In 1908 Cicely Hale (1884-1981) became an organiser at the main Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) office in Clements Inn, London and was running the operations there by 1912. Cicely Hale later became a health visitor and midwife, publishing her memoir of the suffragette movement A Good Long Time in 1975.
Emily Wilding Davison sometimes worked at the WSPU offices and was a militant suffragette. In 1913 Davison threw herself in front of the Kings Horse at the Epsom Derby. She was clutching a WSPU flag and it is still not known whether she intended to die for the cause of Votes for Women, or whether it was an accident. Hale recalls what Davison was like as a person and describes her as a 'fanatic', commenting that no one really knew what she would do next.
The images shown are a portrait of Emily Wilding Davison, a photograph of the WSPU office (Davison is shown working sat on the extreme left and Hale is standing at the back with white collar and cuffs), a postcard of the Derby showing the moment after Davison stepped in front of the horse, the WSPU flag Davison was holding and her return ticket. Footage of the moment is available on the BFI channel here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-um9GV6_AILM.html
Cicely Hale spoke to the historian Brian Harrison as part of the interviews he conducted with early twentieth century feminists between 1974 and 1981. You can find out more about those interviews here: www.lse.ac.uk/library/collection-highlights/the-suffrage-interviews. This is just a small section from her interviews which has been turned into a video by putting the edited sound file together with relevant images from the Women’s Collection at LSE Library.
16 июл 2021
