was clearly still a distressing experience. Margaret, unlike Frances, is surprisingly positive about the conditions and the food, and both are keen to keep the more harrowing details from their Aunt Mary ('... we describe the life here in such glowing terms that you would think that it was a For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing