Surveillance image of a Suffragette prisoner

Surveillance photograph mounted on card of a suffragette, probably exercising in the yard of Holloway prison, taken by an undercover police photographer.
Elsie Cummins appears on the ‘Roll of Honour of Suffragette Prisoners 1905-1914’, a list compiled by the Suffragette Fellowship in around 1950. In 2010 a Holloway prison brooch engraved with the name Elsie Cummins and the date July 1909 was auctioned by Bonhams. This indicates that Cummins was a member of militant suffragette organisation the Women’s Social and Political Union.
Scotland Yard undertook covert photography of militant suffragettes from 1913. The images were used to identify suffragettes attempting to enter public buildings such as museums and art galleries, where they might attempt to damage the objects.