Emmeline Pankhurst – derrickjknight

Return To Brompton Cemetery

Last night I finished reading ‘Neroism is in the Air’ – Germany: 1890-1914, being chapter 6 of ‘The Proud Tower’, Barbara W. Tuchman’s excellent analysis of the build up to WWI.

Writing of music, philosophy, theatre and literature, the author focusses on the country’s competitive culture. She begins with the strident strains of Richard Strauss reflecting Nietzsche’s concept of ‘rule by the best’ and the Kaiser’s arrogant military ambitions, continuing to Wilde’s Salome and other bloodthirsty tragedies which captured the soul of much of the nation, uncannily presaging the current conflicts in her own country. Gentler voices are drowned by the violence of others. Tuchman does not neglect the considerable contribution of Jewish people to all aspects of life, despite the rising anti-Semitism.

Today was one to stay inside and keep dry. I therefore scanned another batch of colour slides made in May 2008 and February 2009.

All black and white images in this post have been converted.

The body of Emmeline Pankhurst lies here. Her memorial has been bound with the suffragette colours.

‘Emmeline Goulden was born on 14 July 1858 in Manchester into a family with a tradition of radical politics. In 1879, she married Richard Pankhurst, a lawyer and supporter of the women’s suffrage movement. He was the author of the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882, which allowed women to keep earnings or property acquired before and after marriage. His death in 1898 was a great shock to Emmeline.

In 1889, Emmeline founded the Women’s Franchise League, which fought to allow married women to vote in local elections. In October 1903, she helped found the more militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) – an organisation that gained much notoriety for its activities and whose members were the first to be christened ‘suffragettes’. Emmeline’s daughters Christabel and Sylvia were both active in the cause. British politicians, press and public were astonished by the demonstrations, window smashing, arson and hunger strikes of the suffragettes. In 1913, WSPU member Emily Davison was killed when she threw herself under the king’s horse at the Derby as a protest at the government’s continued failure to grant women the right to vote.

Like many suffragettes, Emmeline was arrested on numerous occasions over the next few years and went on hunger strike herself, resulting in violent force-feeding. In 1913, in response to the wave of hunger strikes, the government passed what became known as the ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act. Hunger striking prisoners were released until they grew strong again, and then re-arrested.

This period of militancy was ended abruptly on the outbreak of war in 1914, when Emmeline turned her energies to supporting the war effort. In 1918, the Representation of the People Act gave voting rights to women over 30. Emmeline died on 14 June 1928, shortly after women were granted equal voting rights with men (at 21).’ (BBC.co.uk)

‘Little is known about Albert Emile Schloss (1847-1905), except that he was from Mayance, the French name for the city of Mainz on the Rhine in Germany. According to the cemetery’s burial register, Albert died at the Hyde Park Hotel in London.’ (royal parks.org.uk). These two cherubs adorn his plinth.

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom is commemorated with his mother, Xenia.

‘His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony Bloom (June 6, 1914 – August 4, 2003) was bishop of the Diocese of Sourozh, the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland.

He was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. He spent his early childhood in Russia and Persia, his father being a member of the Russian Imperial Diplomatic Corps. His mother was the sister of Alexander Scriabin, the composer. During the Bolshevik Revolution the family had to leave Persia, and in 1923 they settled in Paris where the future metropolitan was educated, graduating in physics, chemistry and biology, and taking his doctorate in medicine, at the University of Paris.

In 1939, before leaving for the front as a surgeon in the French army, he secretly professed monastic vows in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was tonsured and received the name of Anthony in 1943. During the occupation of France by the Germans he worked as a doctor and took part in the French Resistance After the war he continued practising as a physician until 1948, when he was ordained to the priesthood and sent to England to serve as Orthodox Chaplain of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius. He was appointed vicar of the Russian patriarchal parish in London in 1950, consecrated as Bishop in 1957 and Archbishop in 1962, in charge of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland (the Diocese of Sourozh). In 1963 he was appointed Exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate in Western Europe, and in 1966 was raised to the rank of Metropolitan. At his own request he was released in 1974 from the function of Exarch, in order to devote himself more fully to the pastoral needs of the growing flock of his diocese and all who come to him seeking advice and help.

Metropolitan Anthony received honorary doctorates from Aberdeen University (“for preaching the Word of God and renewing the spiritual life of this country”); from the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary for his theological, pastoral, and preaching work; from Cambridge University; and from the Kiev Theological Academy. His first books on prayer and the spiritual life (Living Prayer, Meditations on a Theme, and God and Man) were published in England, and his texts are now widely published in Russia, both as books and in periodicals.

Many Orthodox Christians in Great Britain and throughout the world consider Metropolitan Anthony to be a saint.’ (https://orthodoxwiki.org/Anthony_(Bloom)_of_Sourozh)

‘Allan and Iris Burnside were the grandchildren of the founder of Eaton’s, once Canada’s largest chain of department stores until financial difficulties in the 1970s led to their eventual takeover by Sears Canada in 1997, and closure in 2002. Iris Burnside died aboard the Lusitania when the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915. Her mother, Josephine, was also aboard but survived. Allan died in Paris in 1937. The memorial is believed to have been erected on Josephine’s death in 1943.’ (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1403346)

This evening we dined on Jackie’s cottage pie with carrots al dente, tender runner beans and thick, meaty, gravy with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Mendoza Malbec 2019.

Famous People

Early this morning I walked down to the Spar shop to buy milk, collect Sheila’s Guardian newspaper, and post her cards. Along the front wall of Cherry Tree Cottage in Shorefield Road stand three trees identical to one in our garden. On previous occasions I have knocked at the door of the house to ask for their identification. No-one has been at home. This morning, I stopped a man who was driving out from there and asked him. ‘I’m no gardener,’ he said. ‘Just golden conifers. We bought them because they are a different colour.’ At least that gave us something to go on. Our research threw up Leylandii false cypresses. Although we are not quite convinced, it is possible that we have one of those.

This morning Jackie drove Sheila and me around: We had toured Bisterne’s similar display last year, so were pleased to find one on our doorstep. In fact, Jackie had investigated the possibility of our entering the competition. Unfortunately, we live on the wrong side of Christchurch Road to be considered Hordle residents. Never mind, that means we count as Milford on Sea and entitles us to the monthly Village Voice magazine, which is quite interesting and contains details of all activities in that area. After admiring today’s hairstyle of Lady Gaga, we bought a map of the trail in Classic Cuts hairdressers at 40 Stopples Lane. At No. 32, Everything Pets featured Barbara Woodhouse with dogs. Charlie Chaplin, we thought one of the best, gave Jack and Dave plugs at the entrance to number 111A. Agatha Christie was backed by two of her creations, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, outside 4 Heath Road. Next door, at number 6, Florence Nightingale was being crucified, thus, as Jackie pointed out, making her the only true scarecrow. At No 10 Dick Turpin brandished his pistol in front of a carriage that was invented long after his time. The competition has three categories: Business, Individual, and Junior. There is a certain amount of duplication in the subject matter. The first we came across was of The Queen. One entry, at 33 Lavender Road was Junior. I particularly like the twist in the body of this one: The other, at 25 Pinewood Road, in which a teddy bear had been conscripted to represent a corgi, was an Individual. I thought it fairly unlikely that Her Majesty would read The Sun. We may easily have missed a second Bear (Grylls), had Sheila not spotted him up a tree at 22 Stopples Lane, and I almost did overlook the brilliant touch of the cricket ball in the Junior entry at 41 Lavender Road, where Moeen Ali stood padded up. At 49 Ashley Lane, Simon Cowell presents his recently acquired offspring to his fans and enemies alike. Hordle Pharmacy also featured this gentleman who they kept inside out of the rain. Possibly the censor had exercised some influence over these two exhibits that revealed rather less hairy chest than Mr Cowell would sometimes prefer. Usain Bolt takes a rest outside No 102. William Shakespeare took a little searching out along a footpath to 20 Larch Close. Someone had had the good sense to provide him with an umbrella, which Moeen could certainly have done with.

A smiling Superman soars over a fence at 62 Everton Road. Further along, at number 14, the forecourt of Hordle Post Office has been converted to Knotty Ash in order to accommodate Ken Dodd and The Diddy Men.
Next door to the Pharmacy lies the W.I. Hall outside which Emmeline Pankhurst has chained herself to the railings.
Anyone wishing to know more about the subjects of these scarecrows is invited to consult a suitable search engine, since they are all Famous People, which was the theme of the competition.
This evening Jackie, Flo, and I dined at The Jarna, where we enjoyed the usual excellent fare.

‘Good Haircut’

Yesterday I promised Richard a copy of the photograph of him shovelling shingle. I printed it A3+ size today, and am very pleased with it.
Jackie drove me to Southampton Parkway after lunch. I then took my usual route to Carol’s, involving a train to Waterloo and a walk across Westminster Bridge and down Victoria Street.
On the south side of the River Thames The London Dungeon drew its usual crowds. At the top of the entrance steps stands a barrow loaded with human corpses wrapped in sacking. The occasional hand escaping from its primitive body-bag no longer twitched, unlike those of a visitor anxious to venture inside to feast her eyes on further gruesome spectacles. Perhaps the dead bodies had once entered with rather more trepidation.
Rainclouds gathered above Westminster Bridge and the silhouettes of some of the most photographed buildings in the world.
Flocks of pigeons lazing and foraging in a now much reduced little green at the Victoria Street end of Broadway, suddenly disturbed, periodically took flight and arranged themselves on safe perches in the plane trees above.
The green is Christchurch Gardens which has a history probably unknown to the millions passing by. There is no surviving evidence of either of the two chapels or the Church of Christ Church Broadway which have stood on the site at different times.
A chapel dedicated to St Mary Magdalene had occupied the area then known as Tothill Fields as early as the 13th century. By 1598, according to John Stowe, the building was ‘now wholly ruined’.
A new churchyard of St Margaret’s, known as The New Chapel was consecrated by the Dean of Westminster in December 1626. During the Commonwealth period it was used as a stable by Parliamentary soldiers and as avail for Scots prisoners captured at the Battle of Worcester. Twelve hundred of these prisoners were said to have died and been interred in the fields.
In the 19th century the New Chapel was demolished and replaced by Christ Church Broadway. Less than 100 years later, this in turn was destroyed by German incendiary bombs in the early morning of 17th April 1941.
Sadly, as in many London public spaces, this one now bears a sign telling you what you can’t do in them.
On one corner is situated a tribute to those who suffered in the suffragette movement which fought for votes for women in the early twentieth century. The body of their leader, Emmeline Pankhurst, is buried in Brompton Cemetery. Her gravestone in the form of a celtic cross features in ‘The Magnificent Seven’.
After visiting Carol, I returned to Southampton where Jackie was waiting to drive me home.
Noticing my reflection in the window of the 507 bus to Waterloo as it passed St. Thomas’s Hospital, I was reminded of the keen observation skills of Jackie and Judith Munns in August 2012. I had posted a photograph of the Sigoules boulangerie on an afternoon following a morning visit to the hairdressers there. ‘Good haircut’, Jackie had texted from England. How, I wondered, had she known? The answer was that I was unwittingly reflected in the baker’s window.
On the return train journey, I amused my fellow travellers, most of whom were engrossed in laptops, by commenting that ‘when I commuted everyone read books’. ‘Times have changed’, was a young woman’s smiling reply.
When we arrived home we dined on superb sausage casserole (recipe); green beans; orange carrots; red cabbage with chillies; and yellow swede, potato, and onion mash.