Don't move Emmeline!
August 20 2018
Video: UK Parliament
There's a very strange proposal to move a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst from beside Parliament. Something called the Emmeline Pankhurst Trust has lodged a planning appeal with Westminster Council to be allowed to move the statue to Regent's University in Regent's Park in London. This would be a travesty to the memory of Pankhurst and the struggle for women's suffrage, and I cannot quite believe the idea has been taken seriously by Westminster Councel even for one second.
The statue was erected beside Parliament in 1930, and unveiled by the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. In the video above, made last year, the art curator of the Houses Parliament, Melanie Unwin, reveals that this is not the first time people have had to fend off attempts to move the statue away from Parliament. A key part of the statue's meaning and purpose is that it is beside Parliament, as the people who originally erected it demanded - and there it must stay.
You can read more about the proposals here on the blog of Elizabeth Crawford and through her site you can also lodge a protest with Westminster Council.
