---
title: Torturing Women in Prison. Vote Against the Government
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/torturing-women-in-prison-wspu-1910/
description: A woman in a prison dress is held in a chair by a warder and a man in a frock coat while a bespectacled man pours liquid down a tube in her nose; 'Votes…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![Torturing Women in Prison. Vote Against the Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/torturing-women-in-prison-wspu-1910.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/torturing-women-in-prison-wspu-1910.jpg)

# Torturing Women in Prison. Vote Against the Government

A woman in a prison dress is held in a chair by a warder and a man in a frock coat while a bespectacled man pours liquid down a tube in her nose; 'Votes for Women' is scratched on the cell wall. The headline 'Torturing Women in Prison' is the loaded label for forcible feeding, and the closing instruction, 'Vote against the government', turns the scene into a voting order.

- **Date:** 1910
- **Period:** [Pre-1914](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=pre-1914)
- **Made by:** Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), London; printed by David Allen & Sons; artist not named on the poster
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [United Kingdom](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-kingdom)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [Movement](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=movement)
- **Regime:** [Asquith Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=asquith-government)
- **Leader:** [Herbert Henry Asquith](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=herbert-henry-asquith)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Persuade or win support](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=persuade-support)
- **Themes:** [Gender and suffrage](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=gender-suffrage), [Elections and party politics](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=elections-party-politics)
- **Event:** [British Suffrage Campaign](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=british-suffrage-campaign)
- **Techniques:** [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/)
- **Regime:** [Asquith government](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/asquith-government/)
- **Leader:** [H. H. Asquith](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/asquith-government/#herbert-henry-asquith)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/99402708/), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (published in Britain c. 1909-1910, before 1931; LoC gives no rights restriction) Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C., POS - Gt Brit .A01, no. 7; LC-DIG-ppmsca-56873.

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
TORTURING WOMEN IN PRISON

[small framed notice on the cell wall beneath a crown and 'E R': illegible]

Votes for Women [scratched on the cell wall]

PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL WOMEN'S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION 4 CLEMENTS INN STRAND W.C. & PRINTED BY DAVID ALLEN & SONS Ld 180 FLEET ST E.C. [small printer's mark at lower right: illegible]

VOTE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT
```

[← Bande Mataram (Paris), memorial page to Madan Lal Dhingra, 17 August 1909](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bande-mataram-paris-dhingra-memorial-1909/) [詔書 (Imperial Rescript on the Annexation of Korea), Korean translation, Official Gazette of the Government-General of Korea no. 1, p. 17 →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/annexation-rescript-korea-gazette-1910/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Exit Liberté a la Francois! or Buonaparte closing the Farce of Egalité, at St. Cloud (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/exit-liberte-buonaparte-gillray-1799/) (Nov 21, 1799 · Name-calling)