HM Prison Holloway

Holloway's Governor Joanna Kelley was promoted to Assistant Director of Prisons (Women) in 1966.[4] 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. It was completed in 1977.[5] During that time she had become an OBE in 1973.[9] 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.[4]

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.[10]

Holloway visitor centre

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.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced in his Autumn Statement on 25 November 2015 that the prison would close and would be sold for housing.[11][2] It closed in July 2016, with prisoners being moved to HMP Downview and HMP Bronzefield, .[12]

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.[13]

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, where they were treated as common criminals, not political prisoners. In protest, some went on hunger strike and were force fed[3] so Holloway has a large symbolic role in the history of women's rights in the UK. 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, Mary Richardson, Muriel and Arabella Scott, Alice Maud Shipley, Katherine Douglas Smith, Dora Montefiore, Christabel Pankhurst,[14] Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Leonora Tyson, Ethel Smyth and the American Alice Paul. In 1912 the anthem of the suffragettes - "The March of the Women", composed by Ethel Smyth with lyrics by Cicely Hamilton - was performed there.[15]

Holloway held three important people closely associated with the Easter Rebellion of 1916: Maud Gonne MacBride, Kathleen Clarke and Countess Markievicz.

Holloway held Diana Mitford under Defence Regulation 18B during World War II, and after a personal intervention from Prime Minister Winston Churchill, her husband Sir Oswald Mosley was moved there. The couple lived together in a cottage in the prison grounds. They were released in 1943.

Norah Elam had the distinction of being detained during both World Wars, three times during 1914 as a suffragette prisoner under the name Dacre Fox, then as a detainee under Regulation 18B in 1940, when she was part of the social circle that gathered around the Mosleys during their early internment period. Later, after her release, Elam had the further distinction of being the only former member of the British Union of Fascists to be granted a visit with Oswald Mosley during his period of detention there.[16]

A total of five judicial executions by hanging took place at Holloway Prison between 1903 and 1955:

The double execution of Sach and Walters 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)

The bodies of all executed prisoners were buried in unmarked graves within the walls of the prison, as was customary. In 1971 the prison underwent an extensive programme of rebuilding, during which the remains of all the executed women were exhumed. With the exception of Ruth Ellis (who was reburied in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Old Amersham), the remains of the four other women were subsequently reburied in a single grave at Brookwood Cemetery near Woking, Surrey. In 2018, the remains of Edith Thompson were reburied in her parents’ grave in the City of London Cemetery.

Noteworthy inmates that were held at the original 1852-era prison include Oscar Wilde,[17] William Thomas Stead, Isabella Glyn, F. Digby Hardy, Kitty Byron, Lady Ida Sitwell, wife of Sir George Sitwell, and Kate Meyrick the 'Night Club Queen'.

More recently it housed, in 1966, Moors murderess Myra Hindley; in 1967, Kim Newell, a Welsh woman who was involved in the Red Mini Murder; also in the late 1960s, National Socialist supporter Françoise Dior, charged with arson against synagogues; in 1977, American Joyce McKinney of the "Manacled Mormon case"; Sheila Bowler, the music teacher wrongly imprisoned for the murder of her elderly aunt, was detained there before being transferred to Bullwood Hall;[18] and in 2002, Maxine Carr, who gave a false alibi for Soham murderer Ian Huntley.

Other inmates included Amie Bartholomew, Emma Last, Matthew Etherington, Alison Walder, Jayne Richards, the Tinsel Fight Murderer, Bella Coll, and Chantal McCorkle and Emma Humphreys.[19]

In 2014 disgraced judge and barrister Constance Briscoe began a 16 month sentence at the prison.[20]

On 11 January 2016, Sarah Reed, an inmate at Holloway, was found dead in her cell. Her family were told by prison staff that she had strangled herself while lying on her bed.[27] For The Observer, Yvonne Roberts wrote "Sarah's final days were harrowing. She was hallucinating, chanting, without the medication she had relied on for years, sleepless, complaining a demon punched her awake at night. She was on a basic regime, punishment for what was classed as bad behaviour. In spite of her mental and physical fragility, she was isolated, the cell hatch closed, without hot water, heating or a properly cleaned cell. 'For safety and security' a four-strong 'lockdown' team of prison officers delivered basic care."[28] Observations of Reed had been cut to only one an hour though she was obviously severely psychotic, had threatened suicide and had self harmed.[29] A prison officer told Reed's mother, "We deal with restraint and maintaining the law. We're not designed to deal with health issues."[30]

The jury at her inquest decided that Reed took her own life when the balance of her mind was disturbed, but were unclear whether she had intended to kill herself. They said failure to manage her medication and the failure to complete the fitness to plead assessment in a reasonable time were factors in her death. The jury were also concerned about how Reed was monitored and claimed Reed received inadequate treatment in prison for her distress.[31]

Deborah Coles of Inquest said: "Sarah Reed was a woman in torment, imprisoned for the sake of two medical assessments to confirm what was resoundingly clear, that she needed specialist care not prison. Her death was a result of multi-agency failures to protect a woman in crisis. Instead of providing her with adequate support, the prison treated her ill mental health as a discipline, control and containment issue."[31]

• One of the characters in the 1997 Canadian sci-fi/horror movie Cube is named after Holloway Prison.

• In Elizabeth George's 1994 novel Playing for the Ashes, a character is expected to be sent to Holloway if convicted.[32]
• In Dorothy L. Sayers's novel Strong Poison, Harriet Vane is held in HM Holloway Prison during the trial.

• Belle and Sebastian's "The Boy with the Arab Strap" draws inspiration from a drive past the prison for the first verse.
• The band Bush wrote a song about the prison called "Personal Holloway," on their album Razorblade Suitcase.
• The Kinks' "Holloway Jail" appears on Muswell Hillbillies.[33]
• Marillion's song "Holloway Girl" is on their album Seasons End.
• Million Dead have "Holloway Prison Blues" on their album Harmony No Harmony.
• In Potter Payper's 2013 album Training day, it is mentioned his mother attended Holloway prison in the song ‘Purple Rain’- “ 99 they said my mummy went on holiday, I found out my mummy was in Holloway“

• In the Thames Television series Rumpole Of The Bailey episode "Rumpole and the Alternative Society," the girl whom Rumpole was defending (until she admitted her guilt to him) was sentenced to three years imprisonment which she served at HM Holloway Prison.
• In the TV series Upstairs, Downstairs, the second-season episode "A Special Mischief" has Elizabeth Bellamy joining a band of suffragettes who go out one night vandalising wealthy homes. Rose, the parlourmaid, follows them; they are apprehended by the police. Rose is mistakenly thought to be a suffragette and is put in a ladies' prison, and Holloway is very much implied. Elizabeth is spared going to jail as her bail is paid for by Julius Karekin, one the rich men being targeted. Elizabeth and Karekin bail Rose out of prison.[34]

Caitlin Davies has written Bad Girls (published by John Murray), a history of Holloway Prison. The prison closed in July 2016; the site is being redeveloped for housing. Davies was the only journalist granted access to the prison and its archives.