Emily Davison’s Life
by Emily Shulman
Artwork: Emily Shulman and Liza Shumakov
- Joined Jan 2021
- Published Books 1
Copyright © 2021
Emily Davison was the first suffragette in the world.
for those of you who don’t know what a suffragette is, it is a member of an activist women’s organization in the early 20th century who, under the banner “Votes for Women”, fought for the right to vote in public elections.
first of all, we will talk about her early life.
Introduction by Liza Shumakov
Throughout history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live.
Emily Wilding Davison is one of these people.
I chose to prepare this research project on Emily W. Davison for several reasons.
To begin with, I want to learn more about people who have made a change in society and the world overall. I do not know much about Emily W. Davison yet, which makes this research project a great opportunity to expand my knowledge on this topic.
Moreover, people tend to talk about male influencers more than female ones. Therefore, I wanted to prepare this research project about a female changemaker to give an example of one of many female influencers.
There are several things that I already know about Emily W. Davison.
Firstly, I know that Emily W. Davison was a member of a women’s activist organization in the 20th century who, under the banner “Votes for Women” fought for the rights to vote in public elections, known as women’s suffrage. In addition, I know that Emily W. Davison died after getting hit by King George V’s horse, and that it is still not known what her motives were for going onto the track during the race.
I expect to learn new and interesting things about Emily W. Davison.
First and foremost, I expect to find out what role she played in the fight for women’s rights to vote. Also, I want to learn what Emily W. Davison did in her early stages of life that led her to become a suffragette. Finally, I would like to discover what exactly happened in the Derby where she died.
Emily W. Davison has left her mark on the world. I am looking forward to finding out more about her.
Intoduction by Emily Shulman
Throughout history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live. Emily Davison is one of these people.
I chose to prepare this research project on Emily Davison for several reasons. To begin with, I would like to learn about women who did change in the society and improve. In addition, she was an activist with the women’s rights group, and I adore that kind of women and I think that I am more than excited to do project about her and learn how important woman she was.
There are a number of things that I already know about Emily Davison. First of all, I know
that she was an activist with the women’s rights group moreover, I know that she was killed at 40 years old.
I expect to learn new and interesting things about her fights for rights. First and foremost, I expect to find out what’s the reason she starts fighting for the women. Secondly, I want to learn how she was is and whether it belonged to her struggles. To sum up, I would like to discover about her life and how the struggle ends.
Emily Davison has left his mark on the world. I am looking forward to finding out more about him.
Emily Davison was born on October 11th, 1873 in London. She was the third of four children to be born to Charles Edward Davison, and Margaret.
In 1891 Davison won a scholarship to attend the Royal Holloway College.
In 1893, when Emily was 21 years old, her father had died, leaving insufficient funds to complete the course. Emily then decided to leave the collage and began working as a governess.
In 1908 Emily was awarded a first class honors pass in the study of English Language and Literature from the Royal Holloway Collage, but once again, being a women, she was unable to be awarded a degree. Emily then quit teaching and began working full-time for the WSPU. On June 21st she served as a chief Steward at WSPU Women’s Sunday Rally .
In 1909, Emily was imprisoned for one month for taking a part in a deputation of 21 women who marched from Caxton Hall to see Prime Minister Asquith. There was a fracas, and she was arrested for assaulting the police. On May 30th she was imprisoned for two months for obstruction. Then on July 30th, she was imprisoned for two months for obstruction at Lime house, London. She was released after 5 and a 1/2 days of a hunger strike, during which she lost 9.5 kilos. She was once arrested for interrupting a public meeting from which women were barred. On September 4th, Emily was imprisoned for two months for throwing rocks and breaking windows at a political meeting at White City, Manchester, which only men attended. She was then sent to Strangways Prison.
On October 20th, she was sentenced to be imprisoned in Strangways again, for one month’s hard labor, for throwing a stone at a ministerial car at a political meeting at Radcliffe. She was then again force-fed shortly after and released eight days later. She went on to successfully sue the prison.
In 1910 Emily became an employee of the WSPU and began to fight for Votes for Women. Emily decided to try and gain an entry to the Commons floor of the House, to ask Asquith to give women the right to vote. In July, she took part in another WSPU march.
On June 4th,1913, Emily attended the Epsom Derby where she ran out in front of King George V’s horse AMER and was fatally injured.
On June 8th, Emily had died from her injuries. on June 10th, at the inquest, Davison’s half-brother, Captain Henry Davison, gave evidence about his sister, saying that she was, “a woman of very strong reasoning faculties, and passionately devoted to the women’s movement”. The verdict of the court was that “Miss Emily Wilding Davison died of a fracture of the base of the skull, caused by being accidentally knocked down by a horse.
On June 14th, a train took Emily’s body. Her coffin was inscribed with, “Fight on. God will give the victory.”
The Procession from Victoria to King’s Cross comprised of 5,000 suffragettes and their supporter. The following day, 100 suffragettes accompanied the coffin to St. Mary Virgin Church.
Our interview with “Michal Fifield”
We chose to interview Michal Fifield.
She is a feminist woman who works as a lecturer in the Department of Industrial Design in California College of the Arts, California.
There are several reasons why we chose to interview Michal.
Firstly, when Michal worked as a Family medicine doctor, she decided to contribute in narrowing gender gap.
In addition, she supports the feminist community, and she has learned about its history.
Q: When you learned about Emily Davison what did you think about her?
A: First, I fell in love with Davison and I just wanted to learn more about her.
I totally started admiring her because she was the most determined woman that I have ever read about.
She struggled her whole life for the sake of the female community.
I was shocked when I found out how many times Davison sat in jail for her protests, and despite that she continued, and nothing could stop her.
I have never seen feminine power like the power Davison had.
Q: Do you thinks that Davison’s efforts were in vain?
A: Absolutely not, I think Davison did everything she could do and even made an impact.
First of all, Britain ended up giving women the right to vote in 1928.
Moreover, women finally started to become more stubborn about their rights. They started insisting on what’s important to them and weren’t as scared as they used to be before.
Q: What was so special about Davison’s personality?
A: She was the first suffragist, and I cannot even imagine how hard it must be, being the first to act on this issue.
She took a huge risk, and she didn’t wait for anyone, she just acted.
This woman wasn’t afraid of anything.
Q: Why did you decide to research about Davison’s life to begin with?
A: When I first heard about Davison, I was amused and wanted to learn more about this amazing woman. In the beginning, I only knew basic things about her, but as I dug deeper, I got to learn how truly wonderful this woman was. Hopefully more people can learn about her and take her story as an example to be better.
Q: What is your opinion about Davison’s death?
A: Davison’s motives going to the derby that day remain unclear to this day. Therefore, there are quite a few theories about what she was planning to do back then. I believe that Davison was aware of the risk in trying to get near the horse, and yet because of her stubborn personality, she decided to do it anyways. Maybe she was trying to raise awareness and it just did not go as planned.
Q: Would you consider Davison as a role model?
A: Absolutely. Although, Davison’s story is not very well known. In my opinion Davison’s story deserves more recognition. I think that people can learn a lot from her story, and that it would be great if more people got to know it. It can be an amazing example for others, especially other women.
Q: Do you think any other women would have acted the same if she was in Davison’s place?
A: Not necessarily. Women could have tried to fight for equality before Davison was even born, and yet Davison was one of the first women to fight for it. Not everyone is brave enough and it requires a lot of strength to fight for something like that. To this day, women are not equal to men in some places. Although, the good thing is that nowadays feminism is way more common.
Q: If Davison lived today, do you think that something would be changed?
A: I think that nowadays we live in a different world.
If she were alive today she wouldn’t have to sit in jail because today we have more freedom of expression and awareness to feminism.
Moreover, today we have more equality between women and men but it’s not we’re still not completely even, Davison would have minimized this equality gap.
When people first hear the name “Emily w. Davison” they probably think nothing much of it, it’s just a regular name, and not knowing the story behind this person, they might as well assume it belongs to an equally regular girl. But we know it is nothing like that. When we came across the name of this wonderful woman, and got to learn about her life and history, we knew we had to make this project about her. Personally, we both never got to hear about Davison beforehand, and this fact upset us, but at the same time it got us to understand that we want to share her story with you all. Knowing that Davison’s story isn’t very popular and that not many people have ever heard of it made us feel like it is going to a waste because we know that Davison can be an amazing example and role model for a lot of people, let alone women.
Emily W. Davison put a big effort into the battle for women’s rights, she had a lot to offer and she stood strong about her opinions and goals. She fought for something that was very important for her, and she was willing to sacrifice a lot to reach goal. She ended up giving up her own life for the sake of it. She also sat in jail multiple times, and yet never gave up and kept fighting for what she believed in. in our opinion, her determination and strength made her one of the biggest women influencers of her time. She knew the risks of her actions and yet kept fighting strongly and bravely, and thanks to that, she was able to contribute a lot and make so much progress in the battle for women’s rights.
And finally, a video to resemble all that you’ve read
REFLECTION
We think that the preparation of this project is effective for several reasons.
Firstly, we got to learn and share the story of Emily Davison’s life and we emphasized the most important moments in her life. Secondly, the videos and clips we saw and put in our presentation explained very well the fights and struggles Davison went through while fighting for women’s rights.
We learnt many things while working on the project.
We learnt in what conditions women lived back in that time and how cruel the fight over women’s rights was. Moreover, we learnt that Davison was the first suffragette and therefore Davison was one of the strongest women that we have ever heard about.
We developed several skills during our work on this project.
We learned how to plan our goals and organize time in the best way possible. For example, we had meetings to organize our homework and projects for English class.
We learned how to read a lot of information and sum it up to a short timeline.
And finally, we learned how to present a lot of information and in a short amount of time.
We enjoyed working together in a group for several reasons.
First, our work together was more effective than it would have been if we had done this project alone. and we sat together and planned our time.
Secondly, in a team we were able to get more ideas because we brainstormed for ideas. In addition, when we worked together, we could learn from each other and correct each other.
On the other hand, there were things we enjoyed less while working on the project.
Although we enjoyed the most of the making of the project, it did lead to a lack of time considering other schoolwork we had to do in the same times, but we learnt how to overcome it and manage our time properly to get things done in time.
In conclusion, we are grateful that we had the opportunity to prepare this project.
Overall, we had a fun time preparing this project. We have learnt a lot of new things and skills that we know will be useful in future projects and schoolwork.
Moreover, it is always nice to add to your knowledge especially when it is about a subject we are interested in.
Published: Jan 29, 2021
Latest Revision: Feb 1, 2021
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