Fame is fickle. It is very much a hit-and-miss business of who gets recognised for making a difference to their native country. Gray points out in his elegy that talent has gone to waste on a prodigious scale over the centuries. That is a matter of what might have been. Caedmon had his day but for one reason or another we have lost what he and many of his contemporaries may have created. Many men are commemorated; few women.
We can all name notable pieces of literature that are the legacy of some achievers. Among these are Bunyan, Milton, Shakespeare and Hooker. Bunyan gave us a great allegory of the Christian faith. Milton brought into being an extraordinary English epic that attempted to scale an Everest in the tally of Christian narrative. Such a task had never before been attempted. Sufficient to say of Shakespeare, as Dryden did, that he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature. Hooker left an examination of the Church of England that is exemplary today. Great works of engineering that are still functioning remind us of other achievers. Brunel is the outstanding example, though Bazalgette deserves to be commemorated for his vast sewerage enterprise coupled with his Thames containment work. Wren left dozens of handsome churches that delight Londoners and tourists. To contrive a preaching box for 2,000 with balance, proportion and elegance is a triumph. To repeat that many times is beyond admiration. Shackleton left no great work. As an Antarctic explorer who kept his word to his men through thick and thin he is beyond praise. Blyth and Cook left behind them feats of navigation of equal wonder.
All these achievers are commemorated by statues. And in this respect they are joined by Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell. But women have hardly had the recognition that has been showered on men. Where is the statue of Octavia Hill? There is a stone seat in a Surrey beauty spot. Or the Bronte sisters? That can be discovered in Haworth. Or George Eliot? That is found in Nuneaton. Emmeline Pankhurst has a statue at Victoria Tower Gardens. We have to scratch our heads to think of others.
As we might say, women’s lives matter.
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