2025 – Happy Birthday Emily!
A phenomenal woman whose audacity and fearlessness enabled her to run rings around Establishment men who stubbornly tried to keep the doors to Democracy firmly closed to women.
Suffragette Emily Davison was born on 11th October 1872 at Roxburgh House, Vanburgh Park in Blackheath, south east London.
A phenomenal woman whose audacity and fearlessness enabled her to run rings around Establishment men who stubbornly tried to keep the doors to Democracy firmly closed to women.
However, Emily Wilding Davison’s creativity and courage was more than a match for such starched cynics and bores. As a tide gradually, then suddenly all at once, topples a sandcastle, the cumulative actions for the suffragists and suffragettes meant that their grip on Westminster was beginning to ebb away.
Despite her privileged childhood, Emily’s life and society prospects drastically changed overnight, when her father Charles unexpectedly died. This led his second family virtually penniless (he married Emily’s mother Margaret Caisley after the death of his first wife. Margaret, a distant relative, had come to manage the household). By all accounts Charles and his growing younger family was a happy one, though marked with early tragedy after the sudden death of little Ethel, aged six, Emily’s dear younger sister.
As a result of her changed circumstances, Emily was forced to leave her beloved studies at Royal Holloway and Margaret returned to Northumberland where she set up small shop in Longhorsley to scratch a living with occasional support from the wider family. With no social safety net to speak of, such a difficult chapter often ruined lives. However, both Emily and her Mam, picked themselves up and kept on without a backward glance to a lost comfortable, sometimes cosseted life.
Although best known for her dedication to getting all women the right to vote, education, equal pay and prison reform were also causes close to Emily’s heart.
Emily had clearly inherited her drive and determination from Margaret, which later enabled her to continue her university education, funded by her work as a governess and teacher.
Although best known for her dedication to getting all women the right to vote, education, equal pay and prison reform were also causes close to Emily’s heart. The Women’s Social and Political Union proved to be Emily’s calling. Her eloquence, imagination and courage enabled her to outwit her leaden-footed foes – like the lightening-fast swallows, joyfully swooping and singing over summer skies.
Today, there is much to cheer with regard to the huge strides made since Emily’s final Votes For Women protest at the 1913 Epsom Derby. I believe she would be appalled at the grave injustices meted out to women and girls across the globe, including the evermore vindictive removal of Afghan women and girls from their society and world, most recently through the (hopefully one-off) blocking of internet access, which had become a last precious avenue for education and connection to the rest of the world.
The continued bravery of our Iranian sisters as part of the #WomanLifeFreedom movement echoes the valiant determination of Emily and her brave band of Suffrage sisters, who never gave up, despite the severe social and violent pushback they faced. Their ultimate success against all the odds still offers women and girls the hope that even in the darkest of times creativity, persistence and focus can help make consequential change happen.
Over previous years, the #Emilymatters grassroots initiative has shared Emily’s story and the history of the suffragettes, through extensive online campaigns and events, from suffragette themed tea parties to site specific performances of @tofreedomscause.
Alongside our established outreach workshops and Emily Davison call to action speeches, @katewilloughby8 is developing her #Phenomenal Women projects that seek to continue what Emily began, through the stories of ordinary, brave and extraordinary women from the UK and beyond.
If using drama and creativity to encourage women and young people to use their voice and be heard appeals to you, please do get in touch.
Step Up | Vote | Lead | Because #youmatter
