Emily Wilding Davison
1912
Davison in 1912 or 1913
Emily Wilding Davison
Emily Wilding Davison
Emily Wilding Davison
1879
Emily Wilding Davison at the age of seven.
1912
Davison in 1912 or 1913
Emily Wilding Davison
Emily Wilding Davison
Emily Wilding Davison
Emily Wilding Davison, the daughter of Charles Davison (1822-1893) and Margaret Caisley Davison (1848-1918), was born at Roxburgh House, Vanbrugh Park Road, Greenwich on 11th October 1872. Known as "Pem" by her family she was brought up within a large, wealthy, and loving home that included her half brothers and sisters. She was the third of four children of Charles Edward Davison’s second marriage to his second cousin Margaret Caisley of Morpeth.
Emily Davison was a bright student at a time when educational opportunities were limited for women. Davison was well educated from a young age. After attending Kensington Prep School, Davison took classes at Royal Holloway College and at Oxford University, but she couldn't officially earn a degree from either institution. She earned a First Class (Honours) award in 1895 but was not given it as Oxford did not grant degrees to women at that time.
Later she continued her studies at the University of London.
In 1895 Emily Davison began teaching at the Church of England College for Girls at Edgbaston. The following year she found employment at Seabury School, Worthing (1896-1898). Eventually, she raised enough money to return to university education. After graduating from the University of London she obtained a post teaching the children of a family in Berkshire.
After leaving school, Davison found work as a teacher. She eventually started dedicating her spare time to social and political activism. In 1906, Davison joined the Women's Social and Political Union. The WSPU, established by Emmeline Pankhurst, was an active force in the struggle to win the right to vote for women in Britain.
In 1909, Davison gave up teaching to devote herself full time to the women's suffrage movement, also known as the suffragette movement. She was unafraid of the consequences of her political actions, willing to be arrested, and ended up imprisoned several times on various protest-related offenses.
Davison spent a month in Manchester's Strangeways Prison that same year. While in prison, she attempted a hunger strike. Many jailed suffragists went on hunger strikes to protest the government's refusal to classify them as political prisoners. Davison barricaded herself in a cell for a time. The guards flooded her cell with water. Later writing about the experience, Davison stated, "I had to hold on like grim death. The power of the water seemed terrific, and it was cold as ice," according to the journal Social Research.
In 1912, Davison spent six months at Holloway Prison. Suffragists were treated brutally in prison, and those who went on hunger strikes became subject to being force-fed. Davison thought she could end the abuse of her fellow suffragists by jumping off a prison balcony. She later explained her idea, stating, "The idea in my mind was that one big tragedy may save many others," according to Social Research. This action showed just how far Davison would go for her peers and her cause.
It is unclear what exactly Davison had in mind on June 4, 1913. She attended the Epsom Derby with the intent of advancing the cause of women's suffrage, bringing with her two suffragette flags. After the race began, Davison ducked under the railing and strode onto the track. She put her hands up in front of her as Anmer, a horse belonging to King George V, made its way toward her. King George V and Queen Mary were watching this spectacle unfold from their royal box.
The horse crashed into Davison and struck her in the head. The jockey riding Anmer was also injured, but the horse was unhurt. Davison was taken from the track and brought to a nearby hospital. Never regaining consciousness, she died four days later on June 8, 1913.
Press reports criticized her actions as the act of a madwoman, but suffragist newspapers hailed Davison as a martyr for the cause. Whether she intended to commit suicide at the derby has been debated for years. Some think it was accidental as Davison had bought a round-trip train ticket to go home after the event. In any case, supporters of the Votes for Women campaign turned out by the thousands for Davison's funeral procession. Her body was laid to rest in Morpeth, Northumberland. Her gravestone reads "Deeds not Words," a popular suffragist motto.
Roughly 15 years after her death, Davison's dream was finally realized. Britain gave women the right to vote in 1928.
Emily Wilding Davison was a passionate Christian.
Emily Wilding Davison joined the Women's Social and Political Union in 1906, then quit her teaching job to work full-time for equal voting rights. A militant member of the British suffragette movement, Davison was jailed several times for protest-related offenses and attempted to starve herself while serving time in Manchester's Strangeways Prison.
According to the authors of The Life and Death of Emily Wilding Davison (1988), she was a socialist and was an active member of the Workers' Educational Association and the Central Labour College.
Emily Wilding Davison considered herself a women rights activist, she thought, that all men and women should have equal rights.
Quotations: "The idea in my mind was one big tragedy may save many others."
Emily Davison, Mary Leigh, and Constance Lytton were caught throwing stones at a car taking David Lloyd George to a meeting in Newcastle. The stones were wrapped in Emily's favorite words: "Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God." The women were found guilty and sentenced to one month's hard labor at Strangeways Prison. The women went on a hunger strike but this time the prison authorities decided to force-feed the women. In an attempt to avoid force-feeding, Emily used prison furniture to barricade the door of her prison cell. A prison officer climbed a ladder and after forcing the nozzle of a hosepipe through a window, filled up the cell with water. Emily was willing to die, but before the cell had been completely filled with water the door was broken down.
In a letter to a friend, Davison explained what it was like to be force-fed: "In the evening the matron, two doctors, and five or six wardresses entered the cell. The doctor said 'I am going to feed you by force.' The scene, which followed, will haunt me with its horror all my life and is almost indescribable. While they held me flat, the elder doctor tried all round my mouth with a steel gag to find an opening. On the right side of my mouth two teeth are missing; this gap he found, pushed in the horrid instrument, and prised open my mouth to its widest extent. Then a wardress poured the liquid down my throat out of a tin enameled cup. What it was I cannot say, but there was some medicament, which was foul to the last degree. As I would not swallow the stuff and jerked it out with my tongue, the doctor pinched my nose and somehow gripped my tongue with the gag. The torture was barbaric."
Davison also tried to commit suicide. She later recalled: "In my mind was the thought that some desperate protest must be made to put a stop to the hideous torture, which was now our lot. Therefore, 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 realized 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. I know nothing more except a fearful thud on my head. When I recovered consciousness, it was to a sense of acute agony."
James Keir Hardie, the leader of the Labour Party, complained about the treatment of Emily Davison in the House of Commons. The general public appeared to agree that Davison had been badly treated. Emily decided to take legal action against the men at Strangeways who had been responsible for the hosepipe incident. On 19th January 1910, Judge Parry pronounced in Emily's favor, awarding damages of forty shillings.
Emmeline Pankhurst believed that Davidson wanted to become a martyr. She wrote in her biography, My Own Story (1914): "Emily Davison clung to her conviction that one great tragedy, the deliberate throwing into the breach of human life, would put an end to the intolerable torture of women. And so she threw herself at the King's horse, in full view of the King and Queen and a great multitude of their Majesties' subjects."
Physical Characteristics: Sylvia Pankhurst later described Davison as "tall and slender, with unusually long arms, a small narrow head, and red hair. Her elusive, whimsical green eyes and thin, half-smiling mouth, bore often the mocking expression of the Mona Lisa."
Quotes from others about the person
"Emily Wilding Davison was a character almost inevitably developed by a struggle such as ours. She was a Bachelor of Arts of London University and had taken first-class honours at Oxford in English Language and Literature. Yet the women's cause made such an appeal to her reason and her sympathies that she put every intellectual and social appeal aside and devoted herself untiringly and fearlessly to the work of the Union." - Emmeline Pankhurst.
Emily Davison was single and had no children.
