Prisoner with a cause Artist and suffragette Olive Wharry became
active in the Women's Social and Political Union in 1910. In
March 1913, at the age of 27, she was sent to Holloway Prison
for setting fire to the tea pavilion at Kew Gardens. In prison
she went on hunger strike for 32 days. This photograph was taken
on her release, when she weighed just over five and a half stone
(36 kg). Olive Wharry in prison Wharry was arrested eight times
between 1910 and 1914. Her militant acts were in support of the
suffragette movement which fought for women's rights. Her
sentences were characterised by a cycle of hunger strikes,
force-feeding and release under what became known as the 'Cat
and Mouse Act'. Women at Holloway Holloway prison opened in 1852
as the City House of Correction for men and women sentenced to
short terms of imprisonment. From 1902, the prison was reserved
for female prisoners. Between 1906 and 1914 hundreds of militant
suffragettes were imprisoned there, many enduring hunger strikes
and the tortur