Emily Davison

Emily Davisonwww.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/exactly-104-years-ago-today-emily-davison-died-womens-right/     

     Who is Emily Davison and why is she a hero? Well she is a hero to me because she was brave, determined and inspiring. Emily Wilding Davison was born on October 11th, 1872, and tragically died when she was 40 years old on June 18th, 1913. She was a very bright woman and attended Kensington Prep School and then continued to take classes at Royal Holloway College and Oxford University in United Kingdom. Having all that education you would think she would get endless opportunities of jobs, but she did not. Since she was a woman, there were only certain types of jobs she was able to do, for example, she could not be a doctor, only men could do this job. It was also upsetting that women were not allowed to vote. Being a woman was tough back then and Emily Davison was an amazing woman who fought for equal rights. She wanted men and women to be equal. When Emily Davison became a teacher she started to become more and more interested in the suffrage movement. In 1906 she started to take action and joined the Women’s Social and Political Union founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. Emmeline Pankhurst had become a suffragette and she fought for women’s rights for her whole entire life!

     Emily Davison was brave in every situation even when it could harm her or get her into serious trouble. She protested so much to get women voting rights. The protests she did were not always calm and peaceful though, and a lot of them had serious consequences. For example, when she set fire to post boxes and threw stones at buildings and people. One person she threw stones at was a Chancellor, his name was David Lloyd George. He was in his carriage when all of a sudden Emily Davison started throwing stones at his carriage. She was arrested 7 times for carrying out violent deeds like these, yet she kept protesting. But the one deed she did that killed her, and made her forever remembered, was at the Epsom Derby. This tragedy happened on June 4th, 1913. The horses were racing down the track and all of sudden Emily Davison ran out to the middle of the track and was hit by the King’s horse. Nobody knew why she did this. Some people thought that she did it to commit suicide but she had a return train ticket so most people ruled out that suggestion. Other people thought that she was trying to pull the horse down or that she was trying to attach two suffragette flags to the horse, or even she was just trying to cross the race track like most people do when all the horses had passed. Emily Davison had no intention to cross in front of the King’s horse, it was just a coincidence that it was the horse she went in front of. As the horse ran into her she was knocked unconscious, and four days later died of her injuries, because she took a strike to the head. The rider of the horse, Herbert Jones, had suffered a mild concussion but had survived. In 1951 he committed suicide, people had no idea why but after the 1913 collision Jones was apparently haunted by Emily Davison’s face so people suggest that is why.

     Not only was Emily Davison brave, she was also determined. This is another reason why she is my hero. After being put in jail for throwing stones at Chancellor David Lloyd George she was sentenced to a month of labor in Strangeways Prison in Manchester. During this time there she attempted to starve herself to protest. She was obviously very determined to protest for women’s voting rights. Suffragettes often tried to starve themselves in prison which led to force feeding, which is where the guards would come in and shove food down the suffragettes' throats. To prevent herself from being force fed, Emily Davison locked herself in her cell. An angry prison guard somehow put a hose in her cell and tried to flood it. She nearly died but the door was eventually broken down. Even after her time in Strangeways Prison she kept on protesting. Sometimes she was pretty optimistic, too, because she quit her job in 1909 to devote all her time to the suffrage movement. Not only was this optimistic, this also proved that she was pretty determined to get women's voting rights. So, Emily Davison never gave up on protesting for women’s rights, even when she could endanger herself doing so.

     Emily Davison was inspiring to many people and not just suffragettes but to everyone, especially women. She inspires everyone to stand up to what’s wrong. This is very inspiring to many people, including myself, because not everyone can stand up like that and protest for what they believe, and she shows that it is possible. Whether it is being exploited or something like women losing rights. She also never gave up even when there was a chance of being hurt or killed, whether it was mentally or physically. I am sure when she was protesting, some of the mean things people said to her would have hurt her feelings but she stayed strong and ignored them. She also was inspiring because she did everything to give women rights even if it meant doing something that could possibly kill her! She did not only want women’s rights for herself, she also wanted it for every single girl and women across the world. She inspired and continues to inspire millions of people across the world to believe that they can change the world and make things right if they are wrong and that is what she did. If Emily Davison did not believe in herself, she would have never been able to help get women voting rights.

     Emily Davison was forever remembered for the deeds she did. Most of the time she put her life on the line and risked everything, and I mean everything. She kept on going even when it got hard. Her death at the Epsom Derby was a tragedy, but every suffragette remembered her for this deed. Ever since Emily Davison committed this deed, suffragettes admired her for her bravery. Thousands of suffragettes turned up at her funeral. Her grave is in Morpeth, Northumberland. On her grave the quote “Deeds not Words” was engraved. This sure is a true fact about Emily Davison. Emily Davison is now a part of history and 15 years after her death women got voting rights. If she was still alive when women got voting rights she sure would be very proud.