WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Ceremonial Unveiling of the Statue of Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst. An original order of service. The creation of the statue and its ceremonial reveal were organized by Pankhurst's fellow suffragettes, Katherine Marshall and Rosamund Massey. Pankhurst's favourite music was played, and speeches were given by Lady Rhondda, Frederic Pethwick-Lawrence, and Stanley Baldwin, the latter commending her as an "heroic woman… whose memory we are here to honour" (Pugh, p. 411). Shortly after Pankhurst's death, Marshall and Massey became joint secretaries of the Pankhurst Memorial Fund. One of their aims was to erect a public statue to their former leader. They faced no difficulties in raising the necessary funds for the project and commissioned A. G. Walker to create a life-sized stature of Pankhurst standing with her arms outstretched as though addressing a meeting. A greater challenge was finding a site near Westminster for the memorial, but they eventually gained permission to use a corner of Victoria Tower Gardens. The unveiling ceremony was attended by hundreds of people, and loudspeakers enabled others to hear the ceremony from over half a mile away. Ethel Smyth, who composed the WSPU anthem "The March of the Women" conducted the Metropolitan Police Orchestra throughout. A dramatic movement from Smyth's opera The Wreckers accompanied the moment that Pankhurst's statue was revealed.Provenance: from the collection of the suffrage historian Elizabeth Crawford.

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