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Docile Suffragettes? Resistance to Police Photography and the Possibility of Object–Subject Transformation

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Abstract

This paper provides a revisionist account of the authority and power of the criminal mugshot. Dominant theories in the field have tended to focus on the ways in which mugshots have been used as a way of disciplining criminal bodies and rendering them docile. It is argued here that additional emphasis could usefully be placed on stories of resistance in which the monological production site of the prison or police station transforms into a dialogical site, in which the objects of police photography can acquire agency. These issues are explored with particular reference to a set of photographs of English suffragettes acquired by the police for surveillance purposes. The suffragette’s refusal to comply with requests to have their photographs taken is used as a case study through which to examine the ways in which conventions about the form of the mugshot can be subverted, ideas about the types of people who were the object/subject of mugshots disrupted and the assumption of documentary neutrality undermined.

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Notes

  1. But see Schwan (2013), Dodge and Forward (2006).

  2. The best academic account to date is that provided by Crawford (2005).

  3. This applies to Gertrude Ansell (7); Mary Richardson (11); Kitty Marion (13); Jennie Baines (17).

  4. This applies to Olive Hockin (2) Gertrude Ansell (7); Lillian Lenton (12); Kitty Marion (13); Jennie Baines (17).

  5. See further Mary Raleigh Richardson by unknown photographer (1918) and Kitty Marion by Bassano Ltd (1914). Other examples of portraits of suffragettes in the National Portrait gallery include Dame Christabel Pankhurst by Ethel Wright (1909); Emmeline Pankhurst by Georgina Agnes Brackenbury (1929); Charlotte Despard by Mary Edis, Lady Bennett (1916); Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence by Henry Coller (1933).

  6. See for instance Keir Hardie by Sylvia Pankhurst.

  7. The first militant act is generally considered to be marked by Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney disrupting an election meeting at the Free Trade Hall (Tickner 1987).

  8. These include details of their names, year born, height, eye colour, hair colour, criminal record office number and crime committed. See further Mohamed (2013, 123). The Criminal record Office also issued fliers with details of a more limited number of suffragettes. See for instance Criminal Record Office (1914c).

  9. For more information on the sort of information collected in England see Dodge and Forward (2006) and National Archives (1873).

  10. See Byrnes (1866) which includes a range of photographs of criminals which are restricted to the head and shoulders pose.

  11. See further National Archives (1873, 1897).

  12. See for example Miriam Pratt (18), Maud Brindley (8), Gertrude Ansell (7) Mary Wyan (4) and Verity Oates (9). Not all of these photographs appear to have been taken in prison. See for instance Mary Wyan (4) and Annie Bell (5).

  13. See generally the MePol 2/1310 series at the National Archives.

  14. Although the National Portrait Gallery catalogue suggests that the photographer was from the Criminal Records Office, the style of the photograph and Marion’s profession suggest it was more likely to have been a carte de visite on sale to the public.

  15. It has been suggested that many poor women also actively sought imprisonment because they often felt they were safer there (Dodge and Forward 2006).

  16. See further Women’s Suffrage Collection Photographs Portraits s-Z Group photographs, 53.140/59 Museum of London (undated). The original version of this photograph can be seen in Atkinson (1996, 142) and in the Museum of London 50.82/1481 (1913).

  17. It has been claimed that the art work and imagery of Sylvia Pankhurst gave the WSPU a particularly coherent visual identity. Somewhat ironically for the modern feminist these outputs also reminded onlookers that many of the suffragettes were accomplished in traditional female skills of drawing, sewing and needlework (Atkinson 1996).

  18. Significantly Arthur Barret was also the person who took the now famous photograph of Mrs Pankhurst in the dock at Bow Magistrates court. A surviving Pathé (1955) film shows him explaining how the photograph was taken.

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Acknowledgments

My thanks go to Patrizio diBello for inspiring me to write this article and for her comments on earlier drafts, to the librarians at the Museum of London, Women’s Library at the LSE and the National Archives for their help and guidance and to Julie McCandless and Katherine Biber for their helpful comments on the draft.

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  1. Department of Law, LSE, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    Linda Mulcahy

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Correspondence to Linda Mulcahy.

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Mulcahy, L. Docile Suffragettes? Resistance to Police Photography and the Possibility of Object–Subject Transformation. Fem Leg Stud 23, 79–99 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-015-9280-x

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