(1858-1944)
Duke Court, Duke Street, Woking, Surrey, England
Ever get the feeling that you are underachieving? The statue’s plaque boasts Ethel as a composer, author, sportswoman and suffragette. To be frank, it’s exhausting reading the list of it all.
Ethel wrote 6 operas in her lifetime, as well as other musical compositions in what was a very male dominated world in music. She was the first woman to have an opera performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and it wasn’t until over a hundred years later that another woman composer took her place.
Ethel composed the suffragette anthem, ‘The March of the Women’ and was a leading figure in the movement in the 1910’s. A friend of Emmeline Pankhurst, her house was used as a ‘safe house’ for campaigners. She loved sport and had a passion for golf. Her sporting prowess came in handy while teaching women how to throw stones. Along with many prominent suffragettes, she spent time in prison for the cause (this could be where the sport of ‘throwing stones at windows’ plays a part) and organised sports with fellow prisoners in her time at Holloway jail.
Sadly, Ethel began to lose her hearing in her 50’s, becoming completely deaf later in life. At this stage, she developed her writing and went on to publish 10 books in the last 25 years of her life.
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