Source: London School of Economics and Political Science
These items relating to her life and death are held in the archives of the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics.
They have now been made available in an online exhibition commemorating the centenary of Davison’s fatal final protest, and as part of a programme to make more widely accessible the UK’s primary resource for studying women’s history and the women’s movement.
Davison was born in 1872 in Blackheath, southeast London, and studied at what was then Royal Holloway College and the University of Oxford. In 1906 she joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the leading militant organisation campaigning for women’s suffrage.
Davison’s participation in public protests led to eight short periods of incarceration in Holloway Prison, where she went on hunger strike and resisted force-feeding.
Shown here are an example of the hate mail Davison received, this one sent by “an Englishman”; her race card; her unused return train ticket from Epsom to London Victoria; the WSPU flag that was found on her body; and the programme for her funeral service.
The Emily Wilding Davison Centenary online exhibition can be viewed here.
Send suggestions for this series on the treasures, oddities and curiosities owned by universities across the world to matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com