Deeds, not words - What really happened to Emily Davison?

The 1913 Derby: Emily Davison is killed colliding with Anmer, the King's horse.

Two very different TV programmes captivated me this week, and they shared both obvious and subtle connections heightened by my happening to watch them back to back. In the depressing spin cycle of feminist setbacks there is something to be said for taking an accidental 100 year view on the 4th June, the day feminism took to the track.

The first programme was Clare Balding's 'Secrets of a Suffragette' on Channel 4 (view here on 4OD), and the other was 'The Queen: A Passion for Horses' on BBC1 (see BBC iplayer), also presented by Balding whose grandfather, father and brother have all trained racehorses for the Queen.

In the first programme Balding and her team examine one of the greatest events in British feminist history - that of the death of Emily Davison at the Epsom Derby 100 years ago under King George the Fifth's racehorse, Anmer.

Emily Davison, a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) which was formed in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, has largely been presented in history as a madwoman who deliberately went to Epsom to kill herself in the name of her movement. Her death, three days later from internal injuries, divided many around the country. Some argued her actions were necessary, many said she was a lunatic, and others have since said she set her own movement back in achieving its goals, particularly given the popularity of the Royal Family at the time, though it was widely believed the collision with the King's horse in particular could not have been planned.

Quite apart from the event itself the programme showed me how little I know about the sufragette movement, the women who developed and participated in it, and the theory behind their motto 'Deeds not words.' Before the programme my hazy assumptions would have been that Davison ran onto the track to kill herself to fight for her cause. Brave, yes, but probably unbalanced of mind too.

This has been disputed since the day itself but Balding's Channel 4 programme goes further to try to uncover the truth. They investigate Davison's known militant history, the consequences of her multiple terms in prison for violent attacks and arson, and her serious attempt to injure herself by throwing herself down an iron stairwell to bring an end to repeated force feeding regimes the imprisoned women faced in answer to their hunger strikes. This side of the investigation was particularly hard to watch - the mouth clamps, the funnels and tubing. They were lucky if wardens found their stomachs, and unlucky if they had gruel poured into their lungs. Apart from the mental trauma, many women suffered gastric and other illnesses for the rest of their lives.

But the main focus of the programme and of the team's investigation was footage of the Derby race itself and how it brings new evidence to light which suggests that Davison did not mean to die that day. The programme shows Davison and her actions on that day from new angles, and consolidates it with evidence found on the track. In summary, the footage appears to show Davison seeking out the King's horse from a vantage point good enough to allow it. It then shows her dodging several other horses, and then seeming to draw something from her clothes - a sash, it is thought. The argument goes that a sash, embroidered with the words 'Votes for Women' was found at the scene of the collision by a race official who saved it from the turmoil and later passed it on. It was bought recently at auction by writer Barbara Gordon who, importantly, outbid the Jockey Club itself. Clare Balding argues that the strong bidding by the Jockey Club points to the authenticity of the sash and the theory that Davison did not intend to kill herself at Epsom, but instead intended to attach the sash to the horse, perhaps to its bridle as it galloped by, as a high profile way to petition the King directly for her cause. The sash now hangs in the Houses of Parliament.

A sad postscript to this story was that the jockey who collided with Davison, Herbert Jones, killed himself years later in 1951, as it was said he never recovered from the sight of Davison's face as he rode into her. He attended Emmeline Pankhurst's funeral, in 1928 (the same year women achieved universal sufferage), where he laid a wreath for both women 'to do honour to the memory of Mrs Pankhurst and Miss Emily Davison.'

In watching the programme I was struck by how little the women's suffragette movement survives on. A few interested societies, a few historians who uncover pieces of evidence here or there, a grave in Morpeth with the slogan 'Deeds, not words.'

In Balding's lighter piece, charting the Queen's history and passion for horses, we watch another Regent's bid to become a Derby winner...one of the only major races to elude her stable. But apart from this obvious connection to Davison's history and her grandfather, George the Fifth, there was a wonderful moment in this programme where, the day after attending Baroness Thatcher's funeral, the Queen takes to the Winners Circle at Newbury to receive a trophy for a horse ridden to victory by a young woman, Hayley Turner. The pictures tell a thousand words.

And so I went to bed thinking a hero, a monarch, an owner, a TV star and a winner. That is the difference 100 years makes.