ONE hundred years ago, in June 1913, amid the carnival spirit of Derby Day and in the presence of King George V and Queen Mary on Epsom Downs, a militant suffragette named Emily Wilding Davison sacrificed her life for the cause of women's rights.
The coroner recorded a verdict of misadventure, but was it an intentional sacrifice?
People visiting a special display being staged at Bourne Hall Museum will be able to weigh up the evidence for themselves at the exhibition – Dying for the Vote.
Emily was fatally injured during the running of the Derby in an attempt to send a message to King George V that his female subjects were being repressed by the Government. Her intention was to run on the track and wave the flag of the militant Women's Social and Political Union in front of newsreel cameras. Tragically, Emily collided with the King's horse, Anmer.
Throughout the 19th and well into the 20th century, successive male governments chose to repress women's claims to voting rights. Most men interpreted "the woman question" in the light of their own prejudiced period.
In 1903, despairing of the political stalemate on women's rights, Emmeline Pankhurst formed the militant Women's Social and Political Union. Deputations of voteless women who tried to communicate with the Prime Minister on the issue were convicted of "obstructing the police" and jailed as common criminals.
In 1909, imprisoned Surrey artist Marion Wallace Dunlop went on hunger-strike for political prisoner status. In order to avoid the responsibility of having Suffragettes die in prison, the Government introduced the torture of forcible feeding.
Men like Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (1871-1961), of Dorking, supported the women in their struggle. As a result he was imprisoned and brutally force-fed like the women, then declared bankrupt. But the women's cause was still ignored.
Women like Emily Davison tried acts of violence as a wake-up call to the nation. Emily set fire to a pillar-box, gave herself up to police, and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in Holloway Prison, where she went on hunger-strike and was force-fed.
Emily Davison came from a large and resourceful family that originated in Northumberland. She had been awarded a first class honours pass from Oxford University.
This was at a time when women were denied degrees at universities, limiting employment prospects. Emily persevered to obtain a degree from London University, the first to award degrees to women.
In company with many others who joined the Women's Social and Political Union, Emily Davison saw the right to vote in Parliamentary elections not as an end in itself, but as a gateway through which women could influence the fair funding of facilities such as maternity and child care, or help for widows.
Equal opportunity in the workplace was high on the agenda, as was gender-based legal and moral reform.
In 1913, WSPU leader Emmeline Pankhurst, then in her fifties, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. She was convicted of her involvement in the bombing of a new house, due to be the residence of the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, at Nursery Road, Walton on the Hill, in February 1913.
Her pledge to hunger-strike to an early death lent urgency to Emily Davison's message to the King at the one place and time when he was accessible to the public – at the Derby.
On Derby Day, June 4, 1913, Emily Davison was aged 40, but was athletic, although worn down by forcible feeding. She was a keen cyclist and early in her career had turned down an opportunity to swim professionally.
She may have felt confident she could dart across the path of oncoming horses to the other side of the racetrack safely. If so, she tragically misjudged. Flying hooves struck her head. Emily died four days later, without regaining consciousness, in Epsom Cottage Hospital.
Although the WSPU accorded Emily a martyr's funeral, her death accomplished little politically. It took the First World War, in which women proved their loyalty alongside their men, to set in motion true democracy.
Voting rights for British women on the same terms as men were granted finally in 1928.
From May 7 to July 27 this year, Epsom and Ewell commemorates the death of Emily Davison (1872-1913), and the cause for which she died, with an exhibition collated by guest curator Irene Cockroft at the museum, in Bourne Hall, Spring Street, Ewell.
People can visit the exhibition between 9am and 5pm, Tuesdays to Saturdays. There is no charge.
For further information, call David Brooks, museum assistant, on 0208 394 1734.
There's even a chance to "meet" the most militant suffragette in Britain, as an actor will be talking to visitors, dressed in period clothing.
