Emily Davison - Fatal Injury at The Epsom Derby, 1913

Fatal Injury At The Epsom Derby, 1913

Davison's purpose in attending the Derby of 4 June 1913 is unclear. Much has been made of the fact that she purchased a return rail ticket and a ticket to a suffragette dance later that day, both items held in the collection of the Women's Library in London, and both suggesting that martyrdom was not her intention.

Further evidence is a postcard she wrote to her sister Laetitia, who lived in France and to whom she was very close, which suggests she was due to go on holiday a few days after the Derby to visit her sister and her niece.

It is a possibility that by entering the race track she was trying to attach a flag to Anmer, the horse owned by King George V, so that when the horse crossed the finishing line, it would be flying the WSPU flag. According to police reports two flags were found in her possession.

Pathé News captured the incident on film. The film, taken at Tottenham Corner, shows Davison stepping out onto the racecourse just as the leading horses sweep by. She then was seen standing in the middle of the racecourse as two more horses passed on the inside of her, and suddenly she took a lunge at one of the last few trailing horses. This was Anmer. The film is unclear but it is possible that by this point she had taken the banner of the WSPU out from where it was concealed in her clothing. She was knocked to the ground unconscious. Eyewitnesses at the time were divided as to her motivation, with many of the opinion that she had simply intended to cross the track, believing that all horses had passed. Others reported that she had attempted to pull down the King's horse.

It is sometimes suggested that a few weeks beforehand Emily Davison and other suffragettes were 'practising' grabbing horses in the park near her mother's house in Morpeth; and that they drew straws to decide who should be the one to go to Epsom.

Horse-racing historian Michael Tanner, in a 2011 television interview at Epsom, pointed out that as Emily Davison was standing on the inside of the bend at Tattenham Corner, amidst heaving crowds, and with no racetrack commentary like there is today, it would in fact have been impossible for her to have any idea whether the King's horse Anmer had in fact already gone past or not when she stepped out onto the racecourse to make her protest; and that at the speeds the horses were going it would not have been practicable for her to identify any particular horse anyway even if she'd meant to. This suggests that the fact it was the King's horse that she collided with was just a coincidence.

She died four days later in Epsom Cottage Hospital, due to a fractured skull and internal injuries caused by the incident. Herbert Jones, the jockey who was riding the horse, suffered a mild concussion in the incident, but was "haunted by that poor woman's face" for much longer. In 1928, at the funeral of Emmeline Pankhurst, Jones laid a wreath "to do honour to the memory of Mrs Pankhurst and Miss Emily Davison". In 1951, his son found Herbert Jones dead in a gas-filled kitchen, having committed suicide.

The horse, Anmer, having gone over, got to his feet and completed the race minus his jockey.