On this day in 1911, the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison was found in a cupboard in Westminster where she had hidden herself. She did this to record her address on the night of the census as being ‘The House of Commons’ thus making her claim to the same political rights as men. This is just one of the many acts of the suffragettes which led to universal suffrage in 1928.

 Emily Wilding Davison died in June 1913 from injuries sustained when she stepped in front of the King’s horse at the Derby to draw attention to the public injustice suffered by women. For readers who may be new to my blog, my Great Granny was a Suffragette who was awarded the Holloway brooch after her imprisonment and force feeding in Holloway Prison. We are very proud of her part in the movement.

Aren’t these sheep just delightful? The shepherd dyes them with safe colours to amuse passers by. Not sure if this is ethical but it did make me smile.

Today’s poem is  Robert Browning’s “Home Thoughts From Abroad” which I learned by heart as a child. He was in Italy when he wrote this poem.

OH, to be in England

Now that April ‘s there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—

That ‘s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children’s dower

—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!