Holloway Prison: Representations and Realities in the History of a Women’s Prison, 1902 to 1955

Abstract

This article explores the media and cultural representations of HMP Holloway, London, England between 1902 and 1955 and contrasts this with the realities of the day-to-day female population and experience in the institution. Drawing on extensive historical analysis, the research examines how representations of the prison, and the women held within it, both titillated the public and reinforced existing or prevailing popular stereotypes about women’s criminality and imprisonment in the first half of the twentieth century. These representations contributed to a distinctive and ferocious reputation, that cemented Holloway’s notoriety in the popular imagination notwithstanding the contrasting realities of the institution.