Harold Davidson: Encyclopedia II - Harold Davidson - Death

Harold Davidson - Death

For the summer season in 1937 Davidson worked at an amusement park in Skegness, where he was billed as 'A modern Daniel in a lion's den'. He would enter a cage with a lion called Freddie and a lioness, and talk for about ten minutes about the injustice he felt had been meted out to him. On July 28, he was moving through his act when he accidentally tripped on the tail of the lion. Perceiving this as an attack the lion mauled him at the neck leaving a gash behind his left ear. The injury was not severe; the lion was old toothless and sedated. He was recovering from it and it was arranged that he shoudl be taken back to London by one of his daughters. Then the man who had employed him, a captain Rye sent in private doctors to treat him. They diagnosed an advanced case of diabetes without testing him for the disease. The ordered insulin and supervised the injection themselves. The rector sank into a coma and died the next morning. His solicitor wanted an investigation but his widow rushed up to stop it, She wanted no more publicity and she wanted nobody touching him. she sat with her husband's body till it was removed for burial. A coroner's jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure. His old parishioners requested that he be buried in STiffkey where they take care of his grave to this day.

Davidson's widow refused to wear black and arrived for his funeral dressed in white. She wanted it to be a celebration of his life. 3,000 mourners crammed into the tiny village to attend the funeral service. The police had to attend in force to keep crowds at bay.His coffin was carried slowly through the streets of his old villages; people stood outside their homes bowing as it passed. They followed it up to the Church. Round the sides of his grave, in gold lettering is one of his favourite quotations from Robert Louis Stevenson which says "For on Faith in Man and genuine Love of Man all searching after Truth must be founded"

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Death", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki