Death
For the summer season in 1937 Davidson worked at Thompsons' 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 called Toto, and talk for about ten minutes about the injustice he felt had been meted out to him. On 28 July, he was moving through his act when he accidentally tripped on the tail of the lioness. Presumably perceiving this as an attack, Freddie the lion attacked and mauled him. Renee Somer, the 16-year-old lion attendant, entered the cage and fought the lion back using a 3 ft whip and an iron bar.
Davidson was taken to Skegness Cottage Hospital with a neck injury and broken collar-bone and lacerations on his upper body. The lion had mauled him at the neck leaving a gash behind his left ear.
A coroner's jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure.
Davidson was buried in Stiffkey churchyard. Thousands crammed into the village to attend the funeral service. Round the sides of his grave, in gold lettering, is a favourite quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson which says "For on Faith in Man and genuine Love of Man all searching after Truth must be founded".
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let it be pantomime, this last peep show,
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—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)