london1952 | A Memorial

Whilst we were watching the 10 o'clock BBC News last night we saw someone being interviewed (about today's Budget - yawn) and I spotted this memorial in the background. A couple of weeks ago I'd walked from the Museum to meet Franco in Leicester Square, and as it was one of the first "light" evenings I passed through Victoria Tower Gardens at the side of the Houses of Parliament and took some snaps.......

The Buxton Memorial Fountain is a memorial and drinking fountain that commemorates the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834. It was commissioned by Charles Buxton MP, and was dedicated to his father Thomas Fowell Buxton along with William Wilberforce and the others who were involved in the abolition. It was designed by Gothic architect Samuel Sanders Teulon in 1865 in coincidence to the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution....effectively ending the western slave-trade.

I wonder how many people pass it and have no idea what it's for or about.......

A reproduction of Rodin's "The Burghers of Calais" - see below - and a statue commemorating Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the suffragette movement that helped women win the right to vote (not shown) are also in the gardens....