No Seated Queen!

01/04/1964

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When in 1963, the market moved from its centuries-old site in the middle of the city, the council set about realigning the road to ease traffic flow. This involved taking down the Gates Memorial, the drinking fountain monument to the city’s first mayor, Henry Pearson Gates. It had been donated to the city by his wife and erected in 1898. The public were asked to suggest a new name for the site and ‘Cathedral Square’ was selected. However, the council had its own ideas about what should replace the memorial. It asked four sculptors to submit ideas and designs. In February, it had brought in three art experts to advise which was best. They unanimously selected one called ‘The Seated Queen’. The council promptly put a model of ‘The Queen’ on display for public approval, despite one councillor saying: ‘anything of a modern sort is going to create comment from those that don’t understand it’. How right he was. Nobody wanted to ‘understand’ it, the ‘locals’ couldn’t understand it and didn’t want it anyway. It was on this rather appropriate day 1 April that the council finally erased ‘The Seated Queen’ from their plans and cost estimates! (Harper-Tee, John, ‘The Peterborough Story’, Peterborough Evening Telegraph, 1992)

Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.

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Edith Cavell Commemorated

09/12/1916

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Edith Cavell spent only a short part of her life here in Peterborough - working in a pupil/teacher capacity at Miss Gibson's school in Laurel Court. It was here that she learned and mastered the French language that proved so useful to her in Belgium. She was not forgotten in Peterborough, and was rapidly accepted as a Peterborian following her death. It was on this day in 1916 that an Irish blue marble plaque in her memory was unveiled by Dean Page in Peterborough Cathedral. This is widely believed to be the first commemoration stone/plaque in the country dedicated to her. It reads:

Right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of His Saints. In thankful remembrance of the Christian example of Edith Louisa Cavell who devoted her life to nursing the sick and for helping Belgian French and British soldiers to escape was on October 12th 1915 put to death by the Germans at Brussels where she had nursed their wounded this Tablet was placed here by the Teachers Pupils and Friends of her old School in Laurel Court.

As well as this plaque, Edith is remembered in the name of Peterborough's modern hospital complex and a city-centre car park. (Liquorice, Mary, Posh Folk: Notable Personalities (and a Donkey) Associated with Peterborough, Cambridgeshire Libraries, 1991: People of Peterborough, Peterborough Museum Publications, 2009)

Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.