Prisons & Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences

by Lady Constance Lytton

During the morning, following on my “application,” I was visited by the medical officer. I put the request, as ordered by the Matron, of wearing my nightgown in the day time. He turned to the wardress and said, “What an extraordinary request to put before a doctor. That has nothing to do with me.” I explained that the leaving off of this garment would probably affect my health injuriously, but as it was contrary to prison discipline a doctor’s permit was required. He made some contemptuous remarks, but, when pressed, reluctantly gave his consent. This seems a very trifling incident as I record it here, but I vividly remember how it seemed another link in the chain of degradation which is forged afresh continuously around every prisoner. Some exceptional treatment becomes necessary, one is ordered to apply for it through some particular channel, on application the prisoner is refused, reproved or laughed at, as if this were a fresh instance of misdeed or foolishness. In this instance I reminded the doctor that the authorities were anxious that my health should be good at my release, and that in making this request I was assisting them, otherwise I should prefer to go without a privilege which would not be extended equally to all prisoners under like conditions. I had intended bringing forward the question of ventilation, but felt that it would be useless to appeal to this particular official, who had invariably treated all my requests as unreasonable. On looking back after my release on this man’s conduct, it has occurred to me that possibly he adopted his attitude towards me from a righteous indignation at the orders for specially favourable treatment which were ordered for my case from headquarters. I have heard from other Suffragette prisoners and also from ordinary prisoners of his considerate kindness to them on several occasions. I afterwards told the Chief Medical Officer about the airlessness of these cells, I think with some effect.

We were exercised in the morning, not in the afternoon as from the hospital. It was a moment of great delight to see my companions in the yard, where I had a better view of them than at associated labour. We were exercised in sections of about sixteen at a time for an hour, in the central yard of the prison, as it seemed, a triangular yard flanked by high walls of the oldest blocks of cells and adjoining the high central tower, which enables Holloway prison to stand as a landmark for many miles distant. It can be seen from the Great Northern Railway on the line between Holloway and Finsbury Park Stations. I never look at it without recalling the sensations that gripped my soul and checked my breath when I first set eyes on this inner yard. It seemed the quintessence of prison, the very heart of it. The length of each side of the rough, triangular formation is, I should think, about twenty-four feet. The walls facing south-west and east are very high, so that a deep shadow lies across the yard at all hours; on the right, as we entered from D X, is a low walled building used apparently, for cooking and laundry purposes and facing south. This seems to be a more modern erection, and from its low, single-storey construction is responsible for most of the sunlight allowed to enter the enclosure. The remarkable feature of the yard, which caused the first feeling of horror that has remained a nightmare in my mind ever since, is the tier upon tier of cell shutters, they could not be called windows, in the two high walls giving on to the yard. They are designed to let in the very minimum of light or air, the shuttered layers of wood are, moreover, coated with refuse of the pigeons which fly freely about the yard, and are in every other respect a great delight to prisoners. The prison from here looks like a great hive of human creeping things impelled to their joyless labours and unwilling seclusion by some hidden force, the very reverse of natural, and which has in it no element of organic life, cohesion, or self-sufficing reason. A hive of hideous purpose from which flows back day by day into the surrounding city a stream of evil honey, blackened in the making and poisonous in result. The high central tower seemed to me a jam pot, indicative of the foul preserve that seethed within this factory for potting human souls.

Sometimes, in momentary reaction from the pent-up feelings of indignation and revolt, which were chronic with me during my imprisonments, I could have laughed out loud at the imbecility and pathos of human fallibility, that civilised (?) educated beings could continue such processes by way of ridding themselves from the dangers and active harmfulness of crime. Wardresses stood at different points of the yard. Whenever in our march round there was a tendency for the single file to draw closer together, the wardresses would say nothing, but catch hold of one of us by the arm until the spacing was again correct. This handling of prisoners instead of appealing to their ordinary intelligence was typical of the mistaken routine, as in hospital, imposed upon prison officials.

Once, to my delight, I recognised among these superintending wardresses one who had been with us, and exceptionally kind, in hospital. I hoped that she would manage somehow to give me news of Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and possibly also of my friend with the injured leg, whose fate I thought must surely have filtered through to the wardresses. For some days no opportunity occurred, although this officer smiled at me once or twice with a friendly recognition that was quite unofficial, but only at carefully chosen moments, showing that such a smile would not be allowed by higher authorities. At last, when I purposely crowded up rather near to the prisoner ahead of me, she took the opportunity to check my progress by putting her arm in front of me in the recognised fashion, meanwhile telling me in a hasty whisper and without looking at me, just as prisoners communicate, that Mrs. Lawrence was well, but that Mrs. Macdonald had been found to have a fractured hip-joint and would have to stay in hospital a long while.

Although my cell was considerably warmer than that in the hospital, I still had not grown accustomed to the insufficiency of my underclothing, and as now there was no worse condition of things ahead of me I put into use the strip of flannel that had been given me for knee-binders. I found that either they slipped off immediately or had to be bound so tight that they impeded circulation and the free use of the limbs. As one had to be constantly kneeling down for bed making, etc., this device proved quite impracticable. Fearing lest fresh suggestion on my part would have to be passed by a series of officials and finally submitted to the judgment of a doctor who might, as in the nightgown question, satirically exclaim that this was a point not suitable to put to him, I took advantage of the light that was left on all night, and during the uninspected hours sewed the strips of flannel on to the flannel drawers; this enabled me to tuck them into the stockings knickerbocker-wise.

The chaplain kindly came to visit me and remained for quite a long talk. He is the only male prison official who visits the prisoners without an attendant, the Governor and Deputy Governor being accompanied generally by the Matron, and the medical officer by a hospital attendant or wardress. He told me that many prisoners after release wrote to him with gratitude for his kindness and help; nevertheless he seemed to me to have but little fellow-feeling for the flocks he shepherded in Holloway. I appealed to him, in a way I had not been able to do within hearing of the other patients in the hospital, about the case of Mrs. Macdonald. I told how it seemed to me an instance of the way in which prison officials left to themselves could not possibly have shown such brutality and neglect as was actually the case, had not the tradition of the prison system exacted a lower standard of conduct than was natural. I summed up the special grievances—her being made to walk across the yard, to walk up the three flights of stairs, being left a whole day in her cell before being conveyed to hospital, the refusal of the doctors to use the X-rays for investigation in the first instance, the contempt with which they had ignored the suggestions of this unusually intelligent woman, the refusal to allow her to see a doctor from outside when she was dissatisfied with their diagnosis, in spite of the fact that she could not in any sense be regarded as a criminal, having been charged for “obstruction” only when on a perfectly peaceable deputation to the House of Commons. The difficulties put in the way of her communication with her husband relative to her release. The cruel, needless physical suffering as well as mental worry which such treatment had entailed, perhaps resulting in maiming her for life. He had no word of sympathy to offer in connection with this case, and when I compared the treatment with that meted out to myself, when much greater consideration was shown with much less need, he took the official line that all that was done by officials must be right, and that his own wife had had a similar fall, some friends had advised X-rays, others had said they would be useless. Nothing was done, the injury turned out to be slight and her recovery had been complete. At the time he was using such arguments to me, it was already known that in Mrs. Macdonald’s case the hip-joint had been fractured.

I know that it is a very serious matter to tell of these things in a published book. I shall be reminded that officials are unable to answer back or to defend themselves in public. It must, however, be remembered that prisoners are in a yet more defenceless position, and that having personally witnessed and experienced the effect on prisoners of certain kinds of official infallibility, it is a matter of conscience to speak out. But in all these instances it is the bad tradition, the wrong standard of conduct exacted, not the personal character of officials, that has to be attacked. This chaplain, given ordinary surroundings, would no doubt be according to his light a well-meaning, and according to his powers a well-doing man. If his work were in a West End parish or in a rural district among people whom he genuinely revered, I can conceive that his sympathy and understanding would be considerable. The blame of his attitude towards prisoners should rest on those who selected him for a prison job and on the many elements responsible for a system which instils contempt for the prisoner as a fundamental tenet of the prison official. I was told by a fellow-prisoner, a Suffragette, who on admission had entered her religious beliefs under the title “atheist,” that this chaplain several times discussed religious matters with her in a spirit of tolerant reverence for points of view differing from his own. The combination of the two offices, priest and prison official, seem to be almost incompatible, anyhow while the prison system rests upon its present basis. It would be more suitable if religious and moral teachers could come into the prison solely as representatives of the ethical bodies they represent. They could then offer their spiritual guidance and consolations to the unfortunate inmates, as they would to free individuals, without in any way compromising the “system” or the officials who have to carry it out.

On Sunday we were allowed to go to Holy Communion. This impressed one very strangely. An attempt was made to treat one more freely, combined with many of the same restrictions as at other times. There were about ten or twelve women altogether, of whom about six were Suffragettes. To our great delight Mrs. Lawrence was one of them. It seemed ages since I had left her, and I was delighted to see her again. The beautiful words of the service were almost more than one could bear, and every one of them seemed to contain freedom. It seemed as if we must be holding it privately among ourselves. “Drink ye all of this, for this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins: Do this as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of Me.” Yet there was the wardress with her face from which neither good nor bad could be told, neither kind nor unkind, and the face of the parson which seemed of the very nature of officialdom. After the service we left the chapel by different doors, Mrs. Lawrence’s batch and ours, and we did not see each other again.

The next morning when we were returning, through the many halls of the building, single file, our huge boots ringing out on the stone floor, at one door a hospital superintendent stood and said to each one as she passed: “Any application for the doctor?” When it came to my turn, I saw that it was my friend from the hospital, but no look of recognition betrayed itself in her face. She put out her arm to stop me and wheeled me round to the back. When several others had passed her she turned to me, began quickly undoing my dress and said rapidly, but with still no look of recognition: “Well, have you been all right?” “Oh, yes,” I said, “but surely you are not going to look at it here?” She made no answer, but began to inspect me even more quickly. I insisted on turning my back on the long file which seemed never to end. She asked kindly questions, and said she would come and see the other wound that afternoon. She did not come, however, but sent one of the younger superintendents. She came once in the early morning, and it was very nice to see her again; it was the last time.