Photograph, surveillance image

From 1913 the Home Office commissioned an undercover photographer to take surveillance images of Suffragette prisoners as they took exercise in the yard of Holloway prison. The images were widely distributed for the purpose of identifying suffragettes most likely to undertake militant action, including damage to artworks in museums and galleries.
Maude Kate Smith (1881-1977), was a member of the Birmingham branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union from c.1909. She regularly travelled to London to take part in militant action. In March 1912 she was arrested for smashing windows in Oxford Street and sentenced to four months at Winson Green prison, Birmingham. Maud was also arrested and imprisoned for setting fire to a pillar box. This image was probably taken in Holloway prison after May 1914 whilst Maude was serving a 7 month sentence for slashing, with a hatchet, George Clausen’s depiction of a female nude in a work entitled ‘Primavera’, on display in the Royal Academy.
During her periods of imprisonment Maud joined the Suffragette hunger strike. She was fed by force via a nasal tube and suffered permanent damage to her nasal membrane experiencing nose bleeds for many years.
In 1972 Maud recalled her time as a Suffragette for the Solihull News. Within the interview she stated 'I was scared for the whole five years I was a suffragette. I don’t think I am a very courageous person.'