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Emily Davison May Be a Familiar Name to You As the Suffragette Who Threw

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Emily Davison May Be a Familiar Name to You As the Suffragette Who Threw Emily Davison may be a familiar name to you as the suffragette who documenting the Suffrage campaign threw herself under a horse and who is often dismissed as typical of have found little information about her the lunatic fringe' of the Women's Social and Political Union. and so have either excluded her entirely from their accounts or have cast her When Rebecca Ferguson was a student at the Royal Holloway into strange, very inappropriate roles. College, which Emily herself attended, she was prompted to look She has been described as a statuesque, into the rest of her story. Emily's commitment to civil disobedience red-headed beauty, going to her death with an Amazon-like dignity; as a and direct action symbolizes the militancy in the suffrage campaign mystic and a visionary who thought she that hides behind its more respectable history. was Joan of Arc; or as an hysterical, even insane woman who did not know what she was doing. The accounts of he day after the Derby in to give all the worid the knowledge that those who knew her prove each of those 1913, Emily reached the a Suffragette, in the full tide of life and pictures wrong. headlines of all the papers. energy, had died for her faith, Emily Emily was born and spent her child­ Some even had a photograph Davison left for her comrades in the hood in Northumberland, where her of her being thrown to the ground. The fight an ineffaceable impression of a life family remained while she moved away Suffragette magazine devoted a whole consecrated to one great end.' to attend school in Kensington. At edition, its pages lined with black, to Ineffaceable. That was how Emily's school she showed promise and was Emily's life, and to her sacrifice. Women act was described in 1913. It is strange, awarded a scholarship to attend Royal from all over the country travelled to then, that Emily is one of the more Holloway College, a new women's London to take part in her funeral pro­ anonymous heroines of the fight for college and one of the first in the cession. Their feelings are expressed by women's suffrage. She was a little too country. As one of the few women in this passage from The Suffragette: militant for the Women's Social and Britain who had been able to continue 'In the last gallant rush upon the Political Union (WSPU) and so she their education and study for a degree, King's horse at the Derby, which was tended to act by herself. Historians Emily must have been very conscious 6 Spare Rib of her privileged position. Although this with her mother, recovering from her the prison matron, and five or six was a decade before the Women's Suf­ ordeal in prison. Within a month she wardresses entered her cell, held her frage society was set up at the college, was active once again, and was sentenc­ down, and, ignoring her protestations, there were plenty of opportunities for ed to two months in jail for breaking force fed her. 'The scene which follow­ Emily to discuss and leam about windows, but was released after a two ed' , wrote Emily on her release, 'will women's place in society. Despite her day hunger strike. haunt me with its horror all my life father's death she scraped together In October Lloyd George was to . While they held me flat, the elder enough money to continue her studies speak in Newcastle, and the women's doctor tried all round my mouth with and passed an English degree with first a steel gag to find an opening. On the class honours. right side of my mouth two teeth are She managed to find a job as a missing; this gap he found, pushed in schoolteacher but found it very limit- the horrid instrument, and prised open mg: she needed more to think about, my mouth to its widest extent... As more action. She began to attend I would not swallow the stuff and jerk­ meetings of the WSPU, at first out of ed it out with my tongue, the doctor curiosity, to see if the newspapers were pinched my nose and somehow gripped fight to condemn them. With increasing my tongue with the gag. The torture mterest she finally joined the Union in was barbaric.' 1906 and by 1908 was acting as con- Two days later Emily was transferred yenor for a major WSPU demonstration to a neighbouring cell. Never one to give ln London, although she had to leave in to circumstances if she could try to early to return to her pupils. Dissatis­ alter them, and sickened by her exper­ fied with such restrictions she changed iences, she realised that she could use ^er position and went to work as gover- the furniture in her room to barricade ness for a family in Berkshire. Within a herself in. Climbing to the top of her year she gave up that job as well, and barricade, she settled down to wait. All •"eturned to London to devote her time afternoon people hammered on the and energy to the women's movement. door, trying to make her give in, deter­ In March 1909, Emily took part in mined to gain admittance. Finally they a delegation of women to present their smashed her window, inserted the views to the Prime Minister, Mr Asquith. nozzle of a hose, and turned the jet of She was arrested for the first time, and icy water directly onto her, until the sentenced to a month in prison. By the water level in the room had reached six end of July she was free, protesting at a inches. They would have continued for Political meeting at which Lloyd George longer had a group of prison visitors was speaking, and was again arrested not arrived at that moment and been ^nd imprisoned. Between March and horrified by what was happening. Ju,y imprisoned suffragettes had devel- Emily still refused to move and so. des­ 0Ped a new means of protest. Classed pite the danger to her, they broke the as Grade Two prisoners they lacked door down. She was carried off to a hot certain privileges enjoyed by Grade One bath, but the caring soon stopped and Pnsoners, such as the right to wear their the doctor returned to force feed her 0wn clothes. They had demanded to be again. This time the tube was passed up reclassified and when their demands one nostril and then pushed down her were ignored they began to protest and Emily's funeral throat. After that ordeal her strength ake part in hunger strikes. Describing movement organised various protests was almost gone and she was released er protest in a determined way, Emily for the occasion. This time Emily was from prison by the authorities who did wrote: given a partner to work with, Lady not want to have to explain her death. When I was shut in the cell I at once Constance Lytton. Holding stones the Her protest had had some effect, ^mashed seventeen panes of glass. two women waited for Lloyd George's mostly because it had been seen by the ease, if you are asked why we did this, car to arrive. As the car drove past prison visitors. Questions were asked in |*y, because we object to the fact that Newcastle Breweries they ran forward, the House of Commons about the treat­ e windows can never be opened and aiming to damage the car as much as ment of imprisoned suffragettes. Emily e ventilation is bad. possible, but not to harm its occupants. sued and was awarded 40 shillings in . Then they rushed me to another cell, Lady Constance threw her stone suc­ damages and costs, but the treatment of m which everything was fixed. I broke cessfully; Emily, seized and arrested women in prison — which had won the ^even panes of that window, to the mat- before she could act was tried for approval of the Secretary of State — was cm s astonishment, as I had a hammer attempted assault, but released. Only a continued. It was clear Parliament was • • • Then they forcibly undressed me fortnight later, she was on her way to doing nothing to meet the suffragettes' nd left me sitting in a prison chemise. I Strangeways for breaking windows at demands. Emily determined to get into ^ng the second verse of "God Save the the Post Office and at the Liberal Club. the House of Commons to ask Mr .^ng With "Confound their politics" in Since the suffragettes had begun hunger striking four months earlier As we K<> to press, we're thinking especially of the women from j. Emily was locked in a dark cell, and policy within prisons had been changed. ^asted for over five days, losing one and Greenham Common Peace Camp, The prison authorities had resorted to' imprisoned for their 'extremism' in alf stone before she was released. On force-feeding whenever they so chose, opposing the siting of cruise missiles in e walls of Holloway prison she carved despite the fact that this was illegal this country. And of all women in °me words which were to become her without the 'patient's' consent. Emily prison in many countries, struggling otto: 'Rebellion against tyrants is had been on hunger strike since the day for a better world. 0'5«dience to God,* she appeared in court. The day after The Sparc Rib Collective ^he spent August quietly at home she arrived in the prison two doctors, Spare Rib 7 <4 Asquith why he would not make the first, with all her might onto the iron big race.
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