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Last week we covered people who successfully defended themselves in court, but this week
you’ll get to know an early women’s rights activist who was in and out of jail fighting
for the cause.
Women in Victorian England began fighting for equal rights in the late 1800s.
As the 20th century began, their tactics became increasingly more violent.
And so did the response to their efforts.
Emily Davison was a true believer of the cause and suffered greatly for it.
She was imprisoned repeatedly, and during confinement was forcibly fed by prison guards
at least forty-nine times.
Emily’s career as an activist ended suddenly when a horse hit her at full speed.
How It Began
Emily came from a large family.
Her father, Charles, was a merchant.
His first wife had nine children before finally dying in 1866.
At the age of 45 in 1868, Charles met 19-year-old Margaret Caisley.
They married and had four children.
That’s thirteen children if you’re keeping count.
Emily Davis was born in October 1872.
She became the youngest member of the family when her younger sibling died of diphtheria
at 6 years old.
Diphtheria is one of many diseases that is almost forgotten today in the industrialized
world.
It was all too common in the recent past.
Today vaccines are available to prevent it.
Before vaccines and antibiotics, adults who caught it often died.
Children were even more vulnerable.
Diphtheria is caused by a bacterium that is airborne.
People who are infected with it develop a fever, and other symptoms such as cough
and sore throat.
As the bacteria destroys respiratory tissue, a gray coating starts to appear over the tonsils
and throat.
Eventually this makes breathing difficult.
This means that Emily, and the rest of her large family, watched a six-year-old child
slowly asphyxiate to death.
It wasn’t an uncommon experience.
Her family wasn’t poor at least.
This allowed Emily to receive an excellent education.
She attended a variety of private schools as a child, and finally enrolled in college
in 1891.
Unfortunately, when her father died in 1893, the family could no longer afford tuition.
Emily worked as a private tutor and teacher for the next several years.
She was finally able to acquire a degree from the University of London in 1908.
After working her entire life to earn a degree and build a teaching career, Emily Davison
would abandon her chosen profession for the cause of feminism.
The Suffragettes
She was certainly not the only one fighting for women’s rights.
Various organizations had been trying to accomplish equality since 1872.
Most of the time their tactics didn’t work.
In 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst called a meeting at her home.
She invited a group of women to join her, then made the case for an independent women’s
movement.
This movement would do everything it could to ensure women had the right to vote.
The organization Emmeline created was called the Women’s Social and Political Union,
or WSPU for short.
Its members were often called “suffragettes” by politicians and members of the press.
What made the WSPU different from previous attempts was their use of militant tactics.
They would destroy property, spit on politicians, and cause riots if necessary.
The women participating did not want to kill anyone, but they were willing to disrupt
society by any means necessary.
Of course, once the WSPU members began destroying property they also started going to jail.
But Emmeline had a plan for that.
The women who were taken to jail went on a hunger strike.
They simply refused to eat while being imprisoned.
In the early days of the WSPU, this usually resulted in women being released from prison
before serving their entire sentence.
As events escalated, the prisons began responding by force-feeding prisoners who
refused to eat.
A woman who refused to eat while in prison would be placed into a chair and restrained.
Then a tube would be forcibly shoved down her throat and into the stomach.
Finally, nourishment would be poured directly into the stomach via a tube.
In 1906, Emily Davison joined the WSPU.
She became an officer in the organization and helped to lead marches.
In 1908, she left her career as a teacher to become a full-time activist.
The Prison Pipeline
In March 1909 Emily Davison was arrested for the first time.
She took part in a march that included 21 women.
The march ended in an altercation with police.
They arrested Emily for "assaulting the police in the execution of their duty".
Emily was sentenced to a month in prison.
When finally released, the experience did not deter her.
She wrote that: "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."
In July 1909 the Chancellor, Lloyd George, was holding a meeting that banned women from
attending.
Emily and some of her fellow suffragettes made sure to be there.
The police intervened, arresting Emily Davison and her fellow conspirators.
Emily was sentenced to two months in prison.
She went on hunger strike, refusing to eat.
The prison released her after five days, during which Emily lost 21 pounds.
In September, a public assembly was held to protest the government’s 1909 budget.
Only men could participate, of course.
Emily couldn’t get into the assembly, but she did stand outside and throw rocks
at the windows of the building the men were using.
She was sent to prison for two months this time.
But Emily went on a hunger strike again and was released after two days.
She wouldn’t be out of prison long.
Over the next several weeks Emily kept throwing rocks at politicians.
She was finally sentenced to a week’s hard labor for doing this.
Yet again, Emily started a hunger strike.
This time, though, the government authorized force feeding.
Emily wrote that the experience:
"will haunt me with its horror all my life and is almost indescribable....
The torture was barbaric"
To try and keep the experience from happening again, Emily barricaded herself in her cell.
She used the bed to block the door.
Prison guards turned a hose on her to try and force Emily to open the door.
By the time she opened it, the cell was six inches deep in water.
Prison officials took her to the prison infirmary, warmed her with hot water bottles,
then force fed her again.
She was finally released after eight days.
Emily sued prison authorities for using the hose and won a small amount of compensation
in 1910.
It was perhaps the only legal victory she would enjoy.
Around the same time Emily sued, she also broke several windows in a Parliament building.
She was sentenced to a month for that.
She again went on hunger strike, then was force fed for eight days.
After eight days of force-feeding Emily was released.
In December 1911, Emily started a new tactic.
She began setting fire to mailboxes.
When caught, she was sentenced to six months in prison.
She and several other suffragette inmates barricaded themselves in their cells and went
on a hunger strike.
When the prison authorities were finally able to break down the doors, they force fed
the women.
Emily finally had enough of this treatment and tried to kill herself as a form of protest.
She failed but did break a vertebra and injure her head.
While recovering they force fed her again.
Emily described her suicide attempt in a letter she wrote after being released,
... 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.
Emily suffered pain for the rest of her life due to her injuries.
Furthermore, the WSPU leadership did not sanction her attempts to set things on fire.
They began publicly distancing themselves from Emily.
She was arrested one last time in 1912.
Emily attacked a Baptist minister with a horse whip, thinking it was Lloyd George.
She was sentenced to prison again and was force fed again.
Death by Horse
On June 4, 1913, Emily Davison attended the Epsom Derby.
This is a popular horse race held in England every year.
Emily placed herself in a position at the end of the last turn on the track.
After some of the horses passed, she ran onto the track.
She reached up to grab the reins of a horse belonging to the King.
The result of Emily’s attempt is that the horse hit her at 35 miles per hour.
The horse fell and tossed its rider.
They both suffered some injuries, but Emily was killed.
Emily didn’t die right away.
She was taken to the hospital and remained alive but unconscious for two days.
Doctors finally attempted to operate but were unsuccessful.
Emily died from her injuries.
Nobody is sure why she was at the race track that day.
Emily didn’t write any notes or explain to anybody what she was doing.
We can never know if she was attempting suicide, or just made a mistake.
The official cause of death for Emily was reported as “misadventure”.
Funeral, Then War Emily Davison’s funeral was attended by
over 5,000 fellow suffragettes.
As a train transported her body to London, nearly 50,000 people stood alongside the route
to show their respect.
Emily’s tombstone is inscribed with the WPSU slogan, “Deeds Not Words”.
Her death would mark the end of militant tactics to force women’s suffrage.
A few months after Emily’s funeral, World War One began.
Emmeline Pankhurst called for a truce between WSPU and the government and urged a focus
on nationalism instead.
Many followed her lead, and ultimately the organization ceased to exist.
Once the war ended, the government did begin passing laws that gave women the right to
vote.
A series of laws, starting in 1918 and continuing into the 1920s, increasingly gave more and
more women the right to vote until universal suffrage was finally achieved.
Emily Davison spent her life practicing militant activism.
She used everything from property damage to arson to make her point and suffered repeatedly
in prison because of it.
But did she help the women’s suffrage movement in England?
Emily kept going to prison, kept going on hunger strikes, and was force fed again
and again.
In response she kept damaging government property.
She also did it in a way that made even her fellow suffragettes uncomfortable.
Opinions at the time Emily lived were mixed.
Her supporters thought she didn’t get enough credit for helping the movement succeed.
Others thought she was too aggressive and made things worse.
What do you think?
Is Emily a hero to the feminist movement, or simply an insane criminal who committed
suicide?
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