Emily Davison (Suffragette) killed by King's Horse at Derby (1913) - YouTube Emily Davison (Suffragette) killed by King's Horse at Derby (1913) Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Jul 27, 2011 Prior to the First World War, women's rights were a regular item of Pathé newsreels. One great landmark in the history of Pathe scoops was one of their cameras capturing the extreme sacrifice by the suffragette Emily Davison. In the blink of an eye, Davison runs from the crowds and throws herself under the King's horse. Crowds of people run on to the track to try and help both the fallen rider and Davison. Davison died several days later in hospital.

Watch another video from Disaster Caught on Camera: Check out our playlist: The 100-year mystery of why suffragette Emily Davison threw herself under the king's horse | Daily Mail Online comments Racehorses are galloping at full speed around Tattenham Corner in the Epsom Derby. This is the last bend before the final straight and the winning post, where thousands of racegoers are cheering in the stands, and King George V and Queen Mary are watching from the Royal Box. There is a roar from the crowds as the horses round the long left turn. Then a woman ducks under the railings and runs on to the racecourse. In an instant, she is knocked flying by Anmer, a thoroughbred owned by the King. Anmer tumbles on its side, unseating its jockey. The horse stands but the rider lies still. Nearby, the woman lies on the turf, more like a heap of rags than a person. The crowd, who a moment before had been cheering, surges towards the turf and surrounds the prone figures. The time is 3.10pm, 4 June 1913.

It will be remembered as the moment when a suffragette ‘threw herself under the King’s horse’. Historic: The scene at Epsom's Tattenham Corner moments after Emily Davison was struck by Anmer The iconic image of the suffragette being trampled by George V’s horse has come to symbolise the bitter struggle that women fought to win the right to vote in Britain. But though the incident was caught by British Pathé’s hand-cranked cinema cameras filming the Derby, the arguments about what actually happened that day have continued ever since. The woman at the Derby is Emily Wilding Davison, a leading militant in the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), founded in 1903. Four days later, Emily dies in hospital of her injuries without regaining consciousness. She is 40. But the archive footage of Emily’s protest does not answer the nagging question: did she mean to commit suicide at the Derby? Her protest was just the latest in a series of militant outrages that appalled polite Edwardian society.

At the inquest into Emily’s death, the coroner seemed to speak for the nation when he said: ‘It is exceedingly sad that an educated lady should sacrifice her life in such a way.’ Parliament and the press were united in their conviction that Emily had crossed a line: this was no longer justified protest but ‘wicked madness’. The Morning Post reported the incident under the headline ‘Sensational Derby – suffragist’s mad act’. The ‘sensation’ was not the injuries to Emily; it was the fact that a 100-1 outsider, Aboyeur, had won the race. The paper was also concerned about the King’s jockey, Herbert Jones, 28, who had been thrown by Anmer.

‘The King,’ says The Post, ‘made immediate inquiries regarding his jockey who had no bones broken.’ Crowds watch Emily¿s coffin pass through Central London on its way to King¿s Cross station, 14 June 1913 Suffragettes at a demonstration in London Emily made the front pages ¿ but only as an afterthought to the race details A list of Emily¿s possessions from the Metropolitan Police, 10 June 1913 Two days later, while recuperating at home, Jones received a telegram from Buckingham Palace. It had been sent by a palace flunkey on behalf of Queen Alexandra, the Queen Mother. ‘Queen Alexandra was very sorry indeed to hear of your sad accident caused through the abominable conduct of a brutal lunatic woman. I telegraph now by Her Majesty’s command to enquire how you are getting on and to express Her Majesty’s sincere hope that you may soon be all right.’ Emily remained in a coma after being rushed from the track to Epsom Cottage Hospital. Efforts were made to relieve the pressure on her brain, but she died on 8 June without regaining consciousness.

The death certificate barely conceals the doctor’s outrage – ‘fracture of the base of the skull caused by being accidentally knocked down by a horse through wilfully rushing on to the racecourse at Epsom Downs during the progress of a race’. The story of Emily’s death, and a little of her life, unfolded at the inquest, which was held in a cramped police court at Epsom on 10 June. Police Sergeant Frank Bunn gave an eyewitness account. He had been on duty ‘some 15 or 20 yards nearer the winning post. Several horses passed by when a woman, supposed Emily Davison, ran out from under the fence and held her hands up in front of HM King’s horse, whereby she was knocked down and rendered unconscious. The horse which pitched over on to its head stopped on the course. It received slight cuts to the face and body and injury to its off fore hoof.’ In his notes, Bunn listed the items that had been found on Emily. He discovered two suffragette flags, identifiable by their green, white and purple stripes, folded up and pinned to the back of her jacket, on the inside.

They were one and a half yards long and three quarters of a yard wide – large enough for the racegoers to see if she had managed to unfurl them. On ‘her person’ he found a small square of orange cardboard, stamped with the number 0315. It is the return half of Emily’s third-class train ticket from Victoria to Epsom. Why would she have bought a return ticket if she had intended to take her life? The day before the Derby, Emily had met her friend Mary Leigh. She seemed in high spirits and told Mary, ‘I’m going to the Derby tomorrow.’ ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Mary. ‘Ah,’ she said, putting her head a little on one side, her eyes smiling. ‘Look in the evening paper,’ she added, ‘and you will see something.’ From left: suffragettes Emily Davison, Sylvia Pankhurst, Christabel Pankhurst and Emmeline Pethick-Laurence, 1910 The jury decided (in the family’s favour) that Emily was an accidental martyr – suicide was a criminal offence for those who failed in their attempts, and a source of shame for families at the time.

Having heard all the evidence – about her character, her state of mind and her railway ticket – the jury found there was not enough to return a verdict of suicide. Her death was simply a ‘misadventure’. At the inquest, Police Constable Eady, who was standing on the opposite side of the track to Sergeant Bunn, was asked by the coroner whether it would have been possible for Emily to pick out any particular horse. ‘I do not think it would be possible, the way they were bunched together,’ he said. This corroborated Bunn’s evidence: ‘The horses came along in a heap, not strung out at all… It was a close race, and between the first horse and the last there was a distance of only a few yards.’ But on this point, they were both quite wrong; as Emily waited for the Derby to start at 3pm, she had marked her card for the preceding races and studied the form. She knew the horses and, crucially, she knew the colours of the riders’ silks.

She could not miss the jockey wearing the King’s colours, even if she only had a split second to spy them: Herbert Jones’s silks were of rich red sleeves and a blue body. The police and government clearly preferred the fiction that Emily was a mad woman, intent on a reckless act of martyrdom, and chose the King’s horse by accident. They did not want the public to hear that the true target of her shocking protest for women’s suffrage had been the monarchy. Any attack on the King (or his horse) was not only unthinkable, it was seditious. Had the coroner called for the Pathé film to be shown at the inquest, he would have tended to agree with accounts that she could not have identified the King’s horse in the split second before she was hit. However, if the jury had had the benefit of modern technology, they may have had a different view. The Suffragette magazine gives Emily angelic status, 13 June 1913 In an enhanced version of the 1913 Derby film, far from being ‘in a heap’, the horses are strung out as they round Tattenham Corner into the final straight.

Emily can be seen running through a gap in the horses. Then she stands quite calmly, well away from the rails. She lets one, two, three horses fly past her. She is taking her time to pick her horse. Anmer is near the back of the field. As the horse thunders towards her, she steps firmly towards it and puts up her hands. Half a ton of thoroughbred racehorse at full gallop smashes into her body. She is sent tumbling, her neck and head hitting the ground with each turn. The inquest never found a reason for her action, except as a mindless protest. But if she was not trying to kill herself under Anmer’s hooves, what was she trying to do? In addition to the two concealed flags, Emily also carried a scarf in the suffragettes’ colours, which was wrapped around her waist. Perhaps she intended to tie this scarf around Anmer’s bridle, so that the King’s horse would be carrying the suffragette colours across the finishing line. This would have been a very public petition to the King as he sat in the royal enclosure by the winning post, had she succeeded.

On 14 June 1913, Emily made the return journey from Epsom to Victoria Station, for which she had bought her return ticket, in an oak casket. Four black horses pulled the funeral carriage; six suffragettes, including Sylvia Pankhurst, marched alongside. The procession included 50 hunger strikers, some on release because of ill health, and hundreds of women ex-prisoners. At St George’s Church, Bloomsbury, an estimated 6,000 women took part in the service. More than 50,000 people turned out on the streets to watch the funeral pass by. The coffin was taken to King’s Cross station and then put into a goods van for its final journey to Morpeth in Northumberland. Huge crowds turned out the next day in Morpeth as Emily was buried in the family grave. The site is marked by a large stone monument with a cross on top and the suffragette slogan ‘Deeds not Words’. Parliament finally gave equal voting rights to women and men in 1928. Today, the right for which Emily Wilding Davison gave her life is taken for granted.

In the village of Longhorsley, where Emily’s mother’s house still stands, Jane Cotton, who runs Pele Cottage bed and breakfast, reports that no one asks about Emily these days: ‘They don’t seem to realise she lived here.’ Emily is not completely forgotten.Thousands of visitors already troop past a glass case as they make their way to the public gallery of the House of Commons, perhaps little understanding its significance. It contains a faded, fragile silk scarf, with green, white and purple stripes, stained with mud. It is the scarf that Emily was wearing when she fell under the King’s horse. Real Britannia: Our Ten Proudest Years, the Glory and the Spin by Colin Brown is published by Oneworld, priced £18.99 To order a copy for £14.99 with free p&p, contact the you bookshop on 0843 382 1111, you-bookshop.co.uk Emily Davison, Death at the Derby By Ben Johnson | Comments Emily Davison, influential British suffragette, was born in South East London in 1872.

She was a high achiever and won a scholarship to study literature at Royal Holloway College when she finished school. This was cut short, however, when her father died and her mother could no longer afford to pay the tuition fees. Emily became a teacher until she had saved enough money to finish her studies at London University, graduating with a BA. She later attended St Hugh’s College, Oxford for one term. At this time, academia was a male dominated world and Emily developed strong opinions about the limited opportunities available to women in society. The Women’s Social and Political Unit (WSPU), founded by Emmeline Pankhurst, caught Emily’s interest and she soon became a radical member. A more militant offshoot of the original National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), the WSPU expressed the view that by disallowing women the vote, the state was classing them as second-rate citizens. Emily rapidly became head steward of the WSPU and gave up work to dedicate more time and effort to “the Cause”.

She was quite the activist; Emily was one of the suffragettes who were found hiding in air ducts within the House of Commons, apparently just listening in to Parliament (she did this three times); she threw metal balls labelled “bomb” through windows and was sent to prison six or seven times in four years! She was sent to prison twice in 1909, each time for two months, once for attempting to enter a room where the Chancellor of the Exchequer was delivering a speech and once for hurling rocks. Both of these trips to prison ended early when she went on hunger strike. It wasn’t long before she was back in jail again however, this time for hurling rocks at the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s chauffeur driven car, each one tightly wrapped in Emily’s signature slogan, 'Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.' Once in Strangeways Prison, Emily resorted to hunger strike again; this time however, the authorities decided to apply force-feeding instead of early release. In response to this, Emily barricaded herself in her room. Her prison officer decided to flood Emily’s cell with ice-cold water in an attempt to force her out. Emily nearly drowned but was rescued just in time.

The public were in uproar at this appalling treatment from the prison wardens and Emily, who took the case to court, was awarded forty shillings compensation. This was certainly not the only time that Emily showed herself willing to die for the cause she dedicated her life to. She was jailed again for 10 months in 1912 for setting fire to London post boxes. During this time she again went on hunger-strike. The prison resorted to force-feeding again and, in protest to this, Emily threw herself from a balcony: “I did it deliberately, and with all my power, because I felt that by nothing but the sacrifice of human life would the nation be brought to realise the horrible torture our women face. If I had succeeded I am sure that forcible feeding could not in all conscience have been resorted to again”. This act raised questions with the authorities; they realised that women were willing to become martyrs in the name of the cause. This lead to the introduction of the Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge for Health Act which declared that prisoners could be released if they threatened hunger strike but arrested again when they had regained their strength.

Emily suspected that if she died in prison, the authorities could cover it up as an accident, therefore if she were to become a martyr, it would have to be in public and she would have to be in full control of the incident. The Epsom Derby, June 4th 1913 And what could be more public than the 1913 Epsom Derby? Thousands of people, including King George V and Queen Mary, thronged to the event. The King's horse Anmer was one of the runners in that year's Derby. And it was Anmer that Emily targeted. Epsom racecourse is shaped like a horseshoe: the start is along a straight leading to a long corner that straightens out at Tattenham Corner before finishing down the straight in front of the Royal Box. The King's horse Anmer was easy to spot among the other horses as the jockey, Herbert Jones, was wearing the King's colours. As the horses thundered around Tattenham Corner, Anmer was third from last. Emily had pushed her way through the crowds and slipped underneath the protecting rail.

As Anmer came around this final corner, he could not avoid thundering into Emily as she stood in front of him, holding the suffragette flag close to her. Jones was thrown from his seat and the horse fell, getting up again and finishing the race alone. Jones suffered broken ribs, bruising and concussion. Emily was rushed into hospital but had received fatal internal injuries and died four days later. Her funeral, organised by the WSPU, was held in London, with thousands of people lining the streets. Her body was then taken to King's Cross Station and returned to her family in Northumberland for burial. On 15th June, Emily was buried in Morpeth, a short distance from her mother's home in Longhorsley, with her mother’s inscription “Welcome home the Northumbrian hunger striker” and “Deeds not words”, the WSPU motto, on her headstone. Emily Davison is struck by King George's horse, Anmer, and knocked unconscious The Aftermath It is still uncertain whether Emily truly intended to kill herself in the name of the suffragette cause that day.

In her handbag was found a return train ticket and an invitation to a suffragette meeting that night, which do not suggest that the incident was planned. However Emily’s previous actions might suggest she was prepared to kill herself for the cause. Emily certainly believed that a sacrificial act would serve to raise the profile of the suffragette cause. However this was not so. The public viewed her actions as those of a “mentally ill fanatic” and some previous supporters of the suffragette movement were so appalled by the incident, they ceased to be associated with “the cause”. The media concentrated on the wellbeing of the horse and jockey (who seemed to never recover from the guilt he felt) rather than the cause for which Emily died. The First World War then pulled society together and took the focus away from political activism of this sort. It was not until 1928 with the passing of the Equal Franchise Bill, that women over 21 were finally allowed the vote.

Emily Davison killed at the 1913 Derby Emily Davison killed at the 1913 Derby Enlarge Emily Davison threw herself in front of the King's horse Anmer during the Derby in June 1913 to draw attention to the suffragette campaign. Although this front page says that Davison survived, she was in fact killed in the incident. As a result of this act Davison became a martyr for the suffragette movement. In her autobiography My Own Story Emmeline Pankhurst writes: Emily Davison clung to her conviction that one great tragedy, the deliberate throwing into the breach of a human life, would put an end to the intolerable torture of women. And so she threw herself at the king's horse, in full view of the king and queen and a great multitude of their majesties' subjects. The Daily Sketch was Britain's oldest tabloid newspaper, was founded in 1909 and closed in 1971. This is one of a number of scoop pictures published in the Sketch over the years, including sinking of the Titanic.

Taken from: The Daily Sketch Date: June 1913 The Epsom Derby and the deaths of Emily Wilding Davison and Herbert ‘Diamond’ Jones « Another Nickel In The Machine The Epsom Derby and the deaths of Emily Wilding Davison and Herbert ‘Diamond’ Jones Emily Davison May 1913 - a month before she died No one really knows whether the Suffragette Emily Wilding Davison deliberately killed herself underneath the galloping hooves of Anmer – the Kings horse – at the 1913 Derby. Some say it was just a brave protest that went tragically wrong, after all a return train ticket was found in her handbag, along with an invitation to a suffragette event that evening. Davison always knew that it would be a grand, even an ultimate, gesture that would get The Cause properly noticed by the public. She would have undoubtedly been pleased that out of all the thousands of suffragette protests in the early part of the twentieth century, it is her tragic protest that is still remembered today.

The Epsom Derby has always been enjoyed as a day out by Londoners of all classes but from when it was first run in 1780 it had traditionally been a royal event and indeed King George V and Queen Mary had both come to watch the race in 1913. The middle classes generally sat in the grandstands or even on top of omnibuses which made alternative makeshift stands in the middle part of the race-track. The centre of the track had always been a free part of the course to watch the Derby so it would have been here that the many working-class Londoners came to watch the race, smoking and drinking, and enjoying a rare day away from the grimy smoky city near by. Emily Davison would have walked through this crowd when she made her way to the famous sharp bend in the course known as Tattenham Corner. A Derby crowd in the 19th century Davison waited for the race to start behind the barriers at the corner. When the first horses started to shoot by she slipped under the rail clutching on to her furled Suffragette tricolour banner of purple, white and green.

Running out on to the track she futilely tried to hold on to the bridle of the King’s horse called Anmer which would have been galloping at around 35 mph. Screaming, the woman with the suffragette colours was immediately smashed down by the horse and jockey wearing the King’s colours. The next day the Daily Mirror wrote: The horse struck the woman with its chest, knocking her down among the flying hoofs . . . and she was desperately injured . . . Blood rushed from her mouth and nose. Anmer turned a complete somersault and fell upon his jockey, who was seriously injured. Aboyeur, the eventual winner of the 1913 Derby "Home James, and don't hold the horses" - King George V and a beggar at the Derby Anmer at the stables Four days after what the Daily Sketch described as; ‘History’s most wonderful Derby’, Emily Davison died of substantial internal injuries and a fractured skull. She never regained consciousness after the ‘accident’. By the side of the bed at Epsom Cottage Hospital was an unopened letter with ‘please give this to Emily’ written on the envelope.

It was from her shocked and confused mother and Davison never read the words that said: I cannot believe that you could have done such a dreadful act. Even for the Cause which I know you have given up your whole heart and soul to, and it has done so little in return for you. Now I can only hope and pray that God will mercifully restore you to life and health and that there may be a better and brighter future for you. The jockey Herbert ‘Diamond’ Jones (so called because he had won the racing triple crown in 1900 when he rode the future King Edward VII’s ‘Diamond Jubilee’) was badly concussed and had his arm put in a sling. It was reported that he bravely shrugged off attempts to take him to the nearby hospital. King George V wrote in his diary that “poor Herbert Jones and Anmer had been sent flying” on a “most disappointing day”. Queen Mary sent Jones a telegram wishing him well after his “sad accident caused through the abominable conduct of a brutal lunatic woman”. If Davison had survived the collision with the King’s horse, it would have probably meant another visit to Holloway Gaol – the infamous North London women’s prison.

She had already been there, amongst other prisons, six or seven times in the previous four years. The director of Public Prosecutions, even while Emily Davison was unconscious in hospital, stated that “if Miss Davison recovers it will be possible to charge her with doing an act calculated to cause grievous bodily harm”. It’s important to note that attempting suicide was illegal at the time, as it would be until 1961. Morning Post headline 5th June 1913 Herbert 'Diamond' Jones (right) - the King's jockey Herbert Jones in 1910 Emily Davison was born in Blackheath in South East London in 1872. Successful at school she won a place at Holloway College to study literature although she had to leave when her widowed mother couldn’t afford the £20 term fees. After a stint of teaching she earned enough money to return to university education and eventually ‘graduated’ from St Hugh’s College Oxford, women only allowed honorary degrees at the time.

Davison joined the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1906 – the organisation ran by Emmeline Pankhurst and her two daughters Christabel and Sylvia which had broken away from the older non-militant National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. That same year the journalist Charles E Hands writing in the Daily Mail patronisingly called the all-female members of the new WSPU – ‘Suffragettes’. However the newly coined word was reclaimed (much in the same way I suppose as derogatory words such as ‘queer’ or ‘nigger’ were reclaimed decades later) and taken up by the WSPU to separate themselves from the ‘more constitutional’ NUWSS who were still known as Suffragists. Emily Wilding Davison was perhaps the most militant member of the militant WSPU and from when she joined until she died she was continually in and out of prison. She threw metal balls labelled ‘bomb’ through windows, set fire to post boxes, hid in Parliament three times (notably on Census night in 1911) and continually went on hunger strike.

The suffragettes who ‘hunger struck’ were initially released early so as to avoid martyrdom but soon the authorities started force feeding to, in the end, disastrous publicity. Suffragettes at Holloway prison A suffragette at Holloway prison in 1913 In 1912, in protest to another bout of painful force-feeding, and which may be a clue to her actual plans on the fateful Derby day of 1913, she threw herself off a balcony at Holloway prison. She was saved from her suicide attempt by the netting three floors below. She later wrote; “I did it deliberately, and with all my power, because I felt that by nothing but the sacrifice of human life would the nation be brought to realise the horrible torture our women face. If I had succeeded I am sure that forcible feeding could not in all conscience have been resorted to again” It seems unlikely, therefore, that Davison only a year later was only attempting to get to the other side of the course when Anmer unavoidably thundered into her at the Epsom Derby.

The WSPU cleverly used Emily Wilding’s funeral as a spectacular publicity event knowing that it would be filmed by the relatively new, but extremely popular, news-reel cameras. On Saturday 14 June 1913, to the drumming of ten brass bands, 6,000 women marched through the streets of London with huge crowds watching from the sidelines, the younger suffragettes dressed in white while their elders dressed in a more traditional black. Bricks were reported to have been thrown at the coffin and the carriages behind the first of which contained Davison’s close family including her mother and Miss Morrison – ‘Miss Davison’s intimate companion’. guarding Davison's coffin at Kings Cross station funeral procession at Piccadilly Circus Mrs Yates and Mary Lee guarding Emily Davison's coffin Herbert Jones wearing the King's colours ‘Diamond’ Jones never properly recovered after he and his horse crashed into Davison during the 1913 Derby. He lost three of his brothers in the First World War and his career started to go downhill and he retired in 1923 after a pulmonary haemorrhage.

It’s not that well known that in 1928 when the former leader of the WSPU, and perhaps the most famous of all the suffragettes, Emmeline Pankhurst died, Herbert Jones travelled to London for the funeral. The wreath that he left said To do honour to the memory of Mrs Pankhurst and Miss Emily Davison. On 17 July 1951, Jones was found dead in a gas-filled kitchen by his 17 year old son. The coroner subsequently recorded a verdict of ‘suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed’. The former jockey had once said that he was ‘haunted by that woman’s face’ all his life. It wasn’t just one suicide that was connected to the fateful collision at the Epsom Derby on that humid June day in 1913. Less than a week before Emily Davison’s tragic death at the Derby, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was premiered in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. The complex and modern music caused chaos in the audience which soon degenerated into a riot. At the interval the Parisian police had to intervene.

It was the slight discordant notes behind the initial bassoon solo at the beginning of the piece that set off the violence. Incidentally, due to more pressing matters such as musical notes being slightly out of tune, France didn’t get round to allowing women to vote until 1944. It was 27 years later in 1971 when women in Switzerland were only allowed into the voting booth. While male voters had it all to themselves in Portugal until 1976. Brilliant photoshop picture by monicenfungirl at flickr The Derby (1913) - Emily Davison trampled by King's horse | BFI National Archive - YouTube The Derby (1913) - Emily Davison trampled by King's horse | BFI National Archive Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Published on May 30, 2013 Watch more films about the Suffragettes here: A routine account of the 1913 Epsom Derby, one of many horse races that the Topical Budget newsreel covered that year, this film inadvertently made a contribution to the history of the suffragette movement by capturing the moment when activist Emily Davison was trampled by Anmer, King George V's horse, after she invaded the track. Read more at BFI Screenonline - All titles on the BFI Films channel are preserved in the vast collections of the BFI National Archive. To find out more about the Archive visit Category Epsom Derby jockey 'haunted' by suffragette death myth? - BBC News BBC News Epsom Derby jockey 'haunted' by suffragette death myth? By Hamish Reid BBC News 1 June 2013 Close share panel Image caption Herbert Jones's family said stories he was "haunted" by Emily Davison's face are "rubbish" Stories a royal jockey was haunted by the face of a suffragette after his horse struck and fatally injured her are "utter rubbish", his son says.

On 4 June 1913, as the horses thundered around Tattenham Corner during the Epsom Derby, Emily Davison rushed onto the course and was hit by King George V's colt, Anmer. "The horse knocked her down, and then turned a complete somersault on its jockey, Herbert Jones," The Morning Post reported the following day. "The woman, who had a Suffragist flag wrapped round her waist, and whose name is Emily Wilding Davison, is in a very serious condition in Epsom Cottage Hospital," the report continued. 'Brutal lunatic woman' King George V wrote in his diary that "poor Herbert Jones and Anmer had been sent flying" on a "most disappointing day". Queen Alexandra sent Jones a telegram wishing him well after his "sad accident caused through the abominable conduct of a brutal lunatic woman". Emily Davison died four days later in hospital from internal injuries and a fractured skull. The debate continues about whether Ms Davison meant to kill herself, or was merely trying to attach a suffragette ribbon onto the King's horse as a protest. Jones was unconscious for a short time and suffered from concussion.

He also needed to wear a sling on one arm for some time afterwards. There's nothing in there that alludes to him being "haunted" by Davison Michael Tanner, Author The King's jockey was invited to Davison's funeral, but his injuries stopped him from attending. Within two weeks of the Derby, he was back riding Anmer for the King at Ascot. On 17 July 1951 Jones's son found his father's lifeless body in his gas-filled kitchen. The story that the 70-year-old Herbert 'Bertie' Jones killed himself after being "haunted by that woman's face" all his life has been refuted in a book by Michael Tanner. Towards the end of his life Jones became deaf and suffered from two strokes. Mr Tanner, a sports writer who specialises in horse racing, said: "His wife's death and his deafness caused him to take his life." John Jones said stories of his father being "haunted" by Davison's face were "an utter load of rubbish".

Image caption Emily Davison died four days after suffering internal injuries and a fractured skull Mr Tanner, author of Suffragette Derby, described the jockey as "very gregarious, happy and contented and interested in local football and cricket and a keen gardener" until his hearing began to fail. He said his research had suggested that the story of him being "haunted" by Davison's face had only been around for the last 10 to 15 years. In 1934, a feature on the 1913 Derby by Herbert Jones, thought to have been ghost written, appeared in the Sunday Express. "There's nothing in there that alludes to him being "haunted" by Davison," Mr Tanner said. "It's rubbish - it didn't ruin his life, as his children have told me." Did suffragette who died under the King's horse mean to kill herself? Historian believes return ticket shows she just wanted to make a stand | Daily Mail Online Did suffragette who died under the King's horse mean to kill herself?

Historian believes return ticket shows she just wanted to make a stand Researcher Maureen Howes believes Emily Davison has been unfairly labelled as a 'suicidal fanatic' Trawl through old mementoes suggests death was tragic accident Hundredth anniversary Derby coming up next weekend Emily Davison (1872 - 1913), a few days before her fatal attempt to stop the King's horse 'Amner' on Derby Day to draw attention to the Women's Suffragette movement She is remembered as the suffragette who died under the King’s horse. But it has always been unclear as to whether Emily Davison really did intend to kill herself at the Epsom Derby in 1913 – or whether she simply wanted to make a public stand. Now new evidence has emerged to suggest the latter, after local historian Maureen Howes spent ten years working with the activist’s family to discover the truth. Both she and Davison’s surviving relatives are convinced that it was nothing more than a tragic accident, and are determined to set the record straight. Davison died in hospital four days after being knocked down by George V’s horse, Anmer, at Tattenham Corner.

It is a common theory that rather than seeking martyrdom, she had merely attempted to tie the Suffragette’s colours to the horse. Mrs Howes’ research suggests that it was only by coincidence that Davison had decided to do this – as earlier, safer, protest plans had been scuppered. Her conclusions have been drawn after trawling through previously unseen mementoes, photographs and documents from family members, and listening to anecdotes. She said: ‘At the time of Emily’s death, the family found all the publicity too much. It was very unpleasant. They were reluctant to speak out. ‘The story is so well-known but no-one has found out the truth. I’m happy with what I have written but I know it will upset a few apple carts. The suffragette throws herself under the horse in the 1913 Derby Davison slipped under the rails and walked straight into the colt's path The militant suffragette and martyr to the cause of the political advancement of women, had a favourite quotation: 'Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.' ‘People want to declare Emily as a suicidal fanatic but I have a very different version of the Epsom Derby.

RELATED ARTICLES Share ‘She doesn’t deserve the legacy which has been given to her.’ According to Mrs Howes, Davison resorted to running onto the track as a ‘plan B’ after an attempt to pin the colours to a horse in the paddock failed. Maurren Howes has produced a new book on the subject She said ‘plan A’, the safer option, was scuppered when Davison was recognised and barred from entering the pen. She said: ‘She didn’t commit suicide. There’s no chance of it. It was just a tragic accident. ‘She put herself in a risky position, but it was a plan B. ‘She was meant to pin her colours to the horse in the paddock but they didn’t let her in. ‘It was then decided to go for went for plan B - she probably thought, if we can’t do it in the paddock, let’s do it at Tattenham Corner where the news reel is.’ Mrs Howes said it was well-known within the family, based in Morpeth, Northumberland, that Davison had practised pinning colours on horses in local fields before the event.

In addition, it was only by chance that she was the person given the job of pinning the suffragette colours to the King’s horse on the fateful day. Mrs Howes said the Morpeth Suffragettes drew straws during practice on Morpeth Common to decide who would pin the suffragette colours to the King’s horse, and Davison drew the short straw. Davison had also let it be known that she was intending to travel to Paris after the Epsom protest to help her sister, Letitia, care for her three-month-old baby son Josse. Sylvia Pankhurst, campaigner in the suffragette movement is pictured second left in a suffragette procession in 1910 with Davison, left, Christabel Pankhurst, second right, and Mrs Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, right A suffragette is arrested in the early 1900s And it is already well-known that she had bought a return ticket to the Epsom Derby – with the stub still in her bag when she died.

A suffragette is force fed through a nasal tube Mrs Howes, 74, a grandmother and widow, is publishing her first book on the subject this week, titled Emily Wilding Davison: A Suffragette’s Family Album. It has been published to help mark the 100th anniversary of Davison’s death in June 1913. She tracked down family members by using her genealogy skills and posting adverts in the local paper. She said: ‘The family took me in as one of their own. They wanted to get their stories out before they get too old. ‘They wouldn’t trust anyone before they met me. I’m not political or academic, I just want to get the truth out.’ After Davison’s death, the coroner recorded death by misadventure rather than suicide – but it was widely thought that she had acted intentionally. Many openly criticised her in the media, with Queen Mary calling her a ‘brutal lunatic woman’, while the Suffragettes proclaimed her a martyr to their cause. The funeral of Emily Davidson in 1913 at Victoria Station

Question: In what year was suffragette Emily Davidson killed by King George V's horse in the Epsom Derby?
Answer: 1913