Photograph, surveillance image

This surveillance photograph was taken by an undercover police photographer as Olive exercised in the yard of Holloway prison.
Olive Beamish (1890-1978) joined the Women’s Social and Political Union at the age of 16 and worked for them on her graduation from Cambridge in 1912. Imprisoned after being found in possession of incendiary materials, Beamish was released under the ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act and evaded the police. She was imprisoned again for burning down Lady White’s house in Egham, Surrey, in March 1913 when it is likely this photograph was taken. From 1914 Beamish worked with Sylvia Pankhurst’s East London Federation of Suffragettes. Scotland Yard undertook covert photography of militant suffragettes from 1913. The images were used to identify suffragettes attempting to enter public buildings such as museums and art galleries, where they might attempt to damage the objects.