Fawcett MK: Keeping Up

  Women and gardens ‘If Eve had had a spade in Paradise and had known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business with the apple’ (Elizabeth von Arnim) In mid-June, as we sizzled towards Midsummer’s Day, plants were shrivelling, flowers were dying, water butts were empty, and hosepipe bans began to creep in. Gardeners despaired, and yet only few weeks previously, our television screens had been filled with the annual explosions of colour and spectacle of the Chelsea Flower Show. From the Garden of Eden to Chelsea, gardens have inspired, delighted, frustrated and soothed us. But what about the gardeners? What do we know of them? And more specifically, for the purposes of this blog, what about the women gardeners? Elizabeth von Arnim, who published her witty autobiographical novel ‘ Elizabeth and her German Garden ’ in 1898, was frustrated by pompous 19th century assumptions that ‘ladies’ should not do physical work in a garden. She describes how she would: ‘ …s...

Museum revelations In the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral there is a fascinating museum, where a visitor can explore all kinds of exhibits from Neolithic burial sites to a representation of the town sewage works. Tucked away in a corner, displayed within a glass case, is a small, beautifully embroidered cape in the purple and silver colours of the early suffrage movement . It is unfinished, with a caption explaining that it once belonged to Millicent Fawcett, who lived in Salisbury for a while. It is probably too small for Millicent herself to have worn but perhaps it was intended as a gift for a child – a mini-Suffragist perhaps. Whatever its actual history, it triggers a poignant reminder of how young Millicent herself was when she became committed to the cause of women’s suffrage. By the age of 19, for example, she was collecting signatures to support a petition to parliament that she was actually too young to sign herself. Museums are wonderful for revealing fascinating and unexpecte...

If April IS the cruellest month, then two dismal images from recent weeks reinforce that perfectly. They are haunting, dispiriting, and difficult to understand.  But at the risk of sounding like an obscure medieval riddle, let’s consider the similarities between a statue and a tree, both of which recently hit the headlines. Why Millicent? ‘When any of us talk about standing on the shoulders of giants, Millicent Fawcett was that giant of female empowerment.’ (Ruth Davidson) Following the Supreme Court’s gender ruling on April 16, demonstrations took place in Parliament Square. The statue of Millicent Fawcett, the only representation of a woman in the square, was defaced, alongside several other statues.  ‘Investigations continue’ according to the police. Millicent Fawcett was not a militant. She was a suffragist who worked tirelessly for over 50 years in pursuit of women’s suffrage. She opposed the violence espoused by Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragettes. She lobbied, gav...