British suffragettes were masters of spectacle.
Their mission was to win British women the
right to vote, and to do that, they needed
attention.
Their demonstrations were tightly-choreographed
events, full of matching outfits and signs.
But it was their radical actions that made
them notorious.
They smashed windows.
Destroyed fine art.
And set fire to the houses of their political
opponents.
All in the name of keeping their fight on
the front page of the paper, and in the minds
of the public.
Newsreels from the time show the destruction
the suffragettes left behind.
But there’s one act that stands out above
the rest.
It took place in 1913, at one of the most
popular sporting events of the year,
A horse race.
Where newsreel cameras captured a lone figure,
stepping onto the racetrack and doing this.
She was holding a suffragette flag.
Women had been petitioning for the vote in
England since the mid-1800s.
They were called “suffragists,” and had
a non-confrontational strategy of persuasion
and education to convince legislators to give
women the vote.
But in 1903, a new branch emerged: the militant
suffragists, whose motto was “Deeds Not
Words.”
Frustrated by the lack of progress they began
seeking attention by disrupting men’s political
meetings with loud heckling and getting arrested
for things like spitting on policemen.
Prompting one newspaper in 1906 to call the
noisy disruptors “suffragettes.”
A name meant to diminish or mock the new militant
activists as hysterical and childish.
But one they embraced, even changing the name
of their newspaper, “Votes for Women,”
to “The Suffragette.”
The militant suffragettes had a bad reputation
in the press, and drew criticism from the
wider suffrage movement for “taking it too
far” and setting progress back with their
disruptive acts.
The suffragettes were depicted as unfeminine
and crazed, so public pageantry and controlling
their image was an important part of the movement.
They delivered speeches.
Made colorful banners.
Marched.
And got arrested in public again and again.
Usually wearing their official color scheme:
Purple for loyalty, green for hope, and white.
Which represented the virtue of their campaign.
But also read well in sepia-tone news photos.
But the militant suffragettes’ publicity
strategy changed in late 1910.
A riot breaks out in Parliament Square.
And that day became known as “Black Friday.”
Because about 150 women were physically and
sexually assaulted by the police.
From here forward, the suffragettes organized
fewer public demonstrations, where they’d
be surrounded by police.
Shifting instead to a radical approach of
random acts of property destruction.
The telephone wires are cut.
Windows are smashed.
Sporting facilities are attacked.
As their actions became more and more extreme
in the early 1910s, the militant suffragettes
became notorious villains in the media – and
in public opinion.
But their message was clear.
The destruction won’t stop until a suffrage
bill passes.
Emily Wilding Davison was one of the most
extreme of the militant suffragettes, and
no stranger to violence.
She once beat a man that she had mistaken
for a specific politician with a horse whip.
She also set fire to mailboxes, inspiring
some suffragettes to follow her radical example.
She was jailed nine times.
And while imprisoned, would go on hunger strike,
and was subsequently force-fed through her
nose.
An extremely painful form of torture that
the government enacted on many hunger-striking
suffragettes to prevent them from dying of
starvation in prison.
Davison was willing to die in the name of
women’s liberation.
During one of her imprisonments in 1912, she
threw herself from a prison balcony in a suicide
attempt.
To draw public sympathy for the suffragettes
undergoing torturous force feeding in jail.
She said afterward:
The following year is when Davison pushed
her dedication to “deeds not words” to
the most extreme.
At the 1913 Epsom Derby.
The Epsom Derby is England’s most prestigious
horse race – a beloved and historic event
that’s been run since 1780.
That year, over 500,000 people were in attendance.
King George V was there too.
His horse, Anmer, was running the race.
And in the crowded inner track, Emily Davison
stood near Tattenham Corner.
It’s the final turn, right before the dead
sprint to the finish line.
A prominent spot sure to be in view of the
cameras, which were positioned around the
track covering important parts of the race.
In the footage, you can see Davison duck under
the rail and wait for the leading pack of
horses to go by.
Then step out onto the track, right in front
of Anmer, the king’s horse.
She was holding the purple, white, and green
flag of the militant suffragettes.
Emily Davison brought the two-ton racehorse
crashing to ground, and flipped its rider.
She died four days later of her injuries.
After years of escalating militant violence
was photographed after the fact...
Or imagined in news illustrations….
This was the first – and only – act of
militant suffragette violence captured on
film.
And it was a huge story.
People responded with a mix of shock and outrage.
Davison was framed as a radical who ruined
something everyone loves – the Derby.
For the suffragettes, she became a martyr.
The next issue of their magazine featured
Davison as an angel on the cover, standing
on a race track.
They organized a massive public funeral, where
5,000 suffragettes, wearing white dresses
and black armbands, marched in solemn procession
through London.
Carrying Davison’s casket from Victoria
Station to Kings Cross Station, to be sent
to her hometown for burial.
50,000 people watched it go by.
The spectacle of Davison’s funeral brought
sympathy for the struggle for women’s suffrage
to a global level.
And, as it turns out, was basically the last
public procession of the militant suffragettes.
World War I broke out the following year.
And the suffragettes put their militant activities
on hold to contribute to the war effort.
Suffrage was extended to women over 30 in
1918, and full suffrage passed in 1928.
Emily Davison’s shocking final protest at
the Derby probably didn’t change many people’s
minds about women’s suffrage.
And whether or not she intended to die remains
unclear – she didn’t tell anyone her plan,
and she didn’t leave a note.
But this moment – caught on camera – became
one of the most publicized acts of suffragette
protest.
One so extreme that no one, not even the king
himself, could ignore.
There’s so many great archival photos and
illustrations from the suffragette movement
that I didn’t have time to include in this
video — like this cartoon:
It was published in a British magazine in
1910, and is called The Suffragette that Knew
Jiu-Jitsu.
It shows terrified police officers surrounding
a lone woman, standing in front of a “Votes
for Women” sign, with a few of their comrades
tossed onto the fence behind her.
It might seem like a parody or a joke, but
the thing is: suffragettes really did train
in jiu jitsu.
As a response to the continued aggression
by London police during demonstrations – like
on Black Friday – the suffragettes hired
Edith Margaret Garrud, a professional martial
arts instructor, to teach them how to defend
themselves during riots.
It’s sort of unclear how often the suffragettes
used this specific skill set during their
clashes with police, but newspapers at the
time claimed these “jiu-jitsu experts”
could throw a 200 pound police officer over
their heads.
Ouch.
