Research Today
  • Home
    • Product
  • Ancestor's
  • Birthdays
  • Graveyards
    • St. Mary Merton Park >
      • William Dodge
  • Family
    • George Betteridge
    • Bilham
    • Bland
    • Bone
    • Cate
    • Clayden
    • Coppenhall
    • Dale Ancestors
    • Dale
    • Claude Albert Dale
    • Edgar Stanley Dale
    • Thomas Alfred Dale
    • Timothy Dale
    • Elsworthy
    • MARTIN
    • Oakley
    • James John Pluckrose
    • Shaddick
    • Rounding
  • News
  • Places
    • EPPING HUNT
    • Littlebury >
      • 1841 Census
      • Littlebury Burials
      • Littlebury News
    • Hammersmith
    • Middlewich
    • World's End Chelsea >
      • RAASAY STREET
      • World's End Residents >
        • Marritta Hillsdon
  • N.U.W.S.S.
    • Lydia Ernestine Becker
    • Millicent Garrett Fawcett
    • EMILY WILDING DAVISON
    • ANNIE KENNEY
  • Photos
    • Wonderpage
  • Rorke's Drift
    • John Jobbins
    • James Keefe
  • The Famous
    • Ellen Terry
    • Gene Vincent
    • Joseph Carey Merrick
    • Diana Dors
  • True Crime
    • ABBERLINE
    • BIGAMY
    • BURGLARY
    • Last Hangings >
      • Arson: Daniel Case
      • Att-Murder Martin Doyle
      • Rape: Richard Smith
      • Robbery: John Young
      • Robbery
    • MURDERS in CHELSEA
    • MURDER >
      • Osmond Otto Brand
      • Francis Losch
      • Job Taylor
    • Rap Sheets >
      • Susan Davies
    • RAPE >
      • William Duell
    • Crimes in Hyde Park >
      • Mary Griffith
    • Suicide in the Serpentine
    • THEFT
    • Unsolved Murders >
      • Fleetwood Willats
  • Wild West
    • Cole Younger
    • Bob Younger
  • Email me

  EMILY WILDING DAVISON 1872 - 1913

Picture
Emily W. Davison.
  Emily was born on the 11th October 1872 in Blackheath Kent (now London) to Charles Edward Davison and Margaret Caisley, Charles and Margaret were Married on the 3rd August 1868 at Saint Alfege Church Greenwich Kent. (Charles second marriage). Emily was Baptist at Saint Alfege on the 9th December 1872.

 Emily was a good performer at school and had a university education, having studied first at Royal Holloway College in London. Unfortunately, she was forced to drop out because her Mother who was recently widowed could not afford the fees of £20 a term. She then became a school teacher in Edgbaston and Worthing, raising enough money to study English Language and Literature at St Hugh's College, Oxford,

 Emily obtained first class honours in her final exams, though women were not at that time admitted to degrees at Oxford. She then obtained a post teaching the children of a family in Berkshire.

 In 1901 Emily was working as a Governess for Edward Moorhouse, at The Grange Spratton Northamptonshire.

 November 1906 Emily joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) Suffragette and immediately involved herself in their more militant activities.

Emily was arrested and imprisoned for various offences,
30th March 1909 One Month for Obstruction.
30th July 1909 Two Months for Obstruction.
4th September 1909 Two Months for Stone Throwing at White City Manchester.
20th October 1909 One Month for Stone Throwing at Radcliffe near Manchester.
19th November 1909 One Month for breaking windows at the House of Commons.
10th January 1912 Six Months for setting Fire to Postal Boxes at Holloway London.

On 2nd April 1911 the night of the census,
Emily hid in a cupboard in the Palace of Westminster overnight so that on the census form she could legitimately give her place of residence that night as the “House of Commons.” (Tony Benn MP once unofficially placed a plaque there to commemorate the event).
But she was (I believe unknown to herself) recorded twice, once living at Lodging
31 Coram St St Pancras W C London.
Charlotte Bateman Mother Widow 50 Housekeeper Born Walworth RD
Emily Wilding Davison Boarder Single 38 Political
Secretary Born London.
And again
Found Hiding in Crypt of Westminster Hall Wetsminster
Emily Wilding Davidson Head Single 35 School Teacher Born Long Worsley Northumberland

Old Bailey 9th January 1912
Emily Wilding Davison a Tutor aged 36,
Damage to Property and Arson.
 Attempting to place against a Post Office letter-box a match and other dangerous substances, placing in a Post Office letter box matches and other dangerous substances.

Mr. Forster Boulton prosecuted.

Inspector Francis Powell, New Scotland Yard.
 On 14th December 1911. I was in Parliament Street from 1.20 p.m. near the post office. I saw the prisoner walk from the pavement up to the letter box at the post office, which stands slightly back from the pavement. Her back was towards me. I know her by sight. She was wearing a long coat, which hid her arms to a certain extent. When she got close to the letter-box her head was stooped and she appeared to be striking
matches. I rushed up behind her and looked over her shoulder. She was holding a small packet in the left hand, one of the top corners of which was slightly alight. She held it in that position for a minute us if to give it an opportunity of becoming more alight. It touched the aperture of the letter box. I seized the packet with my left hand and is doing so extinguished the flame. I took her into custody to New Scotland Yard. When there she sat in a room, as I was leaving the room she called me back and said, “Do you know I set fire to two in the City this morning, a pillar box in the middle of Leadenhall Street, it burned” (I presume she meant the contents) “as what I put in was well alight and it was the most effective, the other was facing the Mansion House and Mappin and Webb's. I confess that I set fire to a post office, 43 Fleet Street, on Friday last,” that would be on December 8th, “and on the Monday following I went up to a policeman to be arrested.” I asked her if she had seen the policeman since and she said, “No, but I know his number, it is 185.” She immediately corrected herself and said, “Why he is sitting there.” As a matter of fact he was in the room in plain clothes. Prisoner was taken to Cannon Row and charged, but first she was searched. In her presence the matron who searched her handed me two similar packets to this one and told me she found them on prisoner. I held them in my hand and prisoner said, “Yes, they are my property.” This is one, Exhibit 3. I opened it. It contained a piece of calico saturated with what I thought was paraffin, but it was kerosene. This (Exhibit 1) is the packet that was alight in prisoner's hand when she was arrested. I examined that and found linen or calico inside, also saturated with paraffin. It was quite wet at the time. At Cannon Row police station just previous to being charged she made a statement. I said to her, “You know you can make a statement if you like, but whatever you say, of course, will be used in evidence.” She said, “I did this entirely on my own responsibility, I refer to the whole of the various attempts.” She was then charged and in reply said, “What about the other charges? It was kerosene, not paraffin.” On the remand she was charged with the offence in connection with the Fleet Street Post Office on her own confession. In answer to the charge she said, “Certainly, the matchbox was not wrapped up in the linen and paper. That was a separate package. I used one of the matches, then threw the box in. I set the linen packet alight. I threw first the packet in, then the matchbox. A boy saw me do it. You quite understand there was a witness to the Mansion House case. A man saw it. He stopped for a minute.” She was taken before the magistrate and committed for trial. She was called upon in the usual way and made the statement which is attached to the depositions.

 Cross-examined by prisoner. The reason I was in Parliament Street on Thursday December 14th, at 1.20 was because I had instructions from my superior to keep observation on certain pillar boxes and post offices. He may have received information which made him think that something was going to happen, but I do not know. When I first saw you I had just come from the Strand Post Office and was going in the direction of the Houses of Parliament. You had not your back towards me. At Scotland Yard I said that I knew you would do something to a post office from your past history. At the time I was not expecting to see you. I know nothing against your character beyond certain matters connected with the movement to which you belong, I believe it to be a good one. You had no object of personal spite in this matter. I do not know whether you had anything to gain in this matter.

 Alfred Thomas Skeggs, Postman at Fleet Street Post Office. On December 8th at 1.30 I was taking post bags off the collection and tying them up. When the usual collector came I handed them over.

To prisoner. I did not notice a smell of kerosene, as unfortunately I cannot smell.

 James William Arthur Staines, Sorter, Mount Pleasant District Post Office. I received from the Fleet Street branch office a letter bag collected at 1.30 on
December 8th, which I opened. Amongst other items I found a box of wax vestas not wrapped up in anything, also a flat packet of grease-proof paper with no address on. It was a piece similar to Exhibit 5. It was tied up with a piece of white cotton. It contained a piece of white rag smelling of paraffin very strongly. One corner of the rag was scorched as though it had been set on fire and had gone out. I could not say whether recently or not.

 To prisoner. None of the letters around it were charred or burned. One vestal had apparently been used in the bag. That was thrown in separately from the box. The only damage was some grease on one of the packages. I do not think any letter could have been burned completely.

 ALFRED THOMAS SKEGGS, recalled. I heard no police whistles about 1.30 on December 8th. I never heard any that day at all.

 WILLIAM CONNOLLY, Postman, South-Western District Office. On December 14th at 20 minutes past 2 p.m. I cleared the letter-box in Parliament Street. There were some letters and postcards. There was nothing special to attract my attention.

The RECORDER. I do no know why this witness was called.

 Prisoner's statement before the magistrate, "My motive in doing this was to protest against the vindictive sentence and treatment that my comrade, Mary Lee, when she was last charged at this Court received, compared with the treatment awarded to Lady Constance Lytton, who has done far
more damage. Secondly, I wished to call upon the Government to put Women Suffrage into the King's Speech on February 14th, 1912. As the protest was meant to be serious, I adopted a serious course. In the agitation for reform in the past, the next step after window breaking was incendiaries in order to draw the attention of the private citizen to the fact that the question of reform is their concern as well as that of women. Three points I wish to make about my act. First, I might have done with perfect ease a great deal more damage than I did. I contented myself with doing just the amount that would make my protest decisive. Secondly, I walked on the Thursday, December 14th, into the Aldgate district, but would not do any damage there, because the people were of the poorer class. Thirdly, the reason I offered to give myself up on Monday, December 11th, was that I thought Post Office officials might have been suspected of the deed as there was trouble in the Post Office just then. Finally, women are now so moved upon this question that they feel that anything necessary to be done must be done, regardless of the consequences, but the consequences do not really lie at their door, but at the door of those who have refused to deal with the question as a matter of justice."

 EMILY WILDING DAVISON (prisoner, not on oath) made a long statement dealing with the question of the suffrage for women. She admitted
committing the offences, but continued: There was no malice in what I did. It was a purely political act and was done from no motive whatever but to draw the attention of the public to the iniquitous state of affairs now existing, and it has long ago been recognised in England that men who do any act of violence from a political motive must be differently treated from those who do it with a purely personal motive, that is the distinction between the political prisoner and the ordinary criminal.

 The Recorder. There is no such thing as a political crime, it is either a crime or not a crime.

 Prisoner. I am aware that, that has been argued in the Courts, but custom has now proved that, that is wrong. For instance, there are the cases of O'Brien, Cobbett, and Dr. Jameson,Technically, of course, I suppose I must be judged to be guilty, but morally I am not guilty, morally it is you before whom I stand who are guilty, you, the private citizens of this country and the Government that you choose to represent you, who keep women out of their just rights as citizens, and in so doing absolutely prevent your country having the right to be called a democratic country, that is, a country where the rights of the people hold good; and so long as you exclude women from these rights, upon you lies the blame of any act that they may have to commit in order to procure those rights.

 Mrs. ELINOR PENN GASKELL, 12 Nicoll Road, Willesden. I know prisoner very well. The motive with which this act was done was decidedly a political motive. I know that all these deeds are simply
went on trial for the bombing on the 28th Feburary 1913, and was sentence to three years penal servitude.

 She went on hunger strike in Strangdone to call the attention of the public to the great cause for which we stand. I know prisoner to be a woman of the very highest character and honour, and that she would not do any deeds of this kind with a personal object.

Verdict, Guilty.

Inspector FRANCIS POWELL, recalled. I have known prisoner for some years. She has six convictions against her, for assault on the police, obstruction of the police, and doing wilful damage, all in connection with the Women's Suffrage movement. She is highly respectable beyond this movement. She has given the police a great deal of trouble.

Sentence Six months' imprisonment.

30th November 1912 Ten Days for Assaulting a Vicar who she mistook for David Lloyd George.

19th Feburary 1913, Emily was believe to have planted a bomb at Lloyd George's newly built house in Surrey, damaging it severely. 

It was unclear why Emily went to the Epsom Derby on the 4th June 1913, one possibility theories for her entering the race track was that she was trying to attach a flag to the King's horse, so when the horse crossed the finishing line it would quite literally be flying the suffragette flag. Evidence for this was that she had supposedly been seen in the weeks before stopping horses in the park near her house. 

 Whatever
the reason Emily was struck by King George V's horse Anmer, and she died four days later on the 8th June 1913 in Epsom Cottage Hospital, due to a fractured skull and internal injuries caused by the incident.

 Herbert Jones, the jockey who was riding the horse, suffered a mild concussion in the incident, but was “haunted by that woman's face” for much longer. Eleven years later, at Emmeline Pankhurst's funeral Jones laid a wreath to do honour to the memory of Mrs Pankhurst and Miss Emily Davison, and in 1951, he was found dead by his son in a gas filled kitchen.

The Times Monday 9th June 1913
The Suffragist Outrage At Epsom. 
 Miss Emily Wilding Davison, the suffragist who interfered with the King's horse during the race for the Derby, died in hospital at Epsom at 4.50 yesterday afternoon. 
 She underwent an operation on Friday and had remained in a grave condition over since. A number of lady friends called at the Epsom Cottage Hospital on Saturday afternoon to inquire as to the condition of Miss Davison. Two visitors draped the screen round the bed with the W.S.P.U. colours and tied the W.S.P.U. badge to the head of the bed. A sister of Miss Davison and a lady friend of her mother stayed at the hospital for many hours, and on Saturday night Captain Davison, a brother of the patient, arrived.
 Only members of the staff of the hospital, however
, were present when the end actually came. Miss Davison, who was born at Blackheath, being the daughter of Charles Edward and Margaret Davison, was one of the most prominrent of the militant women suffragists and joined the W.S.P.U. in 1906. She was sentenced to imprisonment on several occasions, having been convicted of talking part in a disturbance at Limehouse in 1909, of stone throwing in Manchester in the same year, of breaking a window in the House of Commons in 1910, of setting fire to pillar boxes in Westminster in 1911, and of assaulting a Baptist minister in mistake for Mr. Lloyd George in November last. When imprisoned she habitually adopted the tactics of the hunger strike. She was a graduate of London University and obtained a first class in the Oxford
final honours school in English language and literature. An inquest will be opened at Epsom Court House at 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon.

 Emily is buried in the church yard of St Mary the Virgin, Morpeth Northumberland in a family plot. Morpeth is not far from the village of Longhorsley, Northumberland where she lived with her mother. The funeral attracted a large crowd which was held in London on the 14th June 1913, and her coffin was brought by train to Morpeth for burial on 15th June 1913. Her gravestone bears the WSPU slogan, “Deeds not words.”


Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
    • Product
  • Ancestor's
  • Birthdays
  • Graveyards
    • St. Mary Merton Park >
      • William Dodge
  • Family
    • George Betteridge
    • Bilham
    • Bland
    • Bone
    • Cate
    • Clayden
    • Coppenhall
    • Dale Ancestors
    • Dale
    • Claude Albert Dale
    • Edgar Stanley Dale
    • Thomas Alfred Dale
    • Timothy Dale
    • Elsworthy
    • MARTIN
    • Oakley
    • James John Pluckrose
    • Shaddick
    • Rounding
  • News
  • Places
    • EPPING HUNT
    • Littlebury >
      • 1841 Census
      • Littlebury Burials
      • Littlebury News
    • Hammersmith
    • Middlewich
    • World's End Chelsea >
      • RAASAY STREET
      • World's End Residents >
        • Marritta Hillsdon
  • N.U.W.S.S.
    • Lydia Ernestine Becker
    • Millicent Garrett Fawcett
    • EMILY WILDING DAVISON
    • ANNIE KENNEY
  • Photos
    • Wonderpage
  • Rorke's Drift
    • John Jobbins
    • James Keefe
  • The Famous
    • Ellen Terry
    • Gene Vincent
    • Joseph Carey Merrick
    • Diana Dors
  • True Crime
    • ABBERLINE
    • BIGAMY
    • BURGLARY
    • Last Hangings >
      • Arson: Daniel Case
      • Att-Murder Martin Doyle
      • Rape: Richard Smith
      • Robbery: John Young
      • Robbery
    • MURDERS in CHELSEA
    • MURDER >
      • Osmond Otto Brand
      • Francis Losch
      • Job Taylor
    • Rap Sheets >
      • Susan Davies
    • RAPE >
      • William Duell
    • Crimes in Hyde Park >
      • Mary Griffith
    • Suicide in the Serpentine
    • THEFT
    • Unsolved Murders >
      • Fleetwood Willats
  • Wild West
    • Cole Younger
    • Bob Younger
  • Email me