'Bold bad ones' in stitches: WSPU suffragettes' embroidery sewn in and about Holloway prison, 1910-1912

From the middle of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, British women fought valiantly for the right to vote. They circulated petitions, disrupted speeches, chained themselves to fences, defaced public and private property, set fires, threw stones, broke windows and detonated bombs. These militant civil disobedient acts landed many suffragettes in jail. Who were these women? In this chapter, I focus on five needlework signature pieces embroidered by ordinary women in a formidable fight and under extraordinary circumstances in and about Holloway Prison, London. These women stitched under the harshest of conditions to leave a memorial of the great battles they endured to secure the vote for all women.