Suffragette (14 page)

5th May 1913

Freedom. I thought I would jump for joy but I can barely walk. I am so weak I felt blinded by the light and noise when I shuffled out of those gates today. Flora and Mother were
waiting there with Flora’s car. They were anxious but thrilled to see me. Both tried to behave as though everything was normal. When Mother embraced me, she wept loudly. They wanted to take
me for a meal but I could not have swallowed a mouthful. Instead, we drove back to Bloomsbury in Flora’s Fiat and they put me to bed.

What a treat to have Mother with me, at Flora’s. I felt safe and happy.

6th May 1913

I have slept for sixteen hours. When I woke Mother was at my side.

“You’re a stubborn one you are, Dollie, just like me. But you’re brave, too, and I admire you for what you’ve done.”

I think those words mattered to me more than anything.

20th May 1913

My health is improving. I have put on some weight but my moods are dark. I am haunted by the memory of the cries from the neighbouring cells. Women in pain, women giving birth,
women being force-fed. Women petrified.

4th June 1913

Derby Day. Epsom racecourse. Not only is this horse race one of the most important events in the English calendar, it is also a day of great social importance. The elite of
British society attends this meeting, including the King and Queen with a host of guests.

What a far cry it will be from Holloway prison! I am attending because I have learned a secret. There is to be some form of protest, but I don’t know what it will be. I am not involved.
Flora is driving down with me. I have not told her why I want to be there, but she is happy to indulge me in this outing

I shall write more later.

Later

My God, what a shocking day.

The crowds attending were numerous indeed. And what finery! I have rarely seen such outfits. It was like a scene dreamed up for a moving-picture show.

Epsom is shaped almost like a horse-shoe. The races are flat sprints. At one of the events, the King entered into competition a horse named Anmer, and the crowds flocked to the railings to watch
it perform. Flora and I were positioned close to the finishing line.

The start took the jockeys along a fast straight that led to a long and gradual bend. The bend sharpened at Tattenham Corner, where the horses slowed down before picking up into the home
straight to finish in front of the Royal Box.

As they drew towards us, the horses were galloping for their lives, battling it out towards those final furlongs. It was terribly exciting. I was jumping up and down, entirely caught up in the
thrilling atmosphere: thudding hooves; fresh, sharp air; crowds shouting for the King’s horse or for whichever animal they had placed their bets on. And then, suddenly, a small figure, a
woman, appeared on the track. She had slipped beneath the iron railing and was pounding towards the approaching beasts. A flash of material caught my attention. White, green and purple. Our
colours! Inside her coat she had sewn the suffragettes’ flag. She ran like lightning towards the galloping horses and, as Anmer rounded the very last bend at Tattenham Corner, she grabbed
– Lord knows how – the King’s horse by its bridle.

“It’s one of them women!” “What does she think she’s doing?” Questions, voices, catcalls were being hurled from every direction.

“Who is that?” begged Flora. “I can’t make out her face.”

By then I knew exactly who it was.

Emily Wilding Davison.

“Emily, stop!” I screamed, fearing she would break her back.

The speed of the charging horses sent her flying. She actually somersaulted. It was the most extraordinary and terrifying sight.

I went cold, remembering what she had spoken of in the past.

The crowd roared and shouted. Folk were appalled. The jockey was thrown. He went flying like a bullet through the air. The horse went down, stumbling and neighing, and there on the ground
stretched out before the beast lay Emily, my comrade. A heavy silence settled, as though the world was in shock, but then people began to swarm out of the throng, from behind the white-painted
rails, on to the racecourse itself. There was much shouting and calling of orders. Confusion and panic took the place of the earlier competition excitement. I looked about for our bearded King
George V or his wife, Queen Mary, but, although they were there somewhere, neither came forward. Lord knows what the King was thinking. Of his poor animal, I suppose. Eventually, the horse managed
to stagger to its feet, but clearly it was traumatized. The jockey also got up, but not Emily. Her injuries were far too grave.

“Did you know about this?” Flora asked me.

I shook my head.

9th June 1913

Emily died yesterday afternoon. She was operated on last Friday but her condition never really improved. Mary Leigh, Charlie Marsh and several other close suffrage friends
visited her bedside. Flora tells me that someone had draped the WSPU colours from the screen around her bed.

She has become the first martyr to our movement, prepared to give her life for women’s rights, for what she passionately believed in, but what a horrible shock to us all!

I want to say a word or two about Emily because there are many now who are calling her crazy, or a “crank” or hysterical, particularly the newspapers and the establishment, who take
every opportunity to ridicule our cause. Others are accusing her of doing more damage than good, but these remarks, all of them, are unjust.

Emily studied at Oxford University where she gained a first-class honours degree. Well, that is to say, she sat the exams, but because she was a woman she was not entitled to actually claim the
degree or use it professionally. Later, she went on to London University, where she took a BA. London University is less stuffy than Oxford and they allowed her the honour.

From this it is clear that she was hardworking and determined. Emily was not a crazy crank or a fanatic, but a passionate woman and a serious-minded, sensitive individual who cared desperately
that a woman’s place in society should be equal to that of a man. So strong was her commitment that she believed the Cause was worth dying for if, in the dying, she could bring our fight
closer to resolution.

21st June 1913

Emily’s coffin, draped in our colours, was followed by 2,000 uniformed suffragettes. Charlie Marsh – she and I broke windows together in the Strand – carried a
cross. Flora and I walked side by side, holding hands, sisters in silence. My mother accompanied us, too. It was very moving.

The coffin was placed on a train at King’s Cross Station, headed for its final resting place in Northumberland. Many women accompanied it, keeping vigil by it. Bizarrely, I glimpsed, among
the throng of faces, Celia Loverton. I called and called, but there was no way I could have reached her or caught her attention. Still, it satisfied me enormously to see her there. The word is
spreading. Women everywhere are understanding that this is their battle, whoever they are, whatever their background.

Emily was buried near her home in Morpeth. It is intended that her gravestone will be inscribed, “Deeds not Words”.

I think many of us are left with dozens of questions and a sense of emptiness. I know that I am.

I shall end this diary now. I began it to be my companion after the loss of Lady Violet. I have found friends and, I believe, my path in life. Now my energies must be directed towards the
future: gaining a place at university and afterwards finding work as a journalist so that I can tell our suffrage story, which, by then, I trust will have a triumphant ending.

Emily is dead. Thousands of us have served some time in prisons all over Great Britain, manhandled and despised. For what? Because we believe that we are the equal of men, that we have the right
to participate in the building of a just and equal society and because we cannot stand silently looking on while almost 50 per cent of British people live in conditions that are below the
breadline, conditions that force them to scratch and scrape a living, in what is nothing short of an abyss.

We act with courage, proud to be women.

And so our fight goes on.

Historical Note

Calls for women’s rights date back many years. One of the earliest was
Vindication of the Rights of Women
published by Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792. Some individual
women called for the vote during the 1830s and 1840s. However, organized campaigning did not get underway until the 1860s.

Women were not allowed in the House of Commons. Instead they relied on sympathetic MPs to present their case. In 1866 a Second Reform Bill was being debated. Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett
presented a petition to JS Mill, MP for Westminster and a supporter of women’s rights. Mill presented the petition to the House of Commons, asking for suitably qualified women to be included
in the Bill. MPs voted the demand out by 194 votes to 73. Working-class men in towns gained the vote, but women were excluded.

In 1866 a woman called Lydia Becker formed the Manchester Women’s Suffrage Society; other societies were set up in London and Edinburgh. Relying on friends in the House, Lydia Becker and
other women presented petitions to Parliament every year. All were rejected.

At this point, many people were opposed to giving women the vote. The arguments varied. Many people believed a woman’s place was in the home and that it was against nature for women to be
involved in politics; a man’s world. Others believed men were superior to women and therefore politics should be left to them.

In 1884 the right to vote was extended to working-class men in rural areas. Again women were excluded. By this stage they had won the right to work as nurses, teachers, factory workers and could
own property, but still they were not entitled to vote.

Women in New Zealand gained the vote in 1893 and a year later the vote was given to women in South Australia. In 1895 the British general election returned a number of MPs sympathetic to
women’s suffrage.

Encouraged by these events, the women’s suffrage campaign gained momentum and the women’s fight for the vote became a major political issue. Thousands of women up and down the
country rallied to “the Cause”, as it became known.

There were two main strands. The first and largest organization was the The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Formed in 1897 under the leadership of Mrs Millicent
Fawcett, it brought together all the existing women’s suffrage societies. The NUWSS was run on democratic lines and believed in using only peaceful methods to win the vote. By 1914 it had a
membership of nearly 60,000 women throughout the country. They were known as suffragists from the word suffrage meaning the right to vote.

The second strand was the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). It was formed in 1903 in Manchester by Emmeline Pankhurst and her two daughters, Christabel, a law student, and Sylvia,
a socialist and artist. The aim of the WSPU was immediate enfranchisement. From the outset, the WSPU rejected traditional campaigning in favour of militant action. From 1906 its members became
known as suffragettes, to distinguish them from the law-abiding suffragists.

As time passed, WSPU tactics became increasingly militant. Between 1906 and 1914 more than 1,000 women were arrested and went to prison. From 1909 many imprisoned suffragettes went on hunger
strike. The government introduced force-feeding, a brutal technique, which caused a public outcry and won the suffragettes enormous support. However, not all women agreed with the militant tactics
of the WSPU. While the Pankhursts and their followers rushed the Houses of Parliament, the NUWSS continued to petition peacefully and educate the public through pamphlets and books.

Despite their differences the two organizations often worked together, joining forces at huge demonstrations and meetings. By 1910 it looked as if success might be in sight. The newly formed
Labour Party supported votes for women, although they were uncertain about how it should be achieved. Some Liberals, too, supported the woman’s vote, although their leader, Asquith, and other
powerful men in the party, were determinedly opposed. An all-party committee in the House of Commons drew up a conciliation bill, which would have given votes to women householders and wives of
male householders but, largely due to the manoeuverings of Prime Minister Asquith, it was defeated.

This infuriated the WSPU. From 1911 suffragettes turned to ever more militant tactics. In 1912 they broke hundreds of windows in London’s West End. The leadership was arrested except for
Christabel, who fled to France.

Over the following few years, suffragettes carried out a series of arson attacks on houses, railway stations and other buildings. No one was hurt but these tactics alienated the British
public.

In 1914, World War I broke out. Emmeline and Christabel called an end to their militant campaign. They threw their energies behind the war effort, working with the government to recruit soldiers
and women workers. This did not please all members of the WSPU. The organization split. Some women, including Sylvia Pankhurst, joined the peace movement, others continued to work for suffrage
peacefully. By 1917 the WSPU no longer existed. Suffragettes were released from prison and thousands of British women were recruited into the war effort. They worked in all areas from munitions
factories to nursing on the Western Front. It was increasingly clear that women could no longer be excluded from voting. In 1918 the Electoral Reform Bill finally gave the vote to all house-holding
women aged 30 and over. A second Act allowed women over 21 to become MPs. Seventeen women stood for Parliament, including Christabel Pankhurst but only one was elected and she did not take her
seat.

In 1919, during a by-election, Viscountess Nancy Astor became the first female MP in the House of Commons. By 1923 there were eight women in Parliament. In 1928 the vote was extended to women
aged 21 and over, on equal terms with men.

Timeline

1866
Women’s Suffrage Societies founded in London, Manchester and later Edinburgh.