 |
| Emily Davison |
‘Deeds not
words.'
Born in
1872, Emily Wilding Davison was a militant activist who fought for women’s
suffrage in Britain. She was one of a
group of women collectively known as Suffragettes.
The Women’s Social and Political
Union (WSPU) was formed in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst. Emily Davison joined in 1906, after quitting
from her job as a teacher. She soon
gained a reputation as a violent campaigner, disrupting meetings, throwing
stones at politicians and even arson. Many
of her militant activities were unauthorised and not approved by the WSPU,
meaning that she often fell out of favour with the leadership.
One the night of 2nd
April 1911 when they were conducting the 1911 Census, Emily Davison hid overnight
in a cupboard in the chapel of the Palace of Westminster. She did it just so that she could give the
House of Commons as her legitimate place of residence for that night. It was one of her many ways of trying to gain
more publicity for the Suffragette cause.
The Census documents state that she was found hiding in the crypt of the
Houses of Parliament. There is now a
plaque commemorating the occasion which was unveiled in 1999.
During her time in the WSPU, Davison
was jailed nine times and often went on hunger strike, leading to her being
force-fed a staggering forty-nine times.
She once tried to avoid it by barricading the door to her cell, forcing
the prison officers to attempt to flood her out by placing a hosepipe through
the window. Davison was willing to die
for her cause, but the door was broken down before the room had been filled.
In 1912, just as she was nearing the
end of a six-month sentence for arson in Holloway Prison, Davison threw herself
down a 10metre iron staircase after yet another bout of force-feeding. Her intentions were to end the suffering
endured by her fellow women. She sustained
head and spinal injuries, that would leave her in discomfort for what would be
the rest of her short, tempestuous life.
Emily Davison’s most infamous moment
came on 4th June 1913, the day of the Epsom Derby. History will remember her, as the woman who
got trampled by the horse belonging to King George V. She ran out from the side-lines and attempted
to grab the horses’ bridle. She had been
working alone and no one was aware of her true intentions. Two WSPU flags were later found in her
possession, so it may be possible that she had been planning to attach them to
the King’s horse.
Davison suffered a fractured skull
and numerous internal injuries. She died
four days later in Epsom Cottage Hospital.
Her death was recorded by the coroner as ‘Due to Misadventure.’ She was the only suffragette to risk death
for her cause. Even though the rest of
the WSPU and Suffragette movement didn’t always agree with her actions, they
still gave her a spectacular funeral procession from Epsom to her memorial in
Bloomsbury. Her gravestone bears the
WSPU slogan ‘Deeds not words.’
No comments:
Post a Comment