Archive for October, 2018
Suffrage Stories: Mrs Pankhurst’s Statue – UPDATE 22 October 2018
Posted by womanandhersphere in Suffrage Stories on October 22, 2018
This statue of Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, erected by her admiring and loving followers, will remain THE memorial to her at Westminster.
I reported on 15 September the very welcome news that, as a result of a vigorous public protest, Sir Neil Thorne and the Emmeline Pankhurst Trust had withdrawn the planning applications they had made to Westminster Council to remove the existing statue of Emmeline Pankhurst and resite it in Regent’s Park.
They had made these applications in order to make way for a new statue of Mrs Pankhurst that they had commissioned, for reasons that are not entirely clear, and intended to place on Canning Green to the west of Parliament Square.
The planning application came up for consideration at a meeting held on 2 October 2018, the minutes of which were issued on 15 October 2018. Perhaps unsurprisingly the decision was:
That the application be refused on the grounds that it is contrary to the Council’s Saturation policy for the reasons set out on page 18 of the agenda and due to the presence of a second statue of Emmeline Pankhurst in the vicinity.
You can read the minuted report here – https://tinyurl.com/yahasea2.
I won’t begin to wonder how much money and time has been spent on this project – or why. You may each have your own views.
The result seems to be a victory for both historical – and common – sense.
Suffrage Stories: The Prison Diary of Annie Cobden-Sanderson
Posted by womanandhersphere in Uncategorized on October 4, 2018
One of the many new books I have enjoyed in this suffrage centenary year is The Prison Diary of Annie Cobden-Sanderson, edited by Dr Marianne Tidcombe.
This postcard is for sale – item 153 in my Catalogue 198 https://wp.me/p2AEiO-1qO. Item 154 is another, unusual, photographic card of Annie Cobden Sanderson, published by the Women’s Freedom League.Annie Cobden-Sanderson, daughter of the eminent Liberal politician, Richard Cobden, and wife of Arts and Crafts bookbinder and printer, T.J. Sanderson, was one of the first suffragettes to go to prison in London. The diary covers her imprisonment, 1-23 November 1906. The fact that Cobden’s daughter was serving time in Holloway made the headlines and sent a frisson through the Liberal establishment.
The following year she went on a US speaking tour and her prison credentials engendered handsome publicity for her friend Harriot Stanton Blatch’s Equality League.
The book contains both a facsimile of the diary (the original is held at LSE) and a transcription, together with extensive notes by Dr Tidcombe on the characters and events mentioned and a biographical introduction giving a full description of Annie’s life.
Annie Cobden-Sanderson was arrested again in 1909 – on the occasion shown in the photograph above – but that time her fine was paid without her knowledge, depriving her of another short prison term.
This beautifully produced and illustrated book, published by Libanus Press, is available from all bookshops and from Amazon – https://tinyurl.com/y7asmw8g
ISBN 978-0-948021-11-4.
Woman and her Sphere 