page_title: Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton
section_title: (1910) Jane Warton in Liverpool, Walton gaol
hierarchical_section_title: Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton / Women's suffrage / (1910) Jane Warton in Liverpool, Walton gaol
caption_attribution_description: English: Lady Constance Lytton and A Kenney. This picture was taken by Colonel Linley Blathwayt and was stored on glass negatives. The Blathwayt's home of Eagle House way the home of Linley, Emily and Mary Blathwayt who all actively supported the suffragette cause. Nearly all the prominient UK suffragettes stayed with them and these photos and dozens of trees were planted to commemorate their visits. Col. Linley Blathwayt took these pictures between 1908 and 1912. He died in 1919. The pictures are made available in larger formats by BathInTime.co.uk.
context_page_description: Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton, usually known as Constance Lytton, was an influential British suffragette activist, writer, speaker and campaigner for prison reform, votes for women, and birth control. She sometimes used the name Jane Warton.
  Although born and raised in the privileged ruling class of British society, Lytton rejected this background to join the Women's Social and Political Union, the most militant group of suffragette activists campaigning for "Votes for Women".
  She was subsequently imprisoned four times, including once in Walton gaol in Liverpool under the nom de guerre of Jane Warton, where she was force fed while on hunger strike. She chose the alias and disguise of Jane Warton, an 'ugly London seamstress', to avoid receiving special treatment and privileges because of her family connections: she was the daughter of a viceroy and the sister of a member of the House of Lords. She wrote pamphlets on women's rights, articles in The Times newspaper, and a book on her experiences, Prisons and Prisoners, which was published in 1914.
context_section_description: In January 1910, convinced that poorer prisoners were treated badly, Lytton travelled to Liverpool disguised as a working-class London seamstress named Jane Warton. In disguise whe spoke at an event with Jennie Baines and Patricia Woodlock and led a procession to the Prison Governor's house demanding the 'stain' of force-feeding be removed from Liverpool. She was arrested after an incident of rocks being thrown at an MP's car, imprisoned in Walton gaol for 14 days 'hard labour' and force-fed 8 times. After her release, although desperately weak, she wrote accounts of her experience for The Times and Votes for Women (the monthly journal of the WSPU, launched in 1907). She went on to lecture on the subject of her experience of the conditions which suffragette prisoners endured. It's thought that her speeches and letters helped to end the practice of force-feeding.
  Lytton wrote of the Jane Warton episode in Prisons and Prisoners, (Chapter XII-Jane Warton) and (Chapter XIII-Walton Gaol, Liverpool: My Third Imprisonment).
  I joined the W.S.P.U. again, filling up the membership card as Miss Jane Warton. The choice of a name had been easy. When I came out of Holloway Prison, a distant relative, by name Mr. F. Warburton, wrote me an appreciative letter, ...  but Warburton was too distinguished a name; that would at once attract attention. I must leave out the "bur" and make it "Warton." "Jane" was the name of Joan of Arc (for Jeanne is more often translated into "Jane" than "Joan") and would bring me comfort in distress.
  I accomplished my disguise in Manchester, going to a different shop for every part of it, for safety's sake. I had noticed several times while I was in prison that prisoners of unprepossessing appearance obtained least favour, so I was determined to put ugliness to the test. I had my hair cut short and parted, in early Victorian fashion, in smooth bands down the side of my face. This, combined with the resentful bristles of my newly-cut back hair, produced a curious effect. I wished to bleach my hair as well, but the hairdresser refused point-blank to do this, and the stuff that I bought for the purpose at the chemist's proved quite ineffective. A tweed hat, a long green cloth coat, which I purchased for 8s. 6d., a woollen scarf and woollen gloves, a white silk neck-kerchief, a pair of pince-nez spectacles, a purse, a net-bag to contain some of my papers, and my costume was complete. I had removed my own initials from my underclothing, and bought the ready-made initials "J.W." to sew on in their stead, but to my regret I had not time to achieve this finishing touch.
  I returned to the house of my friends, selected from their garden small, flat stones in case of need, which I wrapped in paper, and snatched a hasty meal. My kind hostess had heard that I was a vegetarian, and had provided a most appetising dish of stewed white pears.
  The police then took hold of me. As for once it was my object above all else to get arrested and imprisoned, I began discharging my stones, not throwing them, but limply dropping them over the hedge into the Governor's garden. One of them just touched the shoulder of a man who had rushed up on seeing me arrested. I apologised to him. Two policemen then held me fast by the arms and marched me off to the police station.
caption: She was invited to Eagle House in Batheaston in 1910 where the leading suffragettes planted trees to commemorate their work. Here pictured with Annie Kenney
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