Photograph of Suffragette Elsa Myers

Photograph of Elsa Myers (1888-1926), Holloway prisoner.

Suffragette Elsa Myres was a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the Tax Resistance League and the Jewish League for Women’s Suffrage. She found it difficult to be an active fighter in the Suffrage campaign because her position as a teacher would have been in jeopardy if she had been imprisoned. In March 1913 her school was closed for a month and she decided to take action smashing a window in the War Office building. She was sentenced under the name Majorie Manners to 1 months imprisonment. She went on hunger strike, was forcibly fed and was released the morning that her school reopened managing to get to work for 9am, her crime undiscovered by the school. The image depicts Elsa proudly wearing the Hunger-strike medal presented to her on her release.