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Showing posts from September, 2018

The Weird Case of the Statue

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Emmeline Pankhurst is a pretty important person. Through her leadership of the Women's Social and Political Union she was instrumental in getting British women the vote. 2018 is the centenary of women's suffrage (although it was only partial, being granted only to women over 30 with property or husbands with property; full suffrage only came in 1920 1928*) and the celebrations have brought renewed attention on the women who fought for their (our) political representation.  Emmeline is memorialised in a statue that stands in Victoria Tower Gardens, right by the Houses of Parliament. I stopped by to pay my respects when I was there in July. Emmeline Pankhurst statue It's right by the entrance and pretty hard to miss when you enter the park from the Houses of Parliament end. So I was surprised and quite indignant when I read a few months ago that a non-profit organisation proposed to move the statue . According to the article, they originally wanted to move it to