September 19, 2025 • 41 mins
After years of campaigning for votes for women, the Suffragettes emerge at the turn of the 20th Century. Their motto, 'Deeds Not Words', heralds the start of more radical actions, including fire bombing, civil disobedience and hunger strikes. Emily Davison is a passionate rebel, but she pushes at the limits of what her allies find acceptable. History remembers Emily for her final act, but have we got everything about the story right?
WARNING: This episode discusses death by suicide. If you are suffering emotional distress or having suicidal thoughts, support is available - for example, from the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US, or the Samaritans in the UK on 116 123
Read more about Tim's work at http://timharford.com/
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
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Speaker 1 (00:48):
A warning before we start. This cautionary Tale discusses death
by suicide. If you're suffering emotional distress or you're having
suicidal thoughts, support is available, for example, from the nine
eight eight Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In the US, jockey
(01:10):
Herbert Jones canters his horse to the start of the
Epsom Derby. The year is nineteen thirteen. On Derby Day,
Epsom feels like the center of the world. Hundreds of
thousands of people have descended on this undulating stretch of
countryside fifteen miles from London. Some watch from the open
(01:31):
topped buses that brought them here. Others line the running
rails a dozen deep. The grandstands are packed. His Majesty,
the King looks on from under a black top hat.
The King owns the horse that Herbert Jones is riding.
He's wearing the distinctive royal silks purple and crimson, with
(01:55):
a gold braid. Jones knows what it's like to win
a derby for the King. He's won two. He also
knows that he's not likely to win a third today.
His horse, Anma, is an outsider fifty to one. Still,
the odds aren't always accurate. Outsiders winds sometimes you never know.
(02:18):
The fifteen horses line up behind the starting tape, each
half a ton of twitching muscle, not always easy for
their seven stone riders to control. The course is a
mile and a half. It'll take about two and a
half minutes, but roughly thirty five miles an hour. Newsreel
(02:39):
cameras are in position to capture the key moments, the start,
the finish, and the turn for home, the famous Tattenham corner,
where the runners will thunder down hill As they sweep
to the left. The starter pulls his lever, the tape
flies up.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
They're off.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Jones urges amm On but it soon becomes clear that
this time the odds are accurate. A struggles to keep
up as the leaders tear down the hill towards Tattenham Corner.
Jones has dropped to third from last. Still never give up,
(03:19):
Jones keeps pushing hard. The horse in front of him
jinks to one side, and suddenly Jones sees why a
woman standing on the racetrack right in front of him?
What on earth is she doing? As we'll hear that
is still hotly debated today. But Jones has no time
(03:43):
to wander. His horse slams into the woman and clatters
to the ground. Jones goes flying headlong towards the turf,
then his world goes dark. I'm Tim Harford and you're
listening to cautionary tales. In twenty twenty two, hundreds of
(04:28):
thousands of Formula One fans have gathered at Silverstone to
watch the British Grand Prix. Tens of millions globally are
watching on TV. Unseen by the cameras, five spectators climb
a safety barrier. They can hear from the roar of
(04:48):
accelerating engines that the race has just started. They can't
yet see the cars there are a few corners distant,
but it shouldn't be long before they come into view.
Racing at well over one hundred miles an hour, the
five spectators drop down the other side of the barrier,
onto a grass verge and towards the tarmac of the
(05:10):
track itself. Is this not very dangerous? Not at all?
One will later tell a court.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
I can see that it might have looked dangerous to
someone who doesn't know about this stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
You see, he says, they'd carefully studded previous Formula One
races at Silverstone.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
The part of the track that we went on had
a much lower proportion of crashes than the other parts
of the track.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
The drivers will see them in time to avoid them,
or so they expect. The officials will immediately call a
red flag, which tells the drivers there's a danger on
track that needs to be cleared. Stop racing, slow down,
and drive carefully back to the pits. The live TV
footage will show the protesters wearing their orange T shirts
(06:01):
with the slogan just stop oil. They'll have drawn attention
to their cause of fighting climb much change, at least
that's the plan. Still low, they're putting a lot of
faith in other people's reaction. Times Are they sure it's
(06:22):
not dangerous? The protester shrugs.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Those drivers are the best drivers in the world, but
even the best drivers crash sometimes.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Why would you run onto a racetrack in front of
fast moving cars? Perhaps because you think it will help
a cause you passionately believe in, and perhaps because some
other people whose stage disruptive protests are seen as heroes,
like the woman on Epsom Racecourse in nineteen thirteen. Here,
(07:00):
for example, is the blurb from a book for children
about her.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Emily was angry because women didn't have the right to vote.
She and her fellow suffragettes had patiently put their argument
to the government, but they were ignored. Now it was
time for direct action.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Emily Wilding Davison was born in eighteen seventy two. Her
father was a successful businessman, and Emily got a good
education a governess a preparatory school in London, a year
in Switzerland studying French. Then she won a place at
a new college for girls. But midway through her course,
(07:47):
her father died, and it turned out he hadn't been
quite as successful a businessman as he had appeared. He
left his family next to nothing. That was a shock.
As Emily explained to a friend.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Mamma has to pay twenty pounds a term for me.
I do not know whether I can stay on after
this term. Mamma is very anxious to keep me at
college for my exam if it is possible.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It was not possible. Emily had to drop out and
find work. Her tutors gave her glowing references. It is
a matter of great regret to me that she is
unable to finish her course. She is a most hard
working student. She has immense perseverance. Perseverance indeed, Emily got
(08:41):
a job as a governess, but studied in the evenings
with notes borrowed from her former classmates. She saved up
enough to take her exam in English Language and Literature
and hasted first class honors. Not that the university would
actually award her a degree, what with her being a girl.
(09:04):
Still impressive, but what could a woman do in the
eighteen nineties with evidence that she would have got a
first class degree if she were a man, Career options
were limited. She could continue to work as a governess.
Emily found it frustratingly isolating stuck in some big, old
(09:28):
house in the provinces, with only a wealthy famili's little
children to talk to. She missed the buzz of city life,
as she wrote in poems.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Oh London, how I feel thy magic spell? Now I
have left thee and amid the woods sit lonely.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
There was one particular buzz that Emily craved to be
part of the movement for women's suffrage. The idea was
in the air. Women in New Zealand got the vote
in eighteen ninety three, in Australia nineteen oh two, in
Finland nineteen o six. In Britain, suffragists had been making
(10:15):
the case for decades through petitions and meetings and speeches,
but opposition was fierce. Some of that opposition was predictable.
If everyone had the vote, female voters would outnumber males.
Men of England, said one poster, resent this attempted tyranny,
(10:39):
But a surprising number of opponents were women themselves.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Women of England, said.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
The manifesto of the Women's National Anti Suffrage League.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
We appeal to your common sense. Women are debarred by
nature and circumstances from the political knowledge of men.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Hundreds of women signed.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
An appeal against female suffrage, which warned the whole nation
would suffer.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
If women got the vote. Due to their.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
Natural quickness of temper.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
It was men's work to debate weighty matters of finance
or war.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Women had other opportunities for public usefulness, such as the
care of the sick and the education of children. That
was their true dignity and special mission.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
It sounds ridiculous now, but the patient arguments of the
suffragists didn't seem to be working. The heavyweight politician David
Lloyd George, for example, said he favored votes for women,
but when he got into power, did nothing. Some women
decided it was time for direct action. They formed a
(12:02):
new organization, the WSPU, the Women's Social and Political Union,
slogan deeds not words. They disrupted meetings and chained themselves
to railings in Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lived.
Newspapers coined the term for these radical suffragists, the suffragettes.
(12:26):
It was meant as an insult, a dismissive, diminutive. They
adopted it with pride. Emily quit her job as a governess,
moved to London and got employed as an officer at
the WSPU. She disrupted a speech by David Lloyd George.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I was busy haranguing the crowd when the police came
up and arrested me.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Emily was put in prison a dark cell alone. She
sang hymns defiantly and scrawled on the wall her personal credo.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Rebellion against tyrants is obedient to God.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
She also refused to eat, a tactic the Suffragettes had
discovered for getting out of jail early. They figured the
government would let them go rather than risk a death
from starvation. Emily described her prison experience in a letter.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I fasted one hundred and twenty four hours and was
then released. I lost one and a half stone and
much flesh. I felt very weak at first, but I'm
pulling up rapidly now, She signed off, your loving and
rebellious friend, Emily.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
No sooner had she got her strength back than Emily
was rebelling again, throwing rocks at the windows of David
Lloyd George's car. This time in prison, she discovered the
government had a new approach to hunger strikes. A doctor
came into her cell well and said.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
I'm going to feed you by force.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Cautionary tales will be back after the break at Silverstone,
spectators noticed the five Just Stop Oil protesters scaling the
(14:37):
safety barrier and running towards the track. Phone footage captures
how the crowd react. Wankers, he yells one voice, Dickheads
adds another run over. Perhaps it's not surprising that a
motorsport crowd is hostile to a message about stopping oil.
(14:58):
But Just Stop Oil protesters made themselves unpopular with other
people too. They blocked roads, tied themselves to goldposts during
a soccer match, and through soup over Vincent van Goff's sunflowers.
In opinion polls, eighty two percent of Brits say climate
(15:20):
change is an important issue, Yet fully sixty eight percent
said their opinion of Just Stop Oil was unfavorable, Which
makes you wander. Are disruptive protests helping the cause or hindering?
Academics have some jargon for this question. Are radical flank
(15:43):
effects positive or negative? In twenty twenty four, the Journal
of Global Environmental Psychology published an article the radical flank
Curse or Blessing of a social movement. Decades of literature
say the authors provide mixed results. In some cases, disruptive
(16:05):
protest seems to have helped to cause in others, it
seems to have backfired. The researchers weren't about to leave
it at that, so they began to dig deeper.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I'm going to feed you by force, the.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Doctor said to Emily Davison. Emily described what followed.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
While they held me flat, The doctor, with a steel gag,
prized open my mouth to its widest extent. Then a
wardrous poured liquid down my throat. What it was I
cannot say, but it was foul to the last degree.
As I would not swallow the stuff and jerked it
out with my tongue. The doctor pinched my nose and
(16:52):
somehow gripped my tongue with the gag. The torture was barbaric.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It got worse. Rubbered tubes rammed down the throat or
even up the nostrils to pour the liquid in. Emily
smashed the windows in her cell to protest. They moved
her to another cell, which had two beds. The door
opened inwards, she observed.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
As soon as it was closed, quick as thought, I
put the beds down quietly, lengthwise, one touching the other.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
There was still a gap of a foot to the wall,
which she filled with an upturned stool.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
The wedge was not absolutely firm, so I jammed in
my two slippers and a hair brush.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
She sat on the spot where the two beds met
to weigh them down.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
My blockade was complete.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
The wardens discovered they couldn't open the door. They could
break the door down heavy iron frame at all, but
they'd rather not, as the prison governor later explained that
the breaking of a cell door is a serious and
expensive matter, so they tried another tactic.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
A ladder appeared at the window. I looked round and
saw the nozzle of a hose pipe. They got the
water trained full on me. I had to hold on
like grim death. The power of the water seemed terrific,
and it was as cold as ice.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Still, Emily didn't budge. They'd have to break the door down.
After all.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
It was clear to me that if the door fell,
it would kill me on the spot. Strange to say,
I had no fear. The door gave. I watched it
fascinated as it lurched. However, hands seized it. A mail
warder rushed in and seized me, saying you ought to
be horse whipped for this.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Emily got out of prison to find that the hose
pipe incident had been widely reported, even raised in Parliament.
She got sympathy. Whatever you thought of women's suffrage, this
wasn't on. She sued the prison and won, though the
judge awarded only nominal damages, saying that Emily had already
(19:21):
got something she wanted a good story to write about
in the WSPU's newspaper. Emily set about getting herself sent
back to prison with a new tactic, setting fire to
mail boxes.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
I walked down Fleet Street. I calmly stopped at a big,
open mouthed receptacle for London letters. I took out of
my pocket a packet of greastproof paper tied with cotton.
Inside was some linen, well soaked in kerosene. To this
I calmly applied a match. I let the packet, now
(19:58):
well alight, go down the receptacle. I then walked on
and turned into the first cafe I came to to
get lunch.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Back in prison, another hunger strike and more force feeding.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
As the tube passed down behind the throat, a feeling
of suffocation and sickness followed. I naturally commenced to cough, choke,
and wretch. I was glad to be sick, which often happened,
and the rejected fluid went into the doctor's hands to
his disgust, and my satisfaction.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Was all this really enough?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Though?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Getting sent to prison for throwing rocks, setting fire to
mail boxes, even planting bombs, as some militant suffragettes had
started to do, and then stoically enduring the barbarity of
tubes shoved down the throat, or would it take a
more grand and shocking gesture to get politicians to take
(21:07):
women seriously? Did the suffragette cause need a martyr? Emily
began to wander.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
The idea in my mind was one big tragedy may
save many others.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It wouldn't be easy for Emily to martyr herself in prison.
There were nets to stop prisoners from jumping to their deaths.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I realized that my best means of carrying out my
purpose was the iron staircase. I walked up stairs and
threw myself from the top.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
She had tried to miss the netting and land on
the staircase.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
If I had been successful, I should undoubtedly have been killed,
as it was a clear drop of thirty to forty feet.
But I caught on the edge of the netting.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
There was still a ten foot drop from the edge
of the netting to the iron staircase. It might be enough.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I realized that there was only one chance left to
hurl myself with the greatest force I could summon from
the netting onto the staircase. I threw myself forward on
my head. When I recovered consciousness, voices were buzzing around me.
Someone said, fetch the doctor. They lifted me as gently
(22:33):
as possible, but the agony was intense.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
This was all getting too intense for the leaders of
the WSPU. Deeds not words they had said, but disrupting politicians'
speeches was one thing. Planting bombs and setting fire to
mail was quite another. They refused to publish Emily's account
of her martyrdom bed in their newspaper, and they ended
(23:04):
her employment as a WSPU officer. Was becoming an embarrassment.
At the railway station in Aberdeen, Scotland, in late nineteen twelve,
a Baptist minister that just waved off his wife on
a train when he was approached by a woman.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
I thought she was an ordinary passenger, he.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Later recalled, giving testimony to a court, but.
Speaker 6 (23:34):
Without any explanation. She cried, you traitor, you traitor. There
came quite a reel of blues.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
And she attacked him with a dog whip. The police
detained the woman, but she wasn't finished yet. The minister recalled, to.
Speaker 6 (23:50):
My astonishment, she landed me a very clever, quick blow
on the left jaw with her clenched fist.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
The woman turned out to be Emily Davison. Why had
Emily attacked a Scottish Baptist minister with a dog whip?
The Aberdeen Daily Journal explained that the reverend Gentleman bears
a distinct, if not altogether a striking facial resemblance to
(24:18):
mister David Lloyd George. Lloyd George was still in government
and still disappointing the Suffragettes by failing to act on
their cause. He had been expected in Aberdeen that day.
His look alike had chosen a bad time to see off.
His wife. Emily was jailed again. She had just turned forty.
(24:43):
The stints in prison were starting to take their toll
along with the unemployment. After she had been sacked by
the WSPU.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
This last four days hunger strike in Aberdeen found out
my weakness. I have had some rheumatism in my neck
and back where I fell on that iron staircase. At present,
I have no settled work. I wish I could hear
of some.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Emily applied for jobs and tried to get her writing published.
She wrote about sacrifice, comparing militant protesters to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
The surrender of life itself is a supreme consummation of sacrifice.
To lay down life for friends that is glorious, selfless,
inspiring for generations yet unborn. That is the last consummate
sacrifice of the militant.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
On the first Tuesday of June nineteen thirteen, Emily went
to the opening day of the w SPU's Summer Fate,
a social occasion with flower decorations and stalls serving strawberries
and cream. I'm going to the Derby tomorrow, she told
a friend, and the friend was surprised. Emily wasn't a
(26:13):
regular racegoer. Why are you going to the Derby, Ah
said Emily. Look in the evening papers and you will
see cautionary tales. Will be back in a moment. The
(26:42):
crowd at Tattenham Corner are wondering what just happened. Annmah
Skids along the turf, then gets shakily to his feet.
Herbert Jones is out cold. As the other fourteen runners
race onto the finish, Spectators rush forward to help. Someone
(27:03):
grabs hold of Anma's reins. An ambulance arrives and the
crew take Joan's off on a stretcher. Then there's the
woman and my hit, also unconscious on the grass. A
policeman calls out, does anyone know this woman? No one does,
but someone says I have a car, I can take
(27:25):
her to hospital. Another says I'm a nurse. I'll go
with you. Herbert Jones at length wakes up, confused about
why he's on a stretcher and what happened in the race.
Someone starts to explain a woman. Ah, yes, he says,
(27:49):
my horse hit her. I remember falling towards the ground.
I must have had a bang. At the hospital, Emily
remains unconscious. She's being identified now from a name tag
found in her jacket. Also in her jacket a suffragettel
lag neatly folded. The King and Queen are informed a
(28:16):
most regrettable and scandalous proceeding, the King writes in his diary.
Poor Jones writes the queen knocked about by that horrid woman,
as Emily anticipated. She's all over the newspapers. They call
her mad, wild, demented. A notorious militant, says the Daily Mail.
(28:43):
The hottest of all suffragette hot bloods deep in the
hearts of every onlooker, reports the Daily Telegraph. Was a
feeling of fierce resentment with the miserable woman. Letters addressed
to Emily start to arrive at Epsom Hospital. You should
(29:03):
thank your God, says one anonymous missive, that he has
spared you the sin of murder. Another says, simply you idiot.
In their article The Radical Flank, Curse or Blessing of
a Social Movement, researchers describe an experiment. They told their
(29:27):
subjects about a fictional protest on an environmental issue and
asked if they supported the protesters. Some subjects got a
description of protesters using only moderate tactics, such as organizing petitions.
Some got a description of only radical tactics, such as
vandalizing property. More people supported moderate than radical protest. Other
(29:53):
subjects got a description of two contrasting protest groups, a
main moderate group and a smaller radical one, the radical flank.
The contrast made people less likely to support the radial
called protesters, but more likely to support the moderates. So
(30:13):
the experiment has found two effects, one that reduced support
for the cause overall, another that increased it. No wonder
the literature is mixed on whether disruptive protests help or hinder.
It's hard to know when one effect outweighs the other,
(30:34):
but the experiment suggests something counterintuitive. When someone makes a
disruptive protest, it's because they think it will help a
cause they passionately believe in. And it might, but not
in the way they might hope. Instead of being seen
as heroes, they'll be hated. But they'll also make moderate
(30:56):
protest groups look more reasonable, groups that make the same arguments,
that use less annoying tactics, as the crowd at Silverston
shout that the just stop oil protesters. Elsewhere on the track,
the race begins. Even the best drivers crash sometimes, and
(31:19):
this time they crash before they even reach the first corner.
One car clips another and clatters into a third, which
flips upside down, skims off the track, and smashes into
a tire wall. A massive accident. Debris is everywhere. They'll
have to stop the race to clear the track. The
(31:40):
race officials call a red flag. By the time the
drivers get to the protesters part of the track, they've
already stopped racing, slowed right down. They don't need to
react quickly to avoid the protesters. They just steer around them.
The TV coverage isn't showing the cars driving slowly back
(32:03):
towards the pits. It's showing repeats of that spectacular first
corner crash. Nobody watching at home has any idea that
the protest has happened. This never was dangerous. The protesters
later insist to a court the drivers would have stopped
in time anyway. The judge is not impressed.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
None of you were qualified enough or experienced enough properly
to assess the risk to you and others. You were,
in my view, kidding yourselves.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Another letter arrives at Emily Davison's bedside. I cannot believe
that you could have done such a dreadful act, it says,
I can only hope and pray that God will mercifully
restore you to life and health. With all my love
(33:00):
from your sorrowful mother, Emily never gets to read the letter.
After four days in a coma. She dies after Emily
had thrown herself onto the prison's iron staircase. The WSPU
(33:21):
refused to publish her account in their newspaper. They ostracized her,
embarrassed by how extreme she had become now that she
had actually died, Well, perhaps she'd been right that a
martyr might be useful. The same newspaper's front page depicted
(33:41):
Emily as an angel, under the words in honor and
in loving reverent memory of Emily Wilding Davison. She died
for women. They arranged for Emily's coffin to parade through
(34:07):
London and appeal for mourners to wear white and carry
lilies or black with a bunch of purple irises. Thousands
of women followed the coffin, singing hymns. Onward Christian soldiers,
fight the good fight with all your might, this marvelous
(34:29):
woman said. The funeral program offered up her life as
a petition to the king. A fellow suffragette explained, miss
Davison went out with the express purpose of stopping the
King's horse to challenge the very head of this country.
(34:52):
That's the story about Emily that's come down to this day.
As in the blurb of the book for children.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
She and her fellow suffragettes had patiently put their argument
to the government, but they were ignored. At the Derby racecourse,
as the King Horse came pounding towards her, Emily was
prepared to make the biggest sacrifice of all.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
But is the story right? We get some things right
about Emily Davison. She had incredible courage, repeatedly getting herself imprisoned,
knowing she'd face the horror of being force fed. And
she was right, of course about the cause of votes
for women. But are we right to assume that her
(35:41):
courage helped her cause. The mixed literature on radical flank
effects suggests that it's hard to be certain. Here's something
else we might get wrong about Emily. Did she really
intend to sacrifice herself? I mentioned that in Emily's jacket
(36:02):
police found a neatly folded Suffragette flag. They also found
a return train ticket to London and an entrance passed
for that evening. At the Summer Fate, Emily had promised
to visit her sister to help with her newborn niece.
None of this suggests she expected to die at epsom.
(36:25):
What was Emily trying to achieve. As her biographer Lucy
Fisher writes, that question still sparks markedly divisive debate today.
She hadn't explained her plans to anyone. The newsreel footage
shows that she ducks under the running rail and onto
(36:45):
the course when half the runners have already passed. Two
horses narrowly avoid her, then anma knocks her down. Eyewitnesses
thought that from her viewpoint on the inside of the bend,
she couldn't have seen well enough to target one specific horse.
(37:06):
Others who studied the newsreel footage disc agree. Just before
Anna hits her, she reaches up her hand. Was she
trying to grab his reins? If so, her risk assessment
was as questionable as that of just stop oil. She
should have known how hard it would be to stop
(37:27):
half a ton of horse at thirty five miles an hour.
Perhaps she, just like the Silverstone protesters, was kidding herself.
The horse racing author Michael Tanner posits another theory. Maybe
Emily intended to run onto the course before the runners
(37:47):
got there and unfurl her flag for the newsreel cameras. Maybe,
not being a regular race goer, she underestimated how quickly
the horses would arrive and flash past. She ducked under
the rails. The leaders had gone by already. What next,
she had only a moment to It took fifteen years
(38:20):
after Emily's death for all British women to get the
vote in the children's book version of Emily's sacrifice that
needed direct action after patient arguments were ignored. In truth,
we can't know if the militant suffragettes sped up the
advent of women's suffrage or delayed it, although we do
(38:43):
know that women in other countries got the vote at
roughly the same time through those patient arguments alone. Moderate
groups in Britain, too, persisted with their patient arguments. The
London Society for Women's Suffrage, for example, explained why they
(39:04):
weren't attending Emily's funeral. We deplore her actions. They harm
our cause by alienating many people who would consider it
right to give the vote to women, but wrong to
endanger the lives of others. In favor of votes for
women against bringing down race horses are balanced reasonable moderate position.
(39:30):
Sometimes radicals help by making moderates look good. This episode
relied on Lucy Fisher's biography Emily Wilding Davison, The Martyr
(39:51):
Suffragette and The Suffragette Derby by Michael Tanner. For a
fullness of our sources, see the show notes at Timharford
dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford
with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines and Dilly. It's produced by
Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original
(40:15):
music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design
is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio Bend and
Dafhaffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents
of Genevieve Gaunt, Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah
jupp As, Saimonroe, Jamal Westman, and Rufus Wright. The show
(40:38):
also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,
Greta Cohne, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan,
Kira Posey, and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production
of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardare Studios in London
by Noria Barr and Lucy Rowe. Do you want to
(40:59):
support the stories we tell on Cautionary Tales. If so,
you can join my new Cautionary Club at patreon dot
com Slash Cautionary Club for xi exclusive bonus episodes, newsletters,
ad free listening, and other exciting perks. Alternatively, you can
join Pushkin Plus on our Apple show page for continued
(41:19):
benefits from our show and others across the Pushkin network.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
If you don't feel like you're getting enough Cautionary Tales,
I have some very good news. We've just launched the
Cautionary Club over on Patreon. We'll be dropping an extra
Cautionary Tales episode each month, a bonus interview, and a
newsletter chock full of behind the scenes titbits and anything
else we dug up in our research. We would love
(00:38):
to see you there. Head to patreon dot com slash
Cautionary Club to find out more. That's patreon dot com
slash Cautionary Club.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
A warning before we start. This cautionary Tale discusses death
by suicide. If you're suffering emotional distress or you're having
suicidal thoughts, support is available, for example, from the nine
eight eight Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In the US, jockey
(01:10):
Herbert Jones canters his horse to the start of the
Epsom Derby. The year is nineteen thirteen. On Derby Day,
Epsom feels like the center of the world. Hundreds of
thousands of people have descended on this undulating stretch of
countryside fifteen miles from London. Some watch from the open
(01:31):
topped buses that brought them here. Others line the running
rails a dozen deep. The grandstands are packed. His Majesty,
the King looks on from under a black top hat.
The King owns the horse that Herbert Jones is riding.
He's wearing the distinctive royal silks purple and crimson, with
(01:55):
a gold braid. Jones knows what it's like to win
a derby for the King. He's won two. He also
knows that he's not likely to win a third today.
His horse, Anma, is an outsider fifty to one. Still,
the odds aren't always accurate. Outsiders winds sometimes you never know.
(02:18):
The fifteen horses line up behind the starting tape, each
half a ton of twitching muscle, not always easy for
their seven stone riders to control. The course is a
mile and a half. It'll take about two and a
half minutes, but roughly thirty five miles an hour. Newsreel
(02:39):
cameras are in position to capture the key moments, the start,
the finish, and the turn for home, the famous Tattenham corner,
where the runners will thunder down hill As they sweep
to the left. The starter pulls his lever, the tape
flies up.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
They're off.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Jones urges amm On but it soon becomes clear that
this time the odds are accurate. A struggles to keep
up as the leaders tear down the hill towards Tattenham Corner.
Jones has dropped to third from last. Still never give up,
(03:19):
Jones keeps pushing hard. The horse in front of him
jinks to one side, and suddenly Jones sees why a
woman standing on the racetrack right in front of him?
What on earth is she doing? As we'll hear that
is still hotly debated today. But Jones has no time
(03:43):
to wander. His horse slams into the woman and clatters
to the ground. Jones goes flying headlong towards the turf,
then his world goes dark. I'm Tim Harford and you're
listening to cautionary tales. In twenty twenty two, hundreds of
(04:28):
thousands of Formula One fans have gathered at Silverstone to
watch the British Grand Prix. Tens of millions globally are
watching on TV. Unseen by the cameras, five spectators climb
a safety barrier. They can hear from the roar of
(04:48):
accelerating engines that the race has just started. They can't
yet see the cars there are a few corners distant,
but it shouldn't be long before they come into view.
Racing at well over one hundred miles an hour, the
five spectators drop down the other side of the barrier,
onto a grass verge and towards the tarmac of the
(05:10):
track itself. Is this not very dangerous? Not at all?
One will later tell a court.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
I can see that it might have looked dangerous to
someone who doesn't know about this stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
You see, he says, they'd carefully studded previous Formula One
races at Silverstone.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
The part of the track that we went on had
a much lower proportion of crashes than the other parts
of the track.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
The drivers will see them in time to avoid them,
or so they expect. The officials will immediately call a
red flag, which tells the drivers there's a danger on
track that needs to be cleared. Stop racing, slow down,
and drive carefully back to the pits. The live TV
footage will show the protesters wearing their orange T shirts
(06:01):
with the slogan just stop oil. They'll have drawn attention
to their cause of fighting climb much change, at least
that's the plan. Still low, they're putting a lot of
faith in other people's reaction. Times Are they sure it's
(06:22):
not dangerous? The protester shrugs.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Those drivers are the best drivers in the world, but
even the best drivers crash sometimes.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Why would you run onto a racetrack in front of
fast moving cars? Perhaps because you think it will help
a cause you passionately believe in, and perhaps because some
other people whose stage disruptive protests are seen as heroes,
like the woman on Epsom Racecourse in nineteen thirteen. Here,
(07:00):
for example, is the blurb from a book for children
about her.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Emily was angry because women didn't have the right to vote.
She and her fellow suffragettes had patiently put their argument
to the government, but they were ignored. Now it was
time for direct action.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Emily Wilding Davison was born in eighteen seventy two. Her
father was a successful businessman, and Emily got a good
education a governess a preparatory school in London, a year
in Switzerland studying French. Then she won a place at
a new college for girls. But midway through her course,
(07:47):
her father died, and it turned out he hadn't been
quite as successful a businessman as he had appeared. He
left his family next to nothing. That was a shock.
As Emily explained to a friend.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Mamma has to pay twenty pounds a term for me.
I do not know whether I can stay on after
this term. Mamma is very anxious to keep me at
college for my exam if it is possible.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It was not possible. Emily had to drop out and
find work. Her tutors gave her glowing references. It is
a matter of great regret to me that she is
unable to finish her course. She is a most hard
working student. She has immense perseverance. Perseverance indeed, Emily got
(08:41):
a job as a governess, but studied in the evenings
with notes borrowed from her former classmates. She saved up
enough to take her exam in English Language and Literature
and hasted first class honors. Not that the university would
actually award her a degree, what with her being a girl.
(09:04):
Still impressive, but what could a woman do in the
eighteen nineties with evidence that she would have got a
first class degree if she were a man, Career options
were limited. She could continue to work as a governess.
Emily found it frustratingly isolating stuck in some big, old
(09:28):
house in the provinces, with only a wealthy famili's little
children to talk to. She missed the buzz of city life,
as she wrote in poems.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Oh London, how I feel thy magic spell? Now I
have left thee and amid the woods sit lonely.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
There was one particular buzz that Emily craved to be
part of the movement for women's suffrage. The idea was
in the air. Women in New Zealand got the vote
in eighteen ninety three, in Australia nineteen oh two, in
Finland nineteen o six. In Britain, suffragists had been making
(10:15):
the case for decades through petitions and meetings and speeches,
but opposition was fierce. Some of that opposition was predictable.
If everyone had the vote, female voters would outnumber males.
Men of England, said one poster, resent this attempted tyranny,
(10:39):
But a surprising number of opponents were women themselves.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Women of England, said.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
The manifesto of the Women's National Anti Suffrage League.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
We appeal to your common sense. Women are debarred by
nature and circumstances from the political knowledge of men.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Hundreds of women signed.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
An appeal against female suffrage, which warned the whole nation
would suffer.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
If women got the vote. Due to their.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
Natural quickness of temper.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
It was men's work to debate weighty matters of finance
or war.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Women had other opportunities for public usefulness, such as the
care of the sick and the education of children. That
was their true dignity and special mission.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
It sounds ridiculous now, but the patient arguments of the
suffragists didn't seem to be working. The heavyweight politician David
Lloyd George, for example, said he favored votes for women,
but when he got into power, did nothing. Some women
decided it was time for direct action. They formed a
(12:02):
new organization, the WSPU, the Women's Social and Political Union,
slogan deeds not words. They disrupted meetings and chained themselves
to railings in Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lived.
Newspapers coined the term for these radical suffragists, the suffragettes.
(12:26):
It was meant as an insult, a dismissive, diminutive. They
adopted it with pride. Emily quit her job as a governess,
moved to London and got employed as an officer at
the WSPU. She disrupted a speech by David Lloyd George.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I was busy haranguing the crowd when the police came
up and arrested me.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Emily was put in prison a dark cell alone. She
sang hymns defiantly and scrawled on the wall her personal credo.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Rebellion against tyrants is obedient to God.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
She also refused to eat, a tactic the Suffragettes had
discovered for getting out of jail early. They figured the
government would let them go rather than risk a death
from starvation. Emily described her prison experience in a letter.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I fasted one hundred and twenty four hours and was
then released. I lost one and a half stone and
much flesh. I felt very weak at first, but I'm
pulling up rapidly now, She signed off, your loving and
rebellious friend, Emily.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
No sooner had she got her strength back than Emily
was rebelling again, throwing rocks at the windows of David
Lloyd George's car. This time in prison, she discovered the
government had a new approach to hunger strikes. A doctor
came into her cell well and said.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
I'm going to feed you by force.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Cautionary tales will be back after the break at Silverstone,
spectators noticed the five Just Stop Oil protesters scaling the
(14:37):
safety barrier and running towards the track. Phone footage captures
how the crowd react. Wankers, he yells one voice, Dickheads
adds another run over. Perhaps it's not surprising that a
motorsport crowd is hostile to a message about stopping oil.
(14:58):
But Just Stop Oil protesters made themselves unpopular with other
people too. They blocked roads, tied themselves to goldposts during
a soccer match, and through soup over Vincent van Goff's sunflowers.
In opinion polls, eighty two percent of Brits say climate
(15:20):
change is an important issue, Yet fully sixty eight percent
said their opinion of Just Stop Oil was unfavorable, Which
makes you wander. Are disruptive protests helping the cause or hindering?
Academics have some jargon for this question. Are radical flank
(15:43):
effects positive or negative? In twenty twenty four, the Journal
of Global Environmental Psychology published an article the radical flank
Curse or Blessing of a social movement. Decades of literature
say the authors provide mixed results. In some cases, disruptive
(16:05):
protest seems to have helped to cause in others, it
seems to have backfired. The researchers weren't about to leave
it at that, so they began to dig deeper.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I'm going to feed you by force, the.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Doctor said to Emily Davison. Emily described what followed.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
While they held me flat, The doctor, with a steel gag,
prized open my mouth to its widest extent. Then a
wardrous poured liquid down my throat. What it was I
cannot say, but it was foul to the last degree.
As I would not swallow the stuff and jerked it
out with my tongue. The doctor pinched my nose and
(16:52):
somehow gripped my tongue with the gag. The torture was barbaric.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It got worse. Rubbered tubes rammed down the throat or
even up the nostrils to pour the liquid in. Emily
smashed the windows in her cell to protest. They moved
her to another cell, which had two beds. The door
opened inwards, she observed.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
As soon as it was closed, quick as thought, I
put the beds down quietly, lengthwise, one touching the other.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
There was still a gap of a foot to the wall,
which she filled with an upturned stool.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
The wedge was not absolutely firm, so I jammed in
my two slippers and a hair brush.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
She sat on the spot where the two beds met
to weigh them down.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
My blockade was complete.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
The wardens discovered they couldn't open the door. They could
break the door down heavy iron frame at all, but
they'd rather not, as the prison governor later explained that
the breaking of a cell door is a serious and
expensive matter, so they tried another tactic.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
A ladder appeared at the window. I looked round and
saw the nozzle of a hose pipe. They got the
water trained full on me. I had to hold on
like grim death. The power of the water seemed terrific,
and it was as cold as ice.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Still, Emily didn't budge. They'd have to break the door down.
After all.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
It was clear to me that if the door fell,
it would kill me on the spot. Strange to say,
I had no fear. The door gave. I watched it
fascinated as it lurched. However, hands seized it. A mail
warder rushed in and seized me, saying you ought to
be horse whipped for this.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Emily got out of prison to find that the hose
pipe incident had been widely reported, even raised in Parliament.
She got sympathy. Whatever you thought of women's suffrage, this
wasn't on. She sued the prison and won, though the
judge awarded only nominal damages, saying that Emily had already
(19:21):
got something she wanted a good story to write about
in the WSPU's newspaper. Emily set about getting herself sent
back to prison with a new tactic, setting fire to
mail boxes.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
I walked down Fleet Street. I calmly stopped at a big,
open mouthed receptacle for London letters. I took out of
my pocket a packet of greastproof paper tied with cotton.
Inside was some linen, well soaked in kerosene. To this
I calmly applied a match. I let the packet, now
(19:58):
well alight, go down the receptacle. I then walked on
and turned into the first cafe I came to to
get lunch.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Back in prison, another hunger strike and more force feeding.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
As the tube passed down behind the throat, a feeling
of suffocation and sickness followed. I naturally commenced to cough, choke,
and wretch. I was glad to be sick, which often happened,
and the rejected fluid went into the doctor's hands to
his disgust, and my satisfaction.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Was all this really enough?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Though?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Getting sent to prison for throwing rocks, setting fire to
mail boxes, even planting bombs, as some militant suffragettes had
started to do, and then stoically enduring the barbarity of
tubes shoved down the throat, or would it take a
more grand and shocking gesture to get politicians to take
(21:07):
women seriously? Did the suffragette cause need a martyr? Emily
began to wander.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
The idea in my mind was one big tragedy may
save many others.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It wouldn't be easy for Emily to martyr herself in prison.
There were nets to stop prisoners from jumping to their deaths.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I realized that my best means of carrying out my
purpose was the iron staircase. I walked up stairs and
threw myself from the top.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
She had tried to miss the netting and land on
the staircase.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
If I had been successful, I should undoubtedly have been killed,
as it was a clear drop of thirty to forty feet.
But I caught on the edge of the netting.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
There was still a ten foot drop from the edge
of the netting to the iron staircase. It might be enough.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I realized that there was only one chance left to
hurl myself with the greatest force I could summon from
the netting onto the staircase. I threw myself forward on
my head. When I recovered consciousness, voices were buzzing around me.
Someone said, fetch the doctor. They lifted me as gently
(22:33):
as possible, but the agony was intense.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
This was all getting too intense for the leaders of
the WSPU. Deeds not words they had said, but disrupting politicians'
speeches was one thing. Planting bombs and setting fire to
mail was quite another. They refused to publish Emily's account
of her martyrdom bed in their newspaper, and they ended
(23:04):
her employment as a WSPU officer. Was becoming an embarrassment.
At the railway station in Aberdeen, Scotland, in late nineteen twelve,
a Baptist minister that just waved off his wife on
a train when he was approached by a woman.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
I thought she was an ordinary passenger, he.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Later recalled, giving testimony to a court, but.
Speaker 6 (23:34):
Without any explanation. She cried, you traitor, you traitor. There
came quite a reel of blues.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
And she attacked him with a dog whip. The police
detained the woman, but she wasn't finished yet. The minister recalled, to.
Speaker 6 (23:50):
My astonishment, she landed me a very clever, quick blow
on the left jaw with her clenched fist.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
The woman turned out to be Emily Davison. Why had
Emily attacked a Scottish Baptist minister with a dog whip?
The Aberdeen Daily Journal explained that the reverend Gentleman bears
a distinct, if not altogether a striking facial resemblance to
(24:18):
mister David Lloyd George. Lloyd George was still in government
and still disappointing the Suffragettes by failing to act on
their cause. He had been expected in Aberdeen that day.
His look alike had chosen a bad time to see off.
His wife. Emily was jailed again. She had just turned forty.
(24:43):
The stints in prison were starting to take their toll
along with the unemployment. After she had been sacked by
the WSPU.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
This last four days hunger strike in Aberdeen found out
my weakness. I have had some rheumatism in my neck
and back where I fell on that iron staircase. At present,
I have no settled work. I wish I could hear
of some.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Emily applied for jobs and tried to get her writing published.
She wrote about sacrifice, comparing militant protesters to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
The surrender of life itself is a supreme consummation of sacrifice.
To lay down life for friends that is glorious, selfless,
inspiring for generations yet unborn. That is the last consummate
sacrifice of the militant.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
On the first Tuesday of June nineteen thirteen, Emily went
to the opening day of the w SPU's Summer Fate,
a social occasion with flower decorations and stalls serving strawberries
and cream. I'm going to the Derby tomorrow, she told
a friend, and the friend was surprised. Emily wasn't a
(26:13):
regular racegoer. Why are you going to the Derby, Ah
said Emily. Look in the evening papers and you will
see cautionary tales. Will be back in a moment. The
(26:42):
crowd at Tattenham Corner are wondering what just happened. Annmah
Skids along the turf, then gets shakily to his feet.
Herbert Jones is out cold. As the other fourteen runners
race onto the finish, Spectators rush forward to help. Someone
(27:03):
grabs hold of Anma's reins. An ambulance arrives and the
crew take Joan's off on a stretcher. Then there's the
woman and my hit, also unconscious on the grass. A
policeman calls out, does anyone know this woman? No one does,
but someone says I have a car, I can take
(27:25):
her to hospital. Another says I'm a nurse. I'll go
with you. Herbert Jones at length wakes up, confused about
why he's on a stretcher and what happened in the race.
Someone starts to explain a woman. Ah, yes, he says,
(27:49):
my horse hit her. I remember falling towards the ground.
I must have had a bang. At the hospital, Emily
remains unconscious. She's being identified now from a name tag
found in her jacket. Also in her jacket a suffragettel
lag neatly folded. The King and Queen are informed a
(28:16):
most regrettable and scandalous proceeding, the King writes in his diary.
Poor Jones writes the queen knocked about by that horrid woman,
as Emily anticipated. She's all over the newspapers. They call
her mad, wild, demented. A notorious militant, says the Daily Mail.
(28:43):
The hottest of all suffragette hot bloods deep in the
hearts of every onlooker, reports the Daily Telegraph. Was a
feeling of fierce resentment with the miserable woman. Letters addressed
to Emily start to arrive at Epsom Hospital. You should
(29:03):
thank your God, says one anonymous missive, that he has
spared you the sin of murder. Another says, simply you idiot.
In their article The Radical Flank, Curse or Blessing of
a Social Movement, researchers describe an experiment. They told their
(29:27):
subjects about a fictional protest on an environmental issue and
asked if they supported the protesters. Some subjects got a
description of protesters using only moderate tactics, such as organizing petitions.
Some got a description of only radical tactics, such as
vandalizing property. More people supported moderate than radical protest. Other
(29:53):
subjects got a description of two contrasting protest groups, a
main moderate group and a smaller radical one, the radical flank.
The contrast made people less likely to support the radial
called protesters, but more likely to support the moderates. So
(30:13):
the experiment has found two effects, one that reduced support
for the cause overall, another that increased it. No wonder
the literature is mixed on whether disruptive protests help or hinder.
It's hard to know when one effect outweighs the other,
(30:34):
but the experiment suggests something counterintuitive. When someone makes a
disruptive protest, it's because they think it will help a
cause they passionately believe in. And it might, but not
in the way they might hope. Instead of being seen
as heroes, they'll be hated. But they'll also make moderate
(30:56):
protest groups look more reasonable, groups that make the same arguments,
that use less annoying tactics, as the crowd at Silverston
shout that the just stop oil protesters. Elsewhere on the track,
the race begins. Even the best drivers crash sometimes, and
(31:19):
this time they crash before they even reach the first corner.
One car clips another and clatters into a third, which
flips upside down, skims off the track, and smashes into
a tire wall. A massive accident. Debris is everywhere. They'll
have to stop the race to clear the track. The
(31:40):
race officials call a red flag. By the time the
drivers get to the protesters part of the track, they've
already stopped racing, slowed right down. They don't need to
react quickly to avoid the protesters. They just steer around them.
The TV coverage isn't showing the cars driving slowly back
(32:03):
towards the pits. It's showing repeats of that spectacular first
corner crash. Nobody watching at home has any idea that
the protest has happened. This never was dangerous. The protesters
later insist to a court the drivers would have stopped
in time anyway. The judge is not impressed.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
None of you were qualified enough or experienced enough properly
to assess the risk to you and others. You were,
in my view, kidding yourselves.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Another letter arrives at Emily Davison's bedside. I cannot believe
that you could have done such a dreadful act, it says,
I can only hope and pray that God will mercifully
restore you to life and health. With all my love
(33:00):
from your sorrowful mother, Emily never gets to read the letter.
After four days in a coma. She dies after Emily
had thrown herself onto the prison's iron staircase. The WSPU
(33:21):
refused to publish her account in their newspaper. They ostracized her,
embarrassed by how extreme she had become now that she
had actually died, Well, perhaps she'd been right that a
martyr might be useful. The same newspaper's front page depicted
(33:41):
Emily as an angel, under the words in honor and
in loving reverent memory of Emily Wilding Davison. She died
for women. They arranged for Emily's coffin to parade through
(34:07):
London and appeal for mourners to wear white and carry
lilies or black with a bunch of purple irises. Thousands
of women followed the coffin, singing hymns. Onward Christian soldiers,
fight the good fight with all your might, this marvelous
(34:29):
woman said. The funeral program offered up her life as
a petition to the king. A fellow suffragette explained, miss
Davison went out with the express purpose of stopping the
King's horse to challenge the very head of this country.
(34:52):
That's the story about Emily that's come down to this day.
As in the blurb of the book for children.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
She and her fellow suffragettes had patiently put their argument
to the government, but they were ignored. At the Derby racecourse,
as the King Horse came pounding towards her, Emily was
prepared to make the biggest sacrifice of all.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
But is the story right? We get some things right
about Emily Davison. She had incredible courage, repeatedly getting herself imprisoned,
knowing she'd face the horror of being force fed. And
she was right, of course about the cause of votes
for women. But are we right to assume that her
(35:41):
courage helped her cause. The mixed literature on radical flank
effects suggests that it's hard to be certain. Here's something
else we might get wrong about Emily. Did she really
intend to sacrifice herself? I mentioned that in Emily's jacket
(36:02):
police found a neatly folded Suffragette flag. They also found
a return train ticket to London and an entrance passed
for that evening. At the Summer Fate, Emily had promised
to visit her sister to help with her newborn niece.
None of this suggests she expected to die at epsom.
(36:25):
What was Emily trying to achieve. As her biographer Lucy
Fisher writes, that question still sparks markedly divisive debate today.
She hadn't explained her plans to anyone. The newsreel footage
shows that she ducks under the running rail and onto
(36:45):
the course when half the runners have already passed. Two
horses narrowly avoid her, then anma knocks her down. Eyewitnesses
thought that from her viewpoint on the inside of the bend,
she couldn't have seen well enough to target one specific horse.
(37:06):
Others who studied the newsreel footage disc agree. Just before
Anna hits her, she reaches up her hand. Was she
trying to grab his reins? If so, her risk assessment
was as questionable as that of just stop oil. She
should have known how hard it would be to stop
(37:27):
half a ton of horse at thirty five miles an hour.
Perhaps she, just like the Silverstone protesters, was kidding herself.
The horse racing author Michael Tanner posits another theory. Maybe
Emily intended to run onto the course before the runners
(37:47):
got there and unfurl her flag for the newsreel cameras. Maybe,
not being a regular race goer, she underestimated how quickly
the horses would arrive and flash past. She ducked under
the rails. The leaders had gone by already. What next,
she had only a moment to It took fifteen years
(38:20):
after Emily's death for all British women to get the
vote in the children's book version of Emily's sacrifice that
needed direct action after patient arguments were ignored. In truth,
we can't know if the militant suffragettes sped up the
advent of women's suffrage or delayed it, although we do
(38:43):
know that women in other countries got the vote at
roughly the same time through those patient arguments alone. Moderate
groups in Britain, too, persisted with their patient arguments. The
London Society for Women's Suffrage, for example, explained why they
(39:04):
weren't attending Emily's funeral. We deplore her actions. They harm
our cause by alienating many people who would consider it
right to give the vote to women, but wrong to
endanger the lives of others. In favor of votes for
women against bringing down race horses are balanced reasonable moderate position.
(39:30):
Sometimes radicals help by making moderates look good. This episode
relied on Lucy Fisher's biography Emily Wilding Davison, The Martyr
(39:51):
Suffragette and The Suffragette Derby by Michael Tanner. For a
fullness of our sources, see the show notes at Timharford
dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford
with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines and Dilly. It's produced by
Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original
(40:15):
music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design
is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio Bend and
Dafhaffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents
of Genevieve Gaunt, Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah
jupp As, Saimonroe, Jamal Westman, and Rufus Wright. The show
(40:38):
also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,
Greta Cohne, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan,
Kira Posey, and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production
of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardare Studios in London
by Noria Barr and Lucy Rowe. Do you want to
(40:59):
support the stories we tell on Cautionary Tales. If so,
you can join my new Cautionary Club at patreon dot
com Slash Cautionary Club for xi exclusive bonus episodes, newsletters,
ad free listening, and other exciting perks. Alternatively, you can
join Pushkin Plus on our Apple show page for continued
(41:19):
benefits from our show and others across the Pushkin network.
Host
Tim Harford
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