Speakers at the 2024 lecture: Suki Sangha, Philippa Clark, Mary Davis

The committee set up to celebrate the life and deeds of Italian MP Giacomo Matteotti is proud to announce the opening of this exhibition opening at the Charing Cross Library in London.

The Women’s International Matteotti Committee was a group of mostly British women led by Sylvia Pankhurst.

Matteotti was a staunch supporter of democracy and strongly opposed fascism prior to the establishment of Mussolini’s dictatorship.
Matteotti had ties with the labour movement in Britain and he visited London in April 1924 to rally support around the antifascist cause.

He would be later kidnapped and killed by fascists in June the same year.

The exhibition is curated by historian Alfio Bernabei. It Is one of the events promoted by the Matteotti London 2024 Committee, by the initiative of ANPI London & UK, INCA CGIL, Manifesto di Londra and Partito Democratico London

Thursday 14 September at 18.30 organised by the Anglo-Ethiopian Society and at the Ethiopian Community in Britain, 2a Lithos Road, London NW3 6EF

Solidarity and commitment: Sylvia Pankhurst and Silvio Corio

Rachel Holmes and Alfio Bernabei

This talk will focus on the unique relationship that grew up between the Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst and her partner Silvio Corio. It was grounded in their mutual struggles against the rise of fascism in Europe and later its threats and actions against Ethiopia. Sylvia Pankhurst’s long career and fight for women’s rights also led to her various relationships with anti-colonial, anti-racist, and socialist movements, and these in turn led to her support of Emperor Haile Selassie and the war against Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia.

Sylvia first met Silvio in 1917, himself an exile living in London having fled persecution in Italy for an active and militant political career. Their relationship and activism developed in London whilst they were both working on the Communist newspaper Workers’ Dreadnought.

The speakers Rachel Holmes and Alfio Bernabei will walk us through key aspects of Sylvia and Silvio’s personal and political lives and the steps which eventually led to the establishment of a special focus on Ethiopia to which Sylvia devoted the rest of her life.

2023 marks the 75th anniversary of the Anglo-Ethiopian Society, which itself grew out of the Abyssinia Association and the anti-fascist activism of the 1930s when Sylvia Pankhurst was influential in the founding and the launching of the newspaper New Times and Ethiopian News. This talk kick starts a new year-long season of lectures and events profiling different aspects of the histories and cultures of the peoples of Ethiopia. We look forward to you joining us to celebrate both the Anglo-Ethiopian Society and the lives of two committed activist individuals.

Unable to attend the event in person? Register for an online ticket to be sent a link to a Zoom broadcast of the live event.

Rachel Holmes is the author of several books including Sylvia Pankhurst – Natural Born Rebel (Bloomsbury, 2020); she has also edited the previously undiscovered play Between Two Fires by Sylvia Pankhurst (Methuen Drama, 2022). As an academic, Rachel held lectureships at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Sussex and was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa and Visiting Literary Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford. Rachel is currently writing a historical fiction series based on the life of Greek Admiral Laskarina Boubilina and her legacy.

Alfio Bernabei is an author, documentary film maker, and researcher of Italian history and politics. He has curated exhibitions on Silvio Corio and written several recent articles on Silvio Corio and Sylvia Pankhurst and on Italian radical exiles in London during the 1930s. The couple make an appearance in his recent novel set in 1922, L’estate prima di domani, published by Castelvecchi Editore, 2022, ISBN 9788832908275.

Megan Dobney from the Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee will give an update on the progress of raising the statue of Sylvia Pankhurst on Clerkenwell Green, London.

The event starts at 3.30pm. At 4pm SPMC member Megan Dobney will update you on the statue campaign. Alfio Bernabei will speak on the Italian community in Clerkenwell’s Little Italy, and Emma Beattie will speak for Sylvia!

The Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee, historian Alfio Bernabei, and the management of The Gunmakers, are delighted to invite you to join us on Saturday 25 March 2023 at 3.30pm to commemorate:

In March 1923, 100 years ago, Sylvia Pankhurst spoke at what is now The Gunmakers (but was then an Italian social club “Dondi’s”) against the growing fascist threat. This was perhaps the first publicly advertised anti-fascist meeting in the United Kingdom.

Sylvia Pankhurst had a strong link with the Italian community in Clerkenwell, the so-called ‘Little Italy’ which extended to Clerkenwell Green and its surroundings.

This link with the Italian community became organic from the moment she met the Italian refugee Silvio Corio in around 1917 who subsequently became her lifelong partner.

Come and join us at 3.30pm and celebrate the progress towards raising the statue of this extraordinary woman on Clerkenwell Green. At 4pm there will be an introduction to the statue campaign (Megan Dobney), a presentation on what Little Italy in Clerkenwell looked like at the time (Alfio Bernabei, historian on the Italian community in the UK), and a theatrical presentation of Sylvia’s speech.

The rest of the afternoon is to continue the conversation and socialise!

Saturday 25 March 2023, 3.30pm at The Gunmakers, 13 Eyre Street Hill, London EC1R 5ET.

The Gunmakers offers cocktails, wine, beer and soft drinks, plus authentic Tacos and sharing plates – in other words their kitchen is awaiting your orders…

Curator’s talk

On Friday 3 March 2023 Alfio Bernabei, curator, and author of the Channel 4 documentary Dangerous Characters spoke about the exceptional life and work of the famous suffragette and the Italian social activist who became lifelong partners passionately engaged in anti-colonialism and humanitarian issues.

The exhibition is at Charing Cross Library, 4-6 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0HF (free entry) and is on until 28 April 2023.

Alfio is pictured below with Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee member Mary Davis at the event.