Chapel and Administration Block

Details

This List entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 6 January 2019.
This List entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 5 June 2018.

SJ 39 NE
1/645

HORNBY ROAD L9
HM Prison Liverpool

Chapel and Administration Block

(Formerly listed as Gatehouse to HM Prison Liverpool (Walton Gaol))
(Formerly listed as Walton Prison. Entrance gatehouse)

14.3.75

GV

II

Chapel and Administration Block.1848-55. J. Weightman. Brick with stone dressings and battered stone plinth. Four storeys, three bays. Romanesque style. Four square turrets with quoins; sill bands. Round-headed windows have angle shafts and archivolts with zig-zag mouldings, those to ground floor top and first floor of central bay of three lights. Central round-headed entrance of one order, clock above has zig-zag surround. Top blind crosses and embattled parapets; central bay has recessed top stage.

Historical Note: Walton Gaol was the site of one of the most important suffragette prison protests. The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903, and following the arrests in 1905 Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst the Union committed itself to a policy of direct militant action to get women the vote. Imprisonment of its members became a key part of the WSPU’s campaign and, once locked up, suffragettes continued their disruptive activities, demanding recognition as political prisoners. In July 1909 Marion Wallace Dunlop became the first suffragette to go on hunger strike. Her swift release encouraged other suffragette prisoners to follow her example.

In September 1909 Government and Prison authorities began to feed suffragette hunger strikers by force, rather than release them. This was a controversial practice. A full medical examination was required before forcible feeding could take place, but suffragettes complained that this was not always done. When Lady Constance Lytton, who had a heart condition, was arrested in Newcastle in October 1909, she was released after starting a hunger strike. Lytton believed that this was because of her aristocratic status. In January 1910 she disguised herself as Jane Warton, a working-class suffragette, and took part in a protest outside Walton Gaol where two suffragettes were being held. She threw stones at the windows of the governor’s house and was arrested. Her medical examination as ‘Jane’ was cursory and did not pick up on her heart condition so she was forcibly fed. Lytton was released when her identity was revealed but her health never fully recovered. She wrote several accounts of her treatment in Walton, consistently arguing that the legal system treated working-class suffragettes more severely.

This list entry was amended in 2018 as part of the centenary commemorations of the 1918 Representation of the People Act.

Listing NGR: SJ3569396037

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

214318

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Lytton, Constance, Prisons and Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences by Constance Lytton and Jane Warton, Spinster, (1913)
Jenkins, Lyndsey, Lady Constance Lytton: Aristocrat, Suffragette, Martyr, (2015)

End of official list entry

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