Memorial day - 11

The Buxton Memorial located in the Victoria Tower Gardens, west of the Houses of Parliament, looks more like a Victorian spaceship designed by Jules Verne than a monument erected in 1835 by Charles Buxton MP in commemoration of the Emancipation of Slaves in1834 and in the memory of his father Sir T. Fowell Buxton and those associated with him in the struggle for the abolition of slavery in the British colonies: Wilberforce, Clarkson, Macaulay, Brougham Dr. Lushington and others.

The memorial was originally erected in Parliament Square, but was removed to its present site in 1957 to mark the 150th anniversary of the 1807Act abolishing the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It received extensive restoration work in 2007, to mark the 200th anniversary of the Act.

The memorial was designed by S.S. Teulon in the then popular Gothic style. The spire is timber framed clad with enamelled sheet steel. Many techniques are used in its decoration including wrought iron work, mosaic, rosso marbled enamelled metalwork and terracotta. The memorial predates by 35 years the far larger and grandeur Gothic style Albert Memorial designed by Sir Gilbert Scott.

It now appears incongruous, and in no way exemplifies the abolition of the slave trade, but it is a perfect example of Victorian public art.

Memorial day - 6

This is the sixth in a series of blogs posted each Wednesday dedicated at looking at memorials and public sculptures.

Within the shadow of the Houses of Parliament, in the Victoria Tower Gardens, can be seen the monument / sculpture “The Burghers of Calais” by Auguste Rodin.

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The sculpture has only just been replaced on its plinth having been on exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2006, and then on loan to the Kunsthaus, Zurich where it was part of the “Rodin - A Retrospective” exhibition.

At the exhibition it would have been guarded, with visitors not allowed to touch it. How different to its treatment in the gardens. While I was there to photograph the statue for this blog, a group of tourists were climbing over it, one placing a bottle top on one of the figures up held fingers.

The statue commemorates an event during the Hundred Years’ War, when in 1347 six citizens of Calais, then as now an important French port on the English Channel, offered themselves as hostages to Edward III after he had unsuccessfully besieged their town for nearly one year. The story goes Edward laid siege to Calais, Philip VI of France ordered the city to hold out at all costs. Philip failed to relive the town and eventually the town had to surrender. Edward said he would spare the citizens if any six top leaders surrendered to him almost naked with nooses around their necks and carrying the keys to the city. Eustache de Saint Pierre, was the first to volunteer followed by five other town leaders. They knew they were walking to their death. Their lives were spared at the pleading of Edward’s queen Philippa of Hainault.

In 1880 the mayor of Calais proposed commissioning Rodin to make a statue to be placed in the city square. Rodin’s figures are slightly larger than life size, and contrary to common practice he placed them standing at ground level - not on a plinth. So they were placed until 1924, when against Rodin’s wishes the statue was placed on a plinth.

As was common with Rodin’s work more than one statue was cast from his mould. In 1911 the British Government purchased one of the eleven casts permitted to be made by French law after Rodin’s death.

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Memorial day - 2

The subject of last Wednesday’s blog was Henry Fawcett; one of the leaders, in the late nineteenth century in Great Britain, of the women’s suffrage movement.

However in Britain universal suffrage is inexorably linked with the Pankhurst family, Emmeline and to a lesser extent her daughters Sylvia and Christabel. To see Emmeline Pankhurst’s memorial you have to go to the entrance of The Victoria Tower Gardens, adjacent to the Houses of Parliament.

Emmeline was an active supporter of the campaign for women’s suffrage, but by 1903 she had become disillusioned with the National Union of Women’s Suffrage (NUWSS), led by Millicent Fawcett. She broke from the NUWSS and founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). By 1907 Emmeline and her two daughters had formulated WSPU’s tactic of civil disobedience. Women chained themselves to railings, and went on hunger-strikes. The WSPU and NUWSS suspended their campaigns for the period of World War 1, (1914 - 1918).

As a reword for their patriotic support during the War, in 1918 the British Parliament passed the Representation of People Act, giving voting rights to property owning women over 30 years of age.

Emmeline died in 1928, the year women over 21 were given the right to vote - giving women the same voting status as men.

There is a small plaque on the left side of Emmeline’s memorial to commemorate her daughter Christabel. She went to live in the USA in 1921 where she became a prominent member of Second Adventist movement. She died in the USA in 1958.

As for Emmeline’s youngest daughter Sylvia, there is no plaque! She was opposed to the concept of a marriage contract, where the woman took her husbands name. At the end of WW1, Sylvia began living with Silvo Corio, an Italian socialist. In 1927 she had a son. Because she refused to marry the father, her mother Emmeline refused to speak to her again. After WW2 Sylvia went to live in Ethiopia, where she died in 1960. She is buried in front of Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, in an area reserved for patriots of the war against Italy.

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