Episode 1: Emily Davison's statue in Epsom, United Kingdom

For our first episode we talk to Christine Charlesworth, the artist commissioned to make a statue to the militant suffragette Emily Wilding Davison in Epsom, home to the famous derby where she tragically lost her life in 1913.Useful links about things discussedThe Statue: you can read a brief entry on the statue on our crowd-sourced map here. Global news: Emily Davison’s tragic passing made the world’s headlines at the time. Black and white newsreels of the accident and of her funeral are visible here and here. Craftswomanship: the videos documenting each stage of Christine’s work are visible on the YouTube channel of the Emily Davison Memorial Project here.Short Straw Theory: Christine mentions at one point that the reason why it was Emily and not another suffragette who went onto the race course was because she had “drawn the short straw”. This is a theory put forward by journalist Cate Balding in her documentary Secrets of a Suffragette, as Marina Warner explains here.Essential readingCrawford, Elizabeth. 2014. “Emily Wilding Davison: Centennial Celebrations.” Women’s History Review 23 (6): 1000–1007 Liddington, Jill & Crawford, Elizabeth. 2011. “Women do not count, neither shall they be counted’: Suffrage, Citizenship and the Battle for the 1911 Census.” History Workshop Journal 71 (1): 98–127Purvis, June. 2013. “Remembering Emily Wilding Davison (1872–1913).” Women’s History Review 22 (3): 353–62About UsBronze Ceiling is the podcast series of HerStory Maps, a citizen-science project aiming to map the sites of feminist memory everywhere in the world. The current map is ⁠here⁠ but a much more user-friendly and content rich one (including these podcasts, as well as videos, a serious game and maybe even guided audio tours) will be going live in March 2027 (at the latest)!If you would like to get in touch, please email us at: [email protected] InformationDate of recording: 14 May 2025Host: Marc Calvini-LefebvreResearch: Blanche Plaquevent and Marc Calvini-LefebvreEditing: Blanche Plaquevent and Marc Calvini-Lefebvre