LETTERS: Two autograph letters.
THOUGHTS OF SUFFRAGETTE WHILE IN HOLLOWAY:
“KNOW WE ARE FREER THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD”
Autograph letter signed, “Laura Grey,” ” in Greek script to an unknown “Friend,” from Holloway Prison,
March 10, 1912; in pencil on grey paper, two pages.
Together with:
Autograph letter signed, ““J.L.G.” and addressed to A. Goldner, Princes Skating Club, Knightsbridge,”
March 28, 1912; in pencil, on 4 pages (but centre two pages blank, final page addressed) of WSPU
letterhead.
Together with:
Contemporary press clippings reporting on Grey’s death.
Two rare autograph letters written by Laura Grey [pseud. Joan Lavender Baillie Guthrie] – the notorious
Suffragette who committed suicide in 1914 – one from Holloway prison, another from the offices of the
WSPU.
‘Laura Grey’s death caused a brief but spectacular newspaper sensation. In this case the ‘ruin’ of a wellbrought-
up young woman was associated not only with the familiar evils of drugs, the stage and night
clubs but also with the exotic addition of the very topical phenomenon of window-smashing, imprisonment
and hunger striking – all that denoted involvement in the militant suffragette movement. On the day that
her death was first reported the newspapers were full of reports of police raids on suffragette hide-outs and
of suffragette bombing, arson and a hatchet attack on a painting by Romney in the Birmingham Art
Gallery’ (see http://womanandhersphere.com/tag/holloway-jingles/).
The present letters provide an intimate portrait of her incarceration in Holloway, her state of mind and her
subsequent reaction to her imprisonment. From the outset her commitment to the cause is evident: ‘At last
that fell arrest without all bail has carried me away, though I did have a better run for my money this time –
5 large plate glass windows, but I wish they’d been 100.’ She goes on to comment that she has been held
since the 2nd March and is ‘studiously refusing bail each time to give the authorities a little extra trouble,
and hoping sincerely that this time will be counted off the other end of the sentence.’
Later in the letter she discusses her love of Latin and Greek (‘Told you I’d started the Hellenic Tongue, &
as an elementary exercise have begun on the XXIVth Book of the Iliad. Its very lovely, only the
vocabulary leaves such a lot to the imagination’) with several words written in Greek code, evidently
hoping to avoid the prison censor and alluding, it would seem, to having taken into Holloway Gilbert
ll
Page
52
Murray’s translations of Electra, Medea and (perhaps) Iphigenia in Taurus, quite apt given that Murray
was a strong suffragist. Evidently written to a close family friend, the letter concludes with Grey urging
that ‘though I am proud & glad be able to do this small service, mother seems to consider it rather a blot on
the familys escutcheon so perhaps you would be nice & not mention it to people @ Princes.” The final
‘P.S.’ is particularly poignant, and provides a snapshot of day to day life in Holloway: ‘We just now
having 7 days solitary confinement for a very reasonable protest we made last week, but I can hear my next
door neighbours quoting ‘Love in the Valley’ to each other, so we’re not altogether miserable.’
The second letter, on March 28th, is rather hastily written, the content clearly indicative of why: ‘Have just
been sentenced to 6 months, so shall only walk in spirit round the Serpentine this year. Sad to miss
strawberries but nothing really matters for we captive criminals (Ha! Ha!)’ before concluding ‘Know that
we are freer than anyone else in the world.’
“For some months in the early part of 1912 Lavender had had no need to seek work as she was a prisoner
in Holloway Gaol. She had taken part in the March 1912 WSPU-organised window-smashing campaign.
and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for wilful damage. The window she had broken was that
of Garrards, the famous jewellers, perhaps targeted it as a pr
Print Inquire
