Enduring Tempest – an exhibition about Matteotti’s last spring in London

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

Lecture: Sylvia Pankhurst and Silvio Corio

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.

A special event – Saturday 25 March 2023

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!

Alfio Bernabei is a writer and historian of the Italian community in the UK, and author of the Channel 4 documentary “Dangerous Characters”
Emma Beattie trained at ALRA and was the winner of the 1998 Lilian Baylis Award. Her theatre credits include “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time” (UK and international tour), “Medea” (The Gate Theatre), “The Distance” (Orange Tree Theatre), “The last of the Haussmans” (National Theatre) and many more. Her screen credits include “Ladhood”, “Silent witness”, “Life after life”, “Casualty” (BBC), “Bridgerton” (Netflix), “Emmerdale” (ITV) and many more.

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…

An exhibition about Sylvia Pankhurst and Silvio Corio

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.

The fabulous cast of “Sylvia” at the Old Vic

Many thanks to the cast of “Sylvia” who had their photo taken with me and the maquette of our wonderful statue.

This revolutionary story celebrates the life of Sylvia Pankhurst – feminist, activist, pacifist, socialist, rebel – the lesser-known Pankhurst at the heart of the Suffragette movement, who changed the lives of working women and men across the world.  

Book it here! https://www.oldvictheatre.com/stage/event/sylvia (on until 8 April)

The statue: where we are today…

Sylvia Pankhurst
Socialist, internationalist, anti-racist
The idea for a statue of Sylvia Pankhurst was born in 1988 (gasp!) when one of the now four-woman committee was near the House of Lords by the memorial to Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. No mention of Sylvia…
Sylvia is the one who truly frightens the horses.
Expelled from the Women’s Social and Political Union by her mother and sister, Sylvia was working in the impoverished East End of London with women and children, with trade unions, and, the final straw, supporting Irish socialists James Connolly and Jim Larkin and the workers of the Dublin lock out.
Lifelong socialist Ian Walters was the sculptor of our choice. Ian died in 2006 and was described by Tony Benn as “one of the greatest sculptors of his day”. The maquette was unveiled in 2000. It is beautiful and like so much of his work, full of movement and purpose.
In 2001 we gained planning permission from Westminster Council for our chosen site on College Green opposite the Houses of Parliament but we also needed the permission of both the Commons and the Lords. The Commons granted its permission but in 2003 and again in 2004 the Lords’ smoke and mirrors Administration & Works Committee refused, its chairman saying “Sylvia Pankhurst had no connection with the Lords which could justify the choice of such a prominent site”.
Time passed…
In 2015 our Patron Lord Chris Smith approached Islington Council leader Richard Watts and political support was there for a site on Clerkenwell Green. The Green was the start of London’s first May Day march in 1890, is home to the Marx Memorial Library and is dubbed “the headquarters of republicanism, revolution and ultra-non-conformity” – an excellent resonance with Sylvia.
The Council was intending to refurbish Clerkenwell Green – turning it from almost a car park to a mostly pedestrianised community space. Consultations were carried out and plans were laid. Constant reductions in the government portion of the Council’s budget meant hard times but we were moving forward. Covid arrived and everything went into slo-mo, but now we zoom forward!
The first phase of the refurbishment of the Green will start shortly – Sylvia is part of that first phase. Planning applications are in process for Sylvia and the Green and we hope to unveil Sylvia Pankhurst in late 2022 or in 2023.
During the many years of this campaign we have organised an Annual Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Lecture in the workers’ stately home – Wortley Hall. See the “Memorial lectures” tab for details.
We have also lost some of our strongest supporters – including three Patrons: Richard Pankhurst (Sylvia’s son), and trade unionists Baroness Brenda Dean, and Rodney Bickerstaffe. But our current Patrons fight on: Labour Peers Lord Chris Smith and Baroness Margaret Prosser, Helen Pankhurst (Sylvia’s granddaughter), Maxine Peake (actress).
 The Committee is older than it was also. But the end is in sight and we are happy to say that the statue is cast (by the Morris Singer Foundry) and waiting to be patinated. This statue will truly be a people’s statue – our sponsors are individuals, trade unions, and trade union branches, along with a couple of very welcome local authority grants. The unveiling will be a festival of everything that Sylvia stood for. All sponsors will be invited to attend and to bring their banners!
Never give up!
Philippa Clark, Mary David, Megan Dobney, Barbara Switzer
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/sylviastatue