We want to get to know you more to help improve our service. Please take 2 minutes to fill out our survey here. Thank you! test2

Discover content and watch films on our latest and improved iOS app. Download it here!

This film is part of Free

Demonstration of Suffragettes

An early view of Emily Wilding Davison in the multitudes of women in a mass demonstration organised by the Women’s Social and Political Union on 18 June 1910

Non-Fiction 1910 3 mins Silent

Overview

This was one of the earliest mass marches organised by the suffrage movement, and up to 15,000 women marched from the Embankment to the Albert Hall to hear speeches from Christabel Pankhurst and other suffragette leaders. Many of the women in the film are carrying arrows on poles which represent the "broad arrow" symbols used on prisoners' uniforms at the time; the women carrying them had all been imprisoned for their suffragette activities. . At 1:51, in the crowd of women in their academic gowns can be seen Emily Wilding Davison who would later die at the 1913 Epsom Derby (recently spotted by playwright Deborah Clair). The three imposing figures on horseback glimpsed at the end are 'the General' Mrs Flora Drummond and two of her associates, Mrs Evelina Haverfield and Miss Vera Holme.