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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Memorial day - 1

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As promised last week, this is the first in a series of blogs which will be posted each Wednesday on the topic of memorials and public sculptures. No don’t log off, read on, I’ll try to make it interesting, if not entertaining.

The Victoria Embankment Gardens located between Hungerford and Waterloo bridges is an oasis from the hustle and bustle of daily city life, for tourists and Londoners alike. You can sit on a bench and leave the noise of the traffic drift into the background. You are however jarred back to the present moment every 3 to 4 minutes by the incongruous sound of a passing underground train. Look shrubbery is a wall. Enclosed by the wall is a ventilation shaft for the section of the District and Circle Underground Line running between Embankment and Temple stations. around but no train is to be seen. But look carefully, hidden by the

There is a drinking fountain on the north side of the enclosure. No longer in use, nevertheless it is an object of interest. On the bronze plaque forming part of the fountain are the words “Erected To The Memory Of Henry Fawcett By His Grateful Countrywomen”. Who was Henry Fawcett, what had he done to warrant a memorial to be erected by his countrywomen?

Look closely at the relief and you see the figures eyes are closed, as if in sleep. Henry Fawcett was born in Salisbury, England in 1833. Aged 25, while out shooting he was accidentally blinded by a shot from his father’s gun. Despite the handicap, he continued his studies at Cambridge University. Five years later he became Professor of Political Economy in Cambridge.

Two years later, in 1865 he became a Member of Parliament representing the south coast resort town, Brighton. Once in Parliament he attempted, with John Stuart Mill and Peter Alfred Taylor, to persuade Parliament to change the law to grant women the vote. Through his campaign for women’s suffrage he met Millicent Garret. Although she was 14 years his junior they married in 1867. Together they were active members of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage (NUWSS).

In 1880 Henry became a member of the Government led by William Gladstone. As Post Master General, the Minister responsible for the postal service, he introduced the first parcel post service, postal orders and the telegram.

In 1882 he was taken seriously ill with diphtheria. Although he survived, he was seriously weakened. Aged just 51 he died of pleurisy in 1884.

In 1890 Millicent was elected president of the NUWSS and continued to be a leader of the suffrage movement. She died aged 82 in 1929; one year after all women, aged 21years and over, finally gained the vote in Great Britain.

So that is why his fellow countrywomen erected a drinking fountain in the memory of Henry Fawcett.

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YesBut the Duke was special

In yesterday’s blog, I said I had decided to declare each Wednesday for the next couple of months “Memorial day”, and feature one memorial each Wednesday. Not the grand well known memorials such as the Statue of Liberty, Nelson’s Column, Mount Rushmore or even the Gateway to the West. Today’s blog should have been about the first monument to be featured that to Henry Fawcett.

They say it doesn’t pay to plan, because you never know what is going to happen next. How true. Change of plans, Henry will have to wait to next week, because I can not let May pass without paying tribute to Marion Robert Morison, who had he lived would have been 100 years old last Saturday.

Perhaps you don’t know Marion Robert Morison, that’s understandable. His name was changed, when his parents decided to call their next son Robert, so he became Marion Michael Morrison. Twenty or so years later he changed his name again to John Wayne.

After two years working as a prop man at the Fox Film studios, John Wayne had his first staring role in 1930, in the first western epic sound picture made, “The Big Trail”. He went on to star in 142 films. He only won one Oscar, that for “Best Actor” in 1969 for his role as the tough Marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn in “True Grit”. He was nominated but didn’t win an Oscar as Producer of the “The Alamo”.

While he played in a range of films from various genres, he was at his best when he had a six gun strapped at his waist and mounted on a horse. He courted controversy when in 1968 he directed and starred in “The Green Berets” - the only film made during the Vietnam War to support the war. In real life he wasn’t the great hero. At the start of World War 2, when other Film Stars joined the forces, Wayne chose to take advantage of their absence and stay in Hollywood, in order to boost his career.

What was his best film? It might not be the best, but my favourite is the 1939 western “Stagecoach”. The 32 year old Wayne plays the Ringo Kid, a young rancher who has broken out of jail. He joins a stagecoach carrying a group of passengers, each with their own story: a prostitute driven out of town, an alcoholic doctor, a banker absconding with his client’s savings, a cavalry officer’s pregnant wife, a whisky salesman who is, humorously, the object of the drunken doctor’s attention, and a US Marshall. The stagecoach is attacked by Indians - all good stuff.

If I see one actor in a cowboy film, I know I will enjoy it. That actor is Andy Devine who played the stagecoach driver Buck - who could possibly mistake his raspy voice - sounding like a schoolboy on the brink of puberty.

The other actor I love in cowboy films, though he wasn’t in Stagecoach, is the toothless bearded Gabby Hayes.

Back to John Wayne his last film was “The Shootist” made in 1976. The film plot about an aging gunslinger struggling with terminal cancer, reflected in part John Wayne, who died three years later of stomach cancer, aged 72.

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YesBut look

Antony Gormley’s “Event Horizon” exhibition consists of 31 life size casts of the himself located on top of buildings around central London. The objective of the exhibition is to encourage people to stop seeing and start looking at their surroundings. It certainly has worked. Walk over Waterloo or Hungerford bridges and you see people “figure spotting”. But are they just looking for the figures and ignoring the environment they are located in?

People look at the Gormley’s figures, but other figures, some of which have been in location for over a century are ignored - I refer to memorials and public statues erected in most towns. So I have decided to declare each Wednesday for the next couple of months “Memorial day”, and feature one memorial each Wednesday. Not the grand well known memorials such as the Statue of Liberty, Nelson’s Column, Mount Rushmore or even the Gateway to the West in St Louis.

If you have a memorial or statute you think should be featured then please let me know. The first monument to be featured tomorrow is to Henry Fawcett. Henry who? (Don’t look up Henry on Google, control your excitement, all will be revealed tomorrow).