Subject

Born in Manchester as Estelle Sylvia, daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst. Trained and initially worked as an artist. Worked with George Lansbury in the East End. 1924 Sylvia moved from the East End of London to Woodford Green, into Red Cottage with Silvio Corio, an Italian anarchist/journalist/painter. Demolished in 1939, Red Cottage was number 126 on Woodford Green High Road. They ran it as a teashop. What remains is the Stone Bomb monument.

In 1935 Sylvia moved to a Victorian house, West Dene, 3 Charteris Road. In 1956, at the invitation of Emperor Haile Selassie, she emigrated to Ethiopia, and stayed there for the remainder of her life. Buried in Adis Adaba as saint/martyr of Ethiopian nation.

Diamond Geezer has tracked down a lot of the East End addresses associated with Sylvia. And Spitalfields Life quotes from Sylvia's own books to tell some of the events from the campaign.

Sylvia designed the Holloway, or portcullis badge, the image which appears on the Christchurch Gardens sculptural scroll and also on the memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens. The design consists of a portcullis symbol overlaid with a broad prisoners' arrow. The badges were given by the WSPU to women who had suffered imprisonment. A portcullis has been used to represent the Palace of Westminster, and by extension government, since the middle-ages. The broad arrow was first used on prisoners’ clothing in the 1870s. Sylvia combined the two icons very successfully.