On Saturday lunchtime while down in London, we walked from North End Road into an area of Fulham known as the Baron's Court Estate. At the end of Fairholme Road I noticed a blue plaque on the end house and went over to investigate.
You may not know the significance of a blue plaque. They are placed on certain buildings by an organisation called English Heritage. They recognise noteworthy people and Amongst other things - where they lived in past times.
This particular plaque recognised a woman who literally died for women's suffrage in the summer of 1913. She went to the racecourse at Epsom to ostensibly watch the English Derby being run. However, when the king's horse Anmer came round the bend where she was standing, she ran onto the track and tried to grab the horse's reins. She suffered a fatal head injury and died two days later. Her name was Emily Wilding Davison and this was the front page of "The Daily Sketch" the day after Emily's death:-
She had been an activist for almost twenty years, recognising in her bones that women had been denied the right to vote for far too long. Maybe she didn't mean to die at Epsom racecourse that day but she was undoubtedly a martyr and indeed a heroine. It was brave women like her who paved the way for women's suffrage in Great Britain and all that followed afterwards in the struggle for women's equality. It is of course a struggle that continues to this day
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/QvaY5no