Emily Davison

Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913) was a suffragette who fought for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom in the early twentieth century. A militant fighter for her cause, she was arrested on nine occasions, went on hunger strike seven times and was force fed on 49 occasions. She died after being hit by King George V's horse Anmer at the 1913 Epsom Derby after she had walked onto the track during the race. Her funeral on 14 June 1913 was organised by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). A procession of 5,000 suffragettes and their supporters accompanied the coffin and 50,000 people lined the route through London. After a church service in Bloomsbury, her coffin was taken by train to the family plot in Morpeth, Northumberland.

Davison grew up in a middle class family, and studied at Royal Holloway College, London, St Hugh's College, Oxford, and the University of London before taking jobs as a teacher and governess. She joined the WSPU in November 1906 and soon became known in the organisation for her daring militant action. Her tactics included breaking windows, throwing stones, setting fire to postboxes and, on three occasions, hiding overnight in the Palace of Westminster—including on the night of the 1911 census.

Much of Davison's life has been interpreted through the manner of her death. She gave no prior explanation for what she planned to do at the Derby and the uncertainty of her motives and intentions has affected how she has been judged by history. Several theories have been put forward, including whether it was an accident, a deliberate suicide or an attempt to pin a suffragette banner to the king's horse, although none have ever been proved.

Biography

Early life and education

Davison in c. 1905

Emily Wilding Davison was born at Roxburgh House, Greenwich in south east London on 11 October 1872. Her parents were Charles Davison, a retired merchant, and Margaret, née Caisley, both of Morpeth, Northumberland. At the time of his marriage to Margaret in 1868, he was 45 and she was 19. Emily was the third child born to the couple; she had an elder brother and younger sister, although the sister died of diphtheria in 1880 at the age of six. The marriage to Margaret was Charles's second; his first marriage had produced nine children before the death of his wife in 1866.

While Davison was still a baby, the family moved to Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire; until the age of 11 she was educated at home. When her parents moved the family back to London she went to a day school before spending a year studying in Dunkirk, France. When she was 13 she attended Kensington High School (now Kensington Preparatory School) and won a bursary to Royal Holloway College in 1891 to study literature. Her father died in early 1893 and she was forced to end her studies because her mother could not afford the fees of £20 a term.

On leaving Holloway, Davison became a live-in governess, and continued studying in the evenings. She saved enough to enrol at St Hugh's College, Oxford for one term in order to sit her finals; she achieved first-class honours in English, but did not graduate as degrees from Oxford were closed to women. She worked briefly at a state school in Edgbaston between 1895 and 1896, but found it difficult to deal with lazy or slow pupils and moved to a private school in Worthing, where she was more settled; she left the town in 1898 and became a private tutor and governess to a family in Northamptonshire. In 1902 she began reading for a degree at the University of London; she graduated with third-class honours in 1908.

Activism

Davison in 1908

Davison joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in November 1906. Formed in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, the WSPU brought together those who thought that militant, confrontational tactics were needed to achieve their ultimate goal of women's suffrage. Davison joined in the WSPU's campaigning activities, becoming an officer of the organisation and a chief steward during marches. In 1908 or 1909 she left her job teaching and dedicated herself full time to the union's activities. She began taking increasingly militant actions and Sylvia Pankhurst later described her as "one of the most daring and reckless of the militants". In March 1909 she was arrested for the first time, having been part of a deputation of 21 women from Caxton Hall to see the prime minister, H. H. Asquith. The march ended in a fracas with police and she was arrested for "assaulting the police in the execution of their duty"; she was sentenced to a month in prison. After her release she wrote to the Votes for Women newspaper "Through my humble work in this noblest of all causes I have come into a fullness of job and an interest in living which I never before experienced."

A suffragette being force-fed in Holloway prison, c. 1911

In July 1909 Davison was arrested with fellow suffragettes Mary Leigh and Alice Paul after they interrupted a public meeting held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, at which women were barred from the venue; she was sentenced to two months for obstruction. She went on hunger strike and was released after five and a half days, during which time she lost 21 pounds (9.5 kg), and she stated that she "felt very weak" as a result. She was arrested again in September the same year after throwing stones to break windows at a meeting in protest at the 1909 budget. She was sent to Strangeways prison for two months. She again went on hunger strike and was released after two and a half days. She subsequently wrote to The Manchester Guardian to justify her actions of throwing stones as one "which was meant as a warning to the general public of the personal risk they run in future if they go to Cabinet Ministers' meetings anywhere". She went on to write that this was justified because of the "unconstitutional action of Cabinet Ministers in addressing 'public meetings' from which a large section of the public is excluded".

Davison was arrested again in early October 1909, while preparing to throw a stone at Sir Water Runciman; her suffragette colleague, Constance Lytton threw hers first, before the police managed to stop her. Davison was charged with attempted assault, but released. She would use her court appearances to give speeches; excerpts and quotes from these would be published in the newspapers, publicising her message to the wider public. Two weeks later she threw stones at Runciman at a political meeting in Radcliffe, Greater Manchester; she was arrested and sentenced to a week's hard labour. She again went on hunger strike, but the government had authorised the use of force-feeding prisoners. The historian Gay Gullickson describes the tactic as "extremely painful, psychologically harrowing, and raised the possibility of dying in jail from medical error or official misjudgment." Davison later said that the experience "will haunt me with its horror all my life, and is almost indescribable. ... The torture was barbaric". Following the first episode of forced feeding, and to prevent a repeat of the experience, Davison barricaded herself in her cell using her bed and a stool and refused to allow entry to the prison authorities. They broke one of the window panes to the cell and turned a fire hose on her for 15 minutes, while attempting to force the door open. By the time the door was finally opened, the cell was six inches deep in water. She was taken to the prison hospital where she was warmed by hot water bottles. She was force fed shortly afterwards and released after eight days. A question was asked in the House of Commons by the Labour Party MP, Keir Hardie about the "assault committed on a woman prisoner in Strangeways"; Davison sued the prison authorities for the use of the hose and, in January 1910, she was awarded 40 shillings in damages.

In 1910 Asquith promised action on women's suffrage, but then went back on his word. By way of protest, Davison decided to gain entry to the floor of the House of Commons and question him on his U-turn. In April she entered the Palace of Westminster with other members of the public and made her way into the heating system, where she hid overnight. On a trip from her hiding place to find water, she was arrested by a policeman, although was not prosecuted. The same month she became an employee of the WSPU and began to write for Votes for Women, the organisation's newspaper. In November that year, Asquith's Liberal government reneged on a promise to allow parliamentary time to debate a Conciliation Bill that would have allowed suffrage. A WSPU delegation of around 300 women tried to present him with a petition, but were prevented from doing so by an aggressive police response; the suffragettes, who called the day Black Friday, later complained of assault, much of which was sexual in nature. Although Davison was not one of the 122 people arrested, she was incensed by the treatment of the delegation and broke several windows in the Crown Office in parliament. She was arrested and sentenced to a month in prison. She went on hunger strike again and was force fed for eight days before being released.

On 2 April 1911, the night of the 1911 census, Davison hid in a cupboard in St Mary Undercroft, the chapel of the Palace of Westminster. She remained hidden overnight to avoid being entered onto the census; the attempt was part of a wider suffragette action to avoid being listed by the state. She was found by a cleaner, who reported her presence; Davison was arrested but not charged. The Clerk of Works at the House of Commons completed a census form to include Davison in the returns. She was included in the census twice, as her landlady also included her as being present at her lodgings. Davison had constantly written letters to the press to put forward the WSPU position in a non-violent manner, and she undertook a campaign between 1911 and 1913 when she wrote nearly 200 letters to over 50 newspapers. She has several letters published, including about 26 in The Sunday Times between September 1910 and 1912, and 12 in The Manchester Guardian between 1909 and 1911.

Davison in 1912 or 1913

In December 1911 Davison developed the new militant tactic of setting fire to postboxes. She was arrested for the arson on the postbox outside parliament, and admitted to setting fire to two others. She was sentenced to six months in Holloway Prison. Although she did not go on hunger strike, between 29 February and 7 March the authorities considered that her health and appetite had declined to the point whereby they had to force feed her in order to maintain her health. In June she and other suffragette inmates, barricaded themselves in their cells and went on hunger strike; the cell doors were broken down by the authorities and the strikers were force fed. Following the force feeding, she decided on what she described as a "desperate protest ... made to put a stop to the hideous torture, which was now our lot". She later wrote

... as soon as I got out I climbed on to the railing and threw myself out to the wire-netting, a distance of between 20 and 30 feet. The idea in my mind was "one big tragedy may save many others". I realised that my best means of carrying out my purpose was the iron staircase. When a good moment came, quite deliberately I walked upstairs and threw myself from the top, as I meant, on to the iron staircase. If I had been successful I should undoubtedly have been killed, as it was a clear drop of 30 to 40 feet. But I caught on the edge of the netting. I then threw myself forward on my head with all my might.

Entry by Emily Wilding Davison in Mabel Capper's hunger striking suffragettes scrapbook 1909

She cracked two vertebrae and badly injured her head, despite which she was force fed shortly afterwards before being released ten days early. She later wrote to The Pall Mall Gazette to explain why she "attempted commit suicide"

I did it deliberately and with all my power, because I felt that by nothing but the sacrifice of human life would the nation be brought to realise the horrible torture our women face! If I had succeeded I am sure that forcible feeding could not in all conscience have been resorted to again.

As a result of her action Davison suffered discomfort for the rest of her life. She did not have her arson of postboxes authorised by the WSPU leadership and it, with her other actions, led to her falling out of favour with the organisation; Sylvia Pankhurst later wrote that the WSPU leadership wanted "to discourage ... [Davison] in such tendencies ... She was condemned and ostracized as a self-willed person who persisted in acting upon her own initiative without waiting for official instructions." A statement Davison wrote on her release from prison for The Suffragette—the official newspaper of the WSPU—was unpublished by the union until after her death.

Davison was arrested for a final time in November 1912 after she attacked a Baptist minister with a horsewhip; she had mistaken the man for Lloyd George. She was sentenced to ten days' imprisonment and released early after a four-day hunger strike. It was the seventh time she had been on hunger strike, and the forty-ninth time she had been force fed.

Fatal injury at the Epsom Derby

Newsreel footage from Pathé News. The events involving Davison occur between 5:51 and 6:15.

On 4 June 1913 Davison obtained two flags bearing the suffragette colours of violet, white and green from the WSPU offices and travelled by train to Epsom, Surrey, to attend the Derby. She positioned herself at Tattenham Corner, the final bend before the home straight. While the race was under way and some of the horses had passed her position, she ducked under the guard rail and ran onto the course; she may have held in her hands one of the suffragette flags. She reached up to the reins of Anmer—King George V's horse, ridden by Herbert Jones—and was hit by the animal, which would have been travelling at around 35 miles (56 km) an hour. She was knocked to the floor. Anmer fell in the collision and partly rolled over his jockey, who had his foot momentarily caught in the stirrup. From the moment she stepped onto the course until the moment the horse hit her, she had four seconds. Although some reports state Davison was kicked in the head by Anmer, the surgeon who operated on Davison later stated that "I could find no trace of her having been kicked by a horse". The event was captured on three news cameras.

The return stub of the ticket Davison used on her journey to Epsom

Bystanders rushed onto the track and attempted to aid Davison and Jones until both were taken to the nearby Epsom Cottage Hospital. Jones suffered a concussion and other injuries; he spent the evening of the fourth in London, before returning home the following day. He could recall little of the event and stated that "She seemed to clutch at my horse, and I felt it strike her". He recovered sufficiently to race Anmer at Ascot Racecourse two weeks later. Found in Davison's effects were the two suffragette flags, the return stub of her railway ticket to London, her race card, a ticket to a suffragette dance later that day and a diary with appointments for the following week. She was operated on two days later, but she never regained consciousness; while in hospital she received hate mail. She died on 8 June, from a fracture at the base of her skull; she had not regained consciousness since the collision with the horse.

The inquest into Davison's death took place at Epsom on 10 June. Jones was not among the witnesses as he was not well enough. Davison's half-brother, Captain Henry Davison, gave evidence about his sister, saying that she was "a woman of very strong reasoning faculties, and passionately devoted to the women's movement". The coroner decided that, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, Davison had not committed suicide. The coroner also decided that although she had waited until she could see the horses, "from the evidence it was clear that the woman did not make for His Majesty's horse in particular". The verdict of the court was

that Miss Emily Wilding Davison died of fracture of the base of the skull, caused by being accidentally knocked down by a horse through wilfully rushing on to the racecourse on Epsom Downs during the progress of the race for the Derby; death was due to misadventure.

Front pages from publications sympathetic to the suffragette cause

The Daily Sketch, 9 June 1913

The Suffragette, 13 June 1913

Davison's purpose in attending the Derby or walking onto the course is unclear. She did not discuss her plans with anyone or leave a note prior to her actions. Several theories have been put forward to explain her motives, including that she intended to cross the track, believing that all horses had passed; that she wanted to pull down the King's horse; that she was trying to attach one of the WSPU flags to a horse; or that she intended to throw herself in front of one of the horses. The historian Elizabeth Crawford considers that "subsequent explanations of ... [Davison's] action have created a tangle of fictions, false deductions, hearsay, conjecture, misrepresentation and theory."

In 2013 a Channel 4 documentary used forensic examiners who digitised the original nitrate film from the three cameras present. The film was digitally cleaned and examined. Their examination suggests that Davison intended to throw a suffragette flag around the neck of a horse or attach it to the horse's bridle. A flag was gathered from the course; this was put up for auction and, as at 2017, it hangs in the Houses of Parliament. Michael Tanner, the horse racing historian and author of a history of the 1913 Derby, doubts the authenticity of the item. Sotheby's, the auction house who sold it, describe it as a sash that was "reputed" to have been worn by Davison. The seller stated that her father, Richard Pittway Burton, was the Clerk of the Course at Epsom; Tanner's search of records shows Burton was listed as a dock labourer two weeks prior to the Derby. The official Clerk of the Course on the day of the Derby was Henry Dorling. When the police listed Davison's possessions, they itemised the two flags provided by the WSPU, both folded up and pinned to the inside of her jacket. They measured 44.5 by 27 inches (113 x 69 cm); the sash displayed at the Houses of Parliament measures 82 by 12 inches (210 x 30 cm).

Tanner considers that Davison's choice of the king's horse was "pure happenstance", as her position on the corner would have left her with a limited view. Examination of the news reels by the forensic team employed by the Channel 4 documentary determined that Davison was much closer to the start of the bend than had been previously assumed, and would have had a better line of sight of the oncoming horses than had been thought.

The contemporary news media were largely unsympathetic to Davison, and many publications "questioned her sanity and characterised her actions as suicidal". The Pall Mall Gazette said it had "pity for the dementia which led an unfortunate woman to seek a grotesque and meaningless kind of 'martyrdom' ", while The Daily Express described Davison as "A well-known malignant suffragette,  ... [who] has a long record of convictions for complicity in suffragette outrages." The journalist for The Daily Telegraph observed that "Deep in the hearts of every onlooker was a feeling of fierce resentment with the miserable woman"; the unnamed writer in The Daily Mirror opined that "It was quite evident that her condition was serious; otherwise many of the crowd would have fulfilled their evident desire to lynch her."

The WSPU were quick to describe her as a martyr, part of a campaign to identify her as such. The Suffragette newspaper marked Davison's death by issuing a copy showing a female angel with raised arms standing in front of the guard rail of a racecourse. The paper's editorial stated that "Davison has proved that there are in the twentieth century people who are willing to lay down their lives for an ideal". Religious phraseology was used in the issue to describe her act, including "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends", which Gullickson reports as being repeated several times in subsequent discussions of the events. A year after the Derby, The Suffragette included "The Price of Liberty", a essay by Davison. In it, she had written "To lay down life for friends, that is glorious, selfless, inspiring! But to re-enact the tragedy of Calvary for generations yet unborn, that is the last consummate sacrifice of the Militant".

Funeral

Part of Davison's funeral procession in Morpeth, Northumberland.

On 14 June 2013 Davison's body was brought up from Epsom to London; her coffin was inscribed "Fight on. God will give the victory." Five thousand women formed a procession, followed by hundreds of male supporters, that took the body between Victoria and Kings Cross stations; the procession stopped at St George's, Bloomsbury for a brief service. The women marchers were dressed in ranks of the suffragette colours of white and purple, which The Manchester Guardian described as having "something of the deliberate brilliance of a military funeral"; Purvis describes the event as "the last of the great suffragette spectacles". 50,000 people lined the route. Emmeline Pankhurst planned to be part of the procession, but she was arrested on the morning, ostensibly to be returned to prison under the "Cat and Mouse" Act (1913).

The coffin was taken by train to Newcastle upon Tyne with a suffragette guard of honour for the journey; crowds met the train at its scheduled stops. The coffin remained overnight at the city's central station before being taken to Morpeth. A procession of about a hundred suffragettes accompanied the coffin from the station to the St. Mary the Virgin church; it was watched by thousands. Only a small number of the suffragettes entered the churchyard, as the service and internment were private. Her gravestone bears the WSPU slogan "Deeds not words".

Approach, analysis and legacy

Davison in later life, showing the effects of hunger strikes and force feeding

Davison's death marked a culmination and a turning point of the suffragette campaign. The First World War broke out the following year and, on 10 August, the government released all women hunger strikers and declared an amnesty. Emmeline Pankhurst suspended WSPU operations on 13 August. Pankhurst subsequently assisted the government in the recruitment of women for war work. At the end of the war Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act 1918. Among the changes was the granting of the vote to women over the age of 30 who could pass property qualifications. The legislation added 8.5 million women to the electoral roll, which constituted 43% of the electorate. In 1928 the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act lowered the voting age for women to 21 to put them on equal terms with male voters.

Crawford sees the events at the 1913 Derby as being ones "through which ... [Davison's] whole life has been interpreted", and the uncertainty of her motives and intentions that day has affected how she has been judged by history. Collette identifies different motives being ascribed to Davison, including "uncontrolled impulses" or a search for martyrdom for women's suffrage. Collette also sees a more current trend in historians, "to accept what some of her close contemporaries believed: that Davison's actions that day were deliberate" and that she attempted to attach the suffragette colours to the king's horse. Because Davison's motives are unknown, the question of whether she meant to commit suicide is also open to conjecture. Cicely Hale, a suffragette who worked at the WSPU and who knew Davison, described her as "a fanatic" who did not mean to die, but was prepared to, although observers such as Purvis, and Ann Morley and Liz Stanley—Davison's biographers—think Davison did not mean to die.

Davison was not only a staunch feminist but a passionate Christian, whose outlook "invoked both medieval history and faith in God as part of the armor of her militancy". Her love of English literature, which she had studied at Oxford, was shown in her identification with Geoffrey Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, including being nicknamed "Faire Emelye". Much of Davison's writing reflected the doctrine of the Christian faith and referred to martyrs, martyrdom and triumphant suffering; according to Collette, the use of Christian and medieval language and imagery "directly reflects the politics and rhetoric of the militant suffrage movement". Davison wrote in The Price of Liberty about the high cost of devotion to the cause:

In the New Testament, the Master reminded His followers that when the merchant had found the Pearl of Great Price, he sold all that he had in order to buy it. That is the parable of Militancy! It is that which the women warriors are doing to-day.
Some are truer warriors than others, but the perfect Amazon is she who will sacrifice all even unto the last, to win the Pearl of Freedom for her sex.

Plaque to Davison at Epsom Downs Racecourse

Davison held a firm moral conviction that socialism was a moral and political force for good. She attended the annual May Day rallies in Hyde Park and, according to the historian Krista Cowman, "directly linked her militant suffrage activities with socialism". Her London and Morpeth funeral processions contained a heavy socialist presence appreciation of her support for the cause.

In 1968 a one-act play, Emily, was staged in Northumberland, focusing on the use of violence against the women's campaign. She is the subject of an opera, Emily (2013), by the British composer Tim Benjamin, and of Emily Davison, a song by the American rock singer Greg Kihn. Davison also appears as a supporting character in the 2015 film Suffragette, in which she is portrayed by Natalie Press. Her death and funeral forms the climax of the film.

In 1991 the Labour MP Tony Benn placed a plaque inside the cupboard that she had hidden in eighty years earlier, to commemorate the event. In April 2013 a plaque was unveiled at Epsom racecourse to mark the centenary of the death. In January 2017 Royal Holloway announced that its new library would be named after her. The Women's Library, at the London School of Economics, holds a number of collections related to Davison. They include her personal papers and objects connected to her death.

See also

• List of suffragists and suffragettes
• Timeline of women's suffrage
• Women's suffrage organisations'

Notes and references

Sources

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• Purvis, June (March 1995). ""Deeds, Not Words": The Daily Lives of Militant Suffragettes in Edwardian Britain". Women's Studies International Forum,. 18 (2): 91–101. doi:10.1016/0277-5395(94)00064-6. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
• Purvis, June (2002). Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-23978-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Purvis, June (2013a). "Remembering Emily Wilding Davison (1872–1913)". Women's History Review. 22 (3): 353–362. doi:10.1080/09612025.2013.781405. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Purvis, June (2013b). "The 1913 Death of Emily Wilding Davison was a Key Moment in the Ongoing Struggle for Gender Equality in the UK". Democratic Audit. Retrieved 6 July 2017. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Representation of the People Act 1918". UK Parliament. Retrieved 16 July 2017.
• San Vito, Vera Di Campli (2008). "Davison, Emily Wilding (1872–1913)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37346. Retrieved 15 June 2017. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• Sleight, John (1988). One-way Ticket to Epsom: Journalist's Enquiry into the Heroic Story of Emily Wilding Davison. Morpeth, Northumberland: Bridge Studios. ISBN 978-0-9512-6302-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Stanley, Liz (1995). The Auto/biographical I: The Theory and Practice of Feminist Auto/biography. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-4649-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Suffragette and the King's Horse: Interview with the Jockey". The Manchester Guardian. 6 June 1913. p. 9.
• "The Suffragist Outrage at the Derby". The Times. 11 June 1913. p. 15.
• "The Supreme Sacrifice". The Suffragette. 13 June 1913. pp. 578–579. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
• Tanner, Michael (2013). The Suffragette Derby. London: The Robson Press. ISBN 978-1-8495-4518-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Thorpe, Vanessa (26 May 2013). "Truth Behind the Death of Suffragette Emily Davison is Finally Revealed". The Observer. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• West, Rebecca (1982). The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911–17. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 978-0-670-79458-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Woman's Mad Attack on the King's Derby Horse". The Daily Mirror. 5 June 1913. p. 4.

External links

• An exhibit on Emily Davison, London School of Economics.
• The original Pathé footage of Emily Davison running out of the crowds at the Derby
• "Emily Wilding Davison". Find a Grave. 11 April 2005. Retrieved 18 August 2011.
• BBC profile
• Archives of Emily Davison at the Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics