Suffragette suffragettes chaining themselves to railings, setting fire to post box contents, smashing windows and eventually detonating bombs. Some radical techniques used by the suffragettes were learned from Russian exiles from tsarism who had escaped to England. In 1914, at least seven churches were bombed or set on fire across the United Kingdom, including Westminster Abbey, where an explosion aimed at destroying the 700-year-old Coronation Chair, only caused minor damage. One suffragette, Emily Davison, died under the King's horse, Anmer, at The Derby on 4 June 1913. It is debated whether she was trying to pull down the horse, attach a
Emily Davison was not well enough to attend. Davison's half-brother, Captain Henry Davison, gave evidence about his sister, saying that she was "a woman of very strong reasoning faculties, and passionately devoted to the women's movement". The coroner decided that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, Davison had not committed suicide. The coroner also decided that, although she had waited until she could see the horses, "from the evidence it was clear that the woman did not make for His Majesty's horse in particular". The verdict of the court was: that Miss Emily Wilding Davison died of fracture of the