Hello people,
I recently visited the Granville Park Adult Education Centre
in Lewisham. Margaret, my mother in law recommended the place to me after
taking a course on stained glass craftsmanship. She has since made some very
impressive stained glass artwork.
Feeling inspired I enrolled in a stained glass window and
stone carving class, so I can one day realise my life-long ambition to
build a fully to scale replica of Gaudi’s masterpiece Mi Sagrada Familia in my
back garden. I got the idea when I was in church one Sunday and suddenly became
hungry. ‘Why has nobody thought to build a place of worship where you can also
get a sausage sandwich? You could call it a Cafe-e-dral?
After signing up to my course I headed straight to Lewisham
town Hall to seek planning permission for the monument to art, religion and
fatty foods I was planning to construct. Knowing the planning department staff
probably lacked my artistic flair I simplified the process for them by sticking
an image of Mi Sagrada Familia onto the side of Woody’s plastic toy tree house. I’m sad to say my plan to create something
beautiful was met with negativity.
“Are you planning to build it to scale?” The Lewisham
Council employee asked.
“Of course.” I replied.
“Because if you do, it looks like the building will encroach
onto your neighbour’s garden. Twelve of them in fact. It will also cut across
the train line you back onto, twelve more people’s houses on the other side of
the railway, Mottisfont road and Saint Paul’s Academy Secondary School.”
“I’m sure Saint Paul wouldn’t mind.” I said.
He sighed, “Also Mr Hannon your house resides in the
borough of Greenwich, I work for Lewisham Council.”
“What’s your point?” I asked.
He lent forward slightly while messaging his temples and
forehead, “The point, is that there’s very little I can do to help you.”
In fury I picked up Woody’s toy tree house and threw it at the
wall.
“This is the greatest injustice in the history of town
planning. I demand to speak to the Mayor of Lewisham!”
“I am the Mayor of Lewisham, and I have no idea how you got
into my bathroom. Now kindly leave.” He said while gesturing to the door. I
noticed for the first time that he was dressed in a pink towel, Mayors hat,
chain, gown, and was holding a loofah.
“I’m sorry I thought you were pretending to be a pirate.”
“Please leave Mr Hannon.” He said, again gesturing to the
door with his free hand.
I picked up the pieces of my dreams and Woody’s toy tree
house and walked out the door. In protest I have decided to take a vow of
silence until the Mayor reverses his decision. It won’t be easy, but I have the
motto of the silent to draw inspiration from when things get tough;
‘............’
‘............’
Lewisham is of course a borough familiar with protest, and
without question it’s most famous protester, is Rosa May Billinghurst, who was
born on Granville Road in 1875, the same road that the adult learning centre
now exists. Rosa had Polio as a child, which left her unable to walk. She could
move short distances by wearing iron leg braces to strengthen her legs, and
crutches to help her balance. For longer journeys her only realistic option was
a modified tricycle. As a young woman Rosa became active in social work in the
borough of Greenwich, the plight of the poor, and particularly women moved her
greatly;
“My heart ached and I
thought surely if women were consulted in the management of the state happier
and better conditions must exist for hard-working sweated lives such as these.”
Rosa May Billinghurst
As a young woman Rosa became a member of the Women’s Liberal
Association, an offshoot of the Liberal Party who wanted to improve the welfare
of women through charity and lobbying. However she soon became influenced by
the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) led by Emily Pankhurst, which
campaigned for the right for women to vote, otherwise known as Suffrage. A
cause Rosa believed was at the heart of the suffering she saw;
“It was gradually
unfolded to me that the unequal laws which made women appear inferior to men
were the main cause of these evils. I found that the man-made laws of marriage,
parentage and divorce placed women in every way in a condition of slavery – and
were as harmful to men by giving them power to be tyrants.” Rosa May
Billinghurst.
In 1906, the WSPU had begun a series of demonstrations and
lobbies of Parliament, leading to the arrest and imprisonment of growing
numbers of their members. The then Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
(so good they named him twice) said that he agreed with the WSPU’s argument
but was obliged to do nothing at all about it, and so urged the
women to go on pestering and exercise the virtue of
patience. A statement which can only really be viewed as a slap in the
face. His comments strengthened the resolve of the WSPU, and the many women
who supported them, including our Rosa who joined in 1907. She founded the WSPU
Greenwich branch, and would attend marches using her tricycle, which she
decorated with ribbons and banners. The appearance of Rosa on these
demonstrations attracted curiosity, and she became known in the press as the
“Cripple Suffragette.” As crass as the name was, Rosa was happy to use her
disability to help promote the cause.
In January 1910 The Suffragettes appeared to have finally
made a breakthrough. The new Liberal Prime Minister H.H. Asquith (so good they
initialled him twice) was facing an election but was struggling to unite his
party, and votes for women were his big problem. Some Liberal Democrat’s wanted
women to have the vote, some didn’t. The argument for, was that it was the
right thing to do, and that the definition of liberal is being willing to
accept ideas different to your own. Therefore denying roughly 50% of the
population a chance to express themselves would go against everything they
supposedly to stood for.
The argument against was that if women were given the vote,
what’s to stop one becoming a member of parliament? And if a woman became an MP
she could hypnotise the men MPs using her women’s intuition! Or worse, smuggle
French spies into cabinet meetings under a large hat!
H.H. (The H.H. Standing for hat hater) agreed that women
shouldn’t have the vote, but seeing as he was a nice guy, he’d agree to let
some, not all, but some women vote. As long as his party united, and he got to become Prime minister.
This was a huge victory, if not a total one, but when H.H.
was voted in it seems his hat fear got the better of him. Despite having
backing from enough MPs he delayed the bill by speaking and moving extremely
slowly. His inaugural speech lasted 3 weeks and it took him 4 days to walk from
the podium back into 10 Downing Street. On 18 November 1910, just 10 months
after being elected, Asquith dissolved parliament, and called another election.
The votes for women bill, was dead.
18 November 1910, on a day which became known as Black
Friday 300 women of the WSPU, including Rosa in her tricycle, marched to
Westminster to protest Asquith’s betrayal. They were met outside the Houses of
Parliament by lines of police and crowds of male bystanders, who reportedly
attacked the women for the next six hours, punching and kicking them; many
women complained about the sexual nature of the assaults.
When the battle was over four men and 115 women were
arrested, including Rosa. Despite the overwhelming evidence of Brutality calls
for an inquiry were dropped by the then Home Secretary, Winston Churchill
Rosa was again at the forefront of the action. Four months
after Black Friday she was arrested and sentenced to one month’s hard labour in
Holloway Prison for smashing windows in Westminster, she had hidden the stones
under the blanket which covered her legs. In December 1912 (the same year) she
was sentenced to eight months in prison for setting fire to pillar boxes in
Deptford. She immediately went on hunger strike and was force fed causing
damage to her teeth and overall health. The force feeding had such a dramatic
impact, the authorities released her two weeks after
being subjected to it. Whatever effect prison had on her physical health, it
seems to have done nothing to diminish her warrior spirit. Rosa spent the next
year campaigning as fiercely as ever, including chaining herself to the gates
of Buckingham palace.
Rosa eventually stopped her campaign in in 1918 after the
Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act gave some women the right to vote. She,
along with 54 other supporters of women’s suffrage, are honoured on the plinth
of the Statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, beneath a bronze
banner reading ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere.’
Okay so admittedly my cause is less worthy, and my resolve
less strong. But I can still take inspiration from the great lady. And I like
to think she’d approved my silent protest, after all the motto of the WSPU was ‘Deeds
not words.’
