On June 4th 1913, it was derby day at Epsom racecourse. Suffragette, Emily Wilding Davison, ducked beneath the railings and onto the race track, just as King George’s horse Anmer approached Tattenham corner. She rushed towards the horse and was trampled. Horribly injured, suffering a fractured skull and internal trauma, Emily tragically died just four days later. While her exact intentions that day can never be proved conclusively, there is no question that Emily was attempting a very public and very dangerous protest in support of the women’s suffrage cause.
While carrying out some archival research, I came across an astounding letter that was sent to Emily following the incident, as she lay dying in her hospital bed. Despite my awareness of the vitriolic opposition by some to those fighting for women’s suffrage, I still found the letter hard to comprehend. It left me shocked, saddened, sickened and angry. The letter, including underlined phrases, reads as follows:
‘Miss Davison,
I am glad to hear you are in hospital, I hope you suffer torture until you die. You idiot. I consider you are a person unworthy of existence in this world, considering what you have done and should like the opportunity of starving and beating you to a pulp “you cat.”
I hope you live in torture a few years, as an example to your confederates.
Why don’t your people find an asylum for you?
Yours,
An Englishman.’
Some historical documents bring home to us more than others, the stark realities faced by the pioneers of women’s equality, and remind us of the reasons why the ongoing efforts of all those involved in the recovery and preservation of women’s history, are so important. For me, this letter is one of them.
Emily is buried at St Mary’s churchyard, Morpeth.
Tara Morton is a historian at Warwick University. She wonders if this letter makes other readers blood boil as much as hers…
This certainly did make my blood boil too … As you rightly say, so often the archives remind us how groundbreaking the efforts of these pioneers were and just how important it is to be researching them. I’m looking at late twentieth century history but so often I come across accounts of women whose bravery and commitment in the face of real hostility is truly inspirational, and whose stories make me feel privileged to be getting to do this work.
At the moment, I’ve been looking at the issue of domestic violence and have been particularly struck by the women who were involved in the early Women’s Aid movement in Scotland and also the women who found the courage to leave their violent husbands (often taking their young children with them) in the face of hostility from a number of different sources, during a period when many still believed something akin to ‘you made your bed, you lie in it’ with regard to marriage. Some of the testimonies of these women have really moved and inspired me and I’m just so happy to hopefully be getting their hitherto hidden stories, and their personal histories, out there!