Rearrest of Emmeline Pankhurst

In February 1913 Emmeline Pankhurst was sentenced to three years' penal servitude for inciting persons to place an explosive in a building at Walton, Surrey. In prison she immediately went on hunger strike and over the following five months she was repeatedly released and rearrested under the terms of the Cat and Mouse act. This photograph shows Emmeline being rearrested on 26th May whilst recuperating at the home of the composer Ethel Smyth in Woking, Surrey. Shading herself from the heat, Emmeline dressed in a grey suit and still weakened by hunger strike is here seen fainting back on the knee of Ethel. She is also accompanied by Nurse Pine and Dr Flora Murray who always cared for her whilst she recovered from periods of hunger strike.