Published by John Murray, March 8th, 2018.
Paperback Feb 2019
LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING, 2019
‘Davies’ absorbing study serves up just enough sensationalism – and eccentricity – along with its serious inquiry’ – Helen Davies, The Sunday Times
‘Caitlin Davies meticulously records a much-needed and balanced history’ – Yvonne Roberts, The Observer
‘A revealing account of the jail’s 164-year history’ – Helen Brown, The Telegraph, 5* stars
‘Readable, compelling and illuminating’ – Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller
‘A rich, superbly researched, definitive history of Holloway’ – Jackie McGlone, The Sunday Herald
The Background to Bad Girls
Holloway Prison in north London was, until recently, Britain’s oldest surviving prison for women and the largest in Western Europe. Built in 1852 as a House of Correction, initially for both men and women, its inmates came from far and wide – whether a ‘witch’ from Scotland, a suffragette from Huddlesfield, a spy from Denmark, or an anti nuclear protestor from Greenham Common. While their ‘crimes’ couldn’t have been more different, their treatment revealed the prejudices of the age.
Were they mad or bad? It was a question that applied equally to suffragettes at the turn of the century and to spies in both world wars. Were the women responsible for their actions, or deluded? And just as importantly, how should they be punished? Bad Girls tells the story of the evolving nature of women and prison, crime and punishment over a 150-year period of UK history.
Today there are around 4000 women behind bars in the UK (five percent of the total prison population) and they are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. There have been calls to close Holloway down ever since the 1930s when one MP wanted it blown up and replaced with a new alternative. In the 1970s, campaigners argued the prison should be phased out altogether. In 2007 Baroness Jean Corston called for radical reform of the women’s estate.
But when in November 2015 the government announced that Holloway Prison would close, it came as news to the women and staff inside, many of whom were in tears. George Osborne explained that, ‘In the future, women prisoners will serve their sentences in more humane conditions, better designed to keep them away from crime.’
Did this mark a moment of real reform when it comes to imprisoning women, or was it more about turning 10 acres of prime real estate into luxury flats?
My fascination with Holloway Prison
I was born and grew up just a mile from Holloway Prison, and it was a landmark that couldn’t be missed. As a six year old I would stand and stare at this Victorian castle, with high turrets and gothic battlements. To my childish eyes all that was missing were a moat and drawbridge, Rapunzel at a window letting down her hair.
It wasn’t the only local prison; Pentonville was half a mile away to the south. But that was for men, while Holloway was for women. I couldn’t understand it. Who were the women and what bad things had they done?
In 1990 I returned to Holloway Prison, the castle had been torn down and replaced with a modern building designed to resemble a hospital. This time I went inside. I was training to become a teacher and about to start my work placement. The weeks I spent at Holloway gave me a whole new understanding of prison.
The summer over, I left England for Botswana, where I worked as a journalist for twelve years. During this time I was twice arrested, put on trial, and almost sent to prison.
I returned to London and once again found myself round the corner from Holloway Prison, when I moved into a house in Upper Holloway. Intrigued by its history I wrote a novel, The Ghost of Lily Painter (Random House, 2011), based on the execution of the first women to be hanged at the prison – Amelia Sach and Annie Walters (pictured below).
While researching the book I met one of the women’s relatives who told me about the impact of the trial, imprisonment and execution on the rest of the family. Even today, she’d been advised never to say whom she was related to.
I also researched the prison’s early years and was surprised to find only one history existed, a 155-page book written by John Camp in 1974. Then in 2014 I was interviewed by a TV company making a Channel 5 documentary on the prison. During filming I heard that the prison had recently unearthed boxes of previously unseen archives, such as the Governor’s journal from the 1940s when several women had occupied the condemned cell.
That was when I knew I had to write a book. And when in November 2015 the government announced that Holloway would close I saw the story had come full circle, I remembered the prison as a child, I worked there as an adult, and now I would be there when they tore it down.
For the past three years I’ve been reading archive newspaper reports, diaries and letters, journals and books, tracking down former prisoners (some of whom can remember Holloway in the 1940s) and staff (whether governors, officers, chaplains, teachers, nurses or psychologists), interviewing the descendants of those imprisoned going back to the 1890s, attending memorial services for those who were executed, journeying to birthplaces and graves, touring archives and museums, interviewing penal reformers and charities.
I’ve been given access to the recently discovered archives, interviewed the last ever Governor of Holloway Prison, Emily Thomas, regularly toured the prison building as it closed down, and spent the day with National Prison Radio discussing the prison’s history with some of the last women ever to be imprisoned here. Because as famous as Holloway might be, no one has ever written the full story of all those locked up inside. I hope to do it justice.
Selected Holloway facts and figures
* Holloway opened in 1852 as a House of Correction for men, boys over the age of 8, and women.
* Its foundation stone contained the following: ‘May God preserve the City of London and make this place a terror to evil doers.’
* In 1902 it became a prison only for women.
* Between 1902 and 1956, 47 women who had been sentenced to death in the UK were held at Holloway.
* Five were executed, one was found insane and 41 were reprieved, including the only two women to be sentenced to death for treason.
* In 1909 Marion Wallace-Dunlop from Scotland became the first suffragette to go on hunger strike, at Holloway Prison.
* During World War Two, hundreds of ‘enemy aliens’ were locked up in Holloway, most Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany
* When Charity Taylor became Governor at Holloway in 1944, she was the first woman to run the prison.
* In 1971 the Victorian prison began to be knocked down, eventually replaced with a new building designed to resemble a hospital and a ‘tree-ringed campus’.
* Women from Greenham Common were jailed at Holloway in the early 1980s, many convicted of public order offences, just like the suffragettes.
Famous Holloway Prisoners
In Victorian times most of Holloway’s inmates were poor, and often homeless, sentenced for stealing coal or sleeping rough. But the media focus was always on those better known inmates, such as Reverend Dale, a ritualist, Edmund Yates, newspaper editor, William Ramsay, a freethinker, William Stead, journalist, Jabez Balfour, financial fraudster, and Oscar Wilde, playwright.
Once Holloway became a prison solely for women, several cases drew a lot of publicity, such as the 19th century medium Swami Laura Horos, and Ethel le Neve lover of Dr Crippen.
And of course once the suffragettes arrived in 1906, Holloway became infamous.
Bad Girls tells the stories of well known figures who were victims of miscarriages of justice, such as Edith Thompson, executed in 1923 after her lover killed her husband.
But it also includes less well known cases, such as Mrs Gordon-Baillie ‘one of the most amazing women swindlers’ of Victorian times, Nellie Cressall a Poplar councillor jailed in the 1920s, and Styllou Christofi, hanged in 1954 for killing her daughter in law.
And it tells the stories of women who have never been written before, as well as the history and role of prison staff – whether a Victorian wardress in 1872, the great reformer Mary Size in the 1930s, or governor Joanna Kelley in the 1960s .
It is a book about victimisation and resistance, of wrongful executions and daring escapes, punishment and refuge, and the political reasons why – over 164 years – women were sent to Holloway Prison.
Read more about the prison on Holloway Prison Stories, a project that ‘shares stories about HMP Holloway, collected and contributed by those who have known it’, and read about the campaign for a Women’s Building on the site at Reclaim Holloway.
Further reviews:
‘Davies explores how society has dealt with disobedient women…and how they’ve failed to silence those who won’t go down without a fight’ – Stylist
‘There are so many fascinating stories in the book. Read it if you want to find out more!’ – Tina Daheley, Woman’s Hour
‘An insightful and thought-provoking book – which makes for a ripping good read’ – Jeremy Corbyn MP
‘Fascinating both for its portrait of larger-than-life women and the ways in which they were regarded by wider society during the 19th and 20th centuries’ – History Revealed
‘A very, very important book’ – Georgina Godwin, Monocle 24
‘The book raises important questions about what constitutes crime and punishment and the extent to which this is determined by changing social mores…It is dense with detail but always readable and engaging…Bad Girls joins my library of non-fiction about women’s experiences in the past, and I know I’ll return to it many times,’ Sheena Wilkinson, the Writers Review
‘A highly readable history…As the group Reclaim Holloway campaigns for the (prison) site to include a Women’s Building to help the community, Davies provides a sympathetic feminist reading of female incarceration by men who could not control them’ – Julie Peakman, Who Do You Think You Are Magazine
‘Davies…focuses unapologetically on the inmates’ stories, and gives us an insight into the processes of her research, recounting visits to the prison, crime scenes, and burial places. All this makes Bad Girls an enjoyable and enlightening read’ – Heather Shore, professor of history at Leeds Beckett University, BBC History Magazine
‘A deeply researched social history of the prison and the women confined in it,’ The Toronto Star
Bad Girls talks & events 2019:
October 16th, Islington History Society, London
October 2nd, Warwick Words History Festival, Warwick
September 14th, Archway with Words, London
June 2nd, Derby Book Festival, Derby
May 14th, Islington & Clerkenwell Guides Association, London
April 16th, Highgate Literary & Scientific Institute, London
March 20th, Housmans Bookshop, London
Bad Girls talks & events 2018:
March 9th, Women of the World Festival, London
March 10th, POW! Festival, Margate
March 13th, Labour Women’s Forum, London
March 24th, Southwark Cathedral, London
March 24th, Museum of London, London
April 6th, Broadstairs Literary Festival, Broadstairs
April 17th, Haunt London, London
April 22nd, Conway Hall, London
April 30th, St Pancras Old Church, London
May 5th, Hexham Book Festival, Northumberland
May 22nd, West Hampstead Library, London
May 27th, Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Norwich
May 30th, Oxford Blackwells, Oxford
June 30th, Queen’s Park Festival, London
July 8th, Lichfield Festival, Staffordshire
August 7th, Finsbury Library, London
August 30th, Cat and Mouse Library, London
September 13th, Highgate Library, London
October 6th, Borderlines Books Festival, Carlisle
October 7th, Durham Book Festival, Durham
November 1st, Kingston University, London
December 12th, Portcullis House, London
Further Reviews:
‘Davies gives ample attention to (the suffragettes’) use of Holloway as an icon of struggle,’ Mary Hannity, London Review of Books
‘The study of Britain’s first female-only prison offers a sympathetic view of the thousands of prisoners and their guards who have spent time within the hulking fortress. Through well-researched accounts of the lives of notable and notorious prisoners, Caitlin asks us to question the role of prisons in society itself….Her compassion for the inmates has produced a must read’ – Emily Finch, Camden New Journal
‘(An) eminently readable and lively history of HMP Holloway’ – former probation officer Mike Guilfoyle, Centre for Crime and Justice
‘Caitlin Davies sets out a compelling study into the women who were held in Holloway, using individual case studies to highlight sometimes appalling miscarriages of justice and vividly illustrate what life was like for both prisoners and the staff who guarded and cared for them,’ Simon Major, The Independent Monitor, the magazine for the Association of Independent Monitoring Boards in prisons.
‘(A) fascinating, immensely readable and often profoundly shocking account of Holloway prison’s 164-year history,’ Susan Elkin, Ink Pellet, the Arts Magazine for Teachers
‘A thoughtful and thought-provoking book’ – Elizabeth Hawksley, Journal of the Islington Archaeology & History Society
‘In Bad Girls Caitlin Davies expertly tells the story of Holloway Prison, largely through its prisoners…The journey on which Davies takes us is always thoughtful, sometimes witty, and never judgemental…an excellent read,’ Paul Begg, Ripperologist Magazine
‘A compelling and easy to read narrative that raises uncomfortable questions for how the justice system has treated women…As a social history, Bad Girls makes a criminally understudied part of our past accessible to all,’ Isaac Little, Warwick Globalist