1-192-509 - © London Museum/Heritage-Images

Sylvia Pankhurst leaving the East End of London in a bath-chair, June 1914. Weakened by hunger, thirst and sleep strikes, Sylvia had her own bodyguard of East End suffragettes and male supporters who tried to prevent the police re-arresting her while she was released from Holloway Gaol under the terms of the Prisoners' Temporary Discharge for III-Health Act, usually called the 'Cat and Mouse' Act. Suffragettes were allowed to go on hunger strike but once they became ill they were released. When they had recovered, the police re-arrested them and returned them to prison in order that they completed their sentences.