PARISH OF MORPETH - Key Persons
Noted architect Edmund Blacket was employed in 1862 to extend the east end by the addition of a chancel and sanctuary. He inserted new cedar pews which still remain and he designed both a distinguished font and a stone pulpit. The latter, beautifully carved by D. Yeates of Maitland, is an exact replica of a pulpit built in 1280 for a Cistercian Abbey which had since become Beaulieu Parish Church where Bishop Tyrrell, who funded the extensions, had been rector.
In 1874 J. Horbury Hunt, colonial Australia's most original and interesting architect, was commissioned to rebuild the nave after a fire. Under instructions to alter the character of the building as little as possible he subordinated his personal creativity. His major contribution is a fine and beautifully crafted hammerbeam roof. Thus the tower was designed by Close, the chancel by Blacket and the nave by Hunt. And yet the building has a unifed feel. The organ inside was built in 1877.
Emily Wilding Davison (1872 - 1913) is remembered as the woman who died by "throwing herself" under the hoofs of Anmer, King George V's horse on June 4, 1913 at the Epsom Derby in support of the British suffragette movement. She was trampled and died a few days later, never having regained consciousness. She is is buried in St Mary's the church yard and her gravestone bears the WSPU slogan, "Deeds not words".
Emily Davison was born in Blackheath, London, and had a university education, obtaining first-class honours in her final exams at Oxford, though women were not at that time admitted to degrees. She joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1906, and immediately involved herself in their more militant activities. She was arrested and imprisoned for various offences; went on hunger strike and was force-fed in Holloway prison, where she attempted suicide as a protest. Emmeline Pankhurst believed that it was her experiences in prison that brought Emily Davison to the conclusion that only the ultimate sacrifice would bring any success to the Suffragettes. Emmeline wrote in "My Own Story" that Emily decided that only the loss of life "would put an end to the intolerable torture of women."
Film of the incident shows her stepping out in front of the horse, Anmer, as it rounded Tattenham Corner, with Davison carrying the banner of the WSPU. But instead of stopping, Anmer trampled her, knocking her unconscious. Eyewitnesses at the time were divided as to her motivation, with many believing that she had simply intended to cross the track, believing that all horses had passed; while others reported that she had attempted to pull down the King's horse. She died four days later in hospital, due to a fractured skull.
Edward Close and John Howe, the leader of the first overland expedition into the Hunter (from Windsor to the Singleton area), are buried in the cemetery. Standing outside the entryway of the church looking across Tank St a series of brush box trees planted in two rows in the early 1890s form a walkway which connects the church to Closebourne House , then the episcopal residence.
Mary Richardson was with Emily Davison at the Derby in 1913. Mary Richardson wrote about the incident in her book 'Laugh a Defiance'.
A minute before the race started she raised a paper on her own or some kind of card before her eyes. I was watching her hand. It did not shake. Even when I heard the pounding of the horses' hoofs moving closer I saw she was still smiling. And suddenly she slipped under the rail and ran out into the middle of the racecourse. It was all over so quickly.
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