Really interesting. Another “ hidden woman “ but now revealed. When Cllr Andrew Simcock was selecting, with public votes, a statue of a woman a book was published about 15 influential Manchester women. All “ hidden”. And it didn’t include Emily Williamson, a founder of the RSPB. But plans are afoot for a statue of her to be placed in Fletcher Moss Park where she lived. MUCH more needs to be done to reveal achieving women.
In this interesting but rather tortuous comparison of the lives of Elizabeth Prout and Friedrich Engels, Robert Pegg seems to want it both ways, first declaring that neither Engels nor Prout “would leave Manchester the way they found it” but then claiming that “Friedrich Engels played no material part in the outcome of the story of Manchester.”
But how would we know about the slums of Manchester if the author of The Condition of the Working Class in England had not published, in German at Barmen in Prussia, on March 15, 1845, Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England?
Elizabeth Prout looked out over Angel Meadow and Red Bank “one September morning in 1849” and the Engels report on Manchester did not appear in English until 1887, but to argue that the great reporter and historian who understood 25 languages has played no material part in the story of Manchester is like saying that Herodotus played no part in the story of modern Greece, or that Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1835 démocratie en Amérique had no outcome in the story of modern America, especially his famous warning in 1855: “I am pained and astonished by the fact that the freest people in the world is, at the present time, almost the only one among civilized and Christian nations which yet maintains personal servitude.”
Are we saying that in 1920, when Patrick Abercrombie identified out-of-town Wythenshawe as the future site of the biggest housing estate in Europe he had never read his Engels?
Are we saying that in 1926, when Alderman Jackson arranged for Manchester to buy 2,500 acres of Cheshire for a garden city and when Ernest Simon donated Wythenshawe Hall and all its farmland “solely for the people’s good” those men were not motivated by Engels’s description of “pale, lank, narrow-chested, hollow-eyed ghosts, whom one passes at every step, these languid, flabby faces, incapable of the slightest energetic expression.”
It was also unfair to call Engels a “champange socialist”.
I know that he once defined happiness as “Chateau Margaux 1848” but that was a private joke to Eleanor Marx about the “great year of revolutions.” In his answers to her 1868 questionnaire, Engels gave “take it aisy” as his favourite motto, a phrase undoubtedly cherished and learned from his Irish immigrant lover, Mary Burns, his invaluable guide to the lower depths of Manchester and a woman who was much, much more, than his “paramour”.
Dismayed by race riots and Brexiteer nationalism, I consider the nobility of the penultimate paragraph of the Condition of the Working Class in England:
“Though my English may not be pure, yet, I hope you will find it plain English. No working-man in England – nor in France either, by the by – ever treated me as a foreigner. With the greatest pleasure I observed you to be free from that blasting curse, national prejudice and national pride, which after all means nothing but wholesale selfishness.”
Very interesting. Don’t agree with the characterisation of Engels’ thought though - you could say it was precisely to celebrate the human. We can appreciate and acknowledge both Engels and Elizabeth Prout.
Beautifully written article and fascinating information about Elizabeth Prout, who deserves to be remembered for her compassion and determination to educate the poor. Definitely deserves a statue!
Absolutely love this story - bringing into the light another previously invisible extraordinary woman. I for one will be heading to St. Chad's church on Cheetham Hill Road to catch a glimpse of her and will be telling fellow Mancunians all about her. Thank you.
This is a strange piece. By devaluing and comparing Engels as a way to raise Prout's value, the author actually dilutes his argument. I am not against a statue to her, but why bring Engels into it at all?
There is a bigger issue here that has been much discussed. If a political system produces extreme poverty, is it more important to work to change the system, or to help the poor? Both are needed, but there is a way in which charitable work is part of an unjust system, and usually requires the recipients to be grateful rather than angry. And the idea that socialist ideas are no longer needed because things are now better ...
I assume that the author has his own hobbies and drinking preferences, and that it is not relevant to his writing!
I want to repeat that I am happy if there is a statue of Prout, that is not my complaint!
Brilliant. Again reminded about why I subscribe to your publication and its sister publications in Liverpool and Sheffield. New and fascinating information What a great read. What an amazing woman.
Marvellous piece. I hope she gets her sainthood: this is a true saint doing the work of God, regardless of miracles (although maybe there were miracles in the scale of her achievement). I'm so sick of the way Victorian ideas still dominate our thought, even more than 100 years later. Superb work from the Mill again. Love you lot!
Interestingly two local artists from Moston - who go by the name Malandra Jacks- have just completed the first part of a project which honours modern day unsung community heroes like Elizabeth Prout was. They chose to create busts of their subjects- inspired by the same sort of questions posed in this article.
Prototype (and small) they were unveiled - to little fanfare- at The Halle in... George Leigh St. It would be nice to see something like that at full scale around the city. A proper recognition of Manchester's incredible but unsung heroes who tireless support communities.
Thank you! A great piece of writing and a very important reminder of who the true heroines/heroes are. Manchester is not short of them now, either, thankfully.
Thank you Robert for this well researched piece. I have heard of Sister Elizabeth Prout's name before whilst undergoing my research of all things Manchester history but not much specific to her.
I know St Chad's particularly well but only the outside of the church and only due to the bus stop being there where I caught the bus after school back into town.
Her work with the poor was exemplary of course , without these special people during those years very little would have been done .
Engels observations and writings are an important part of the history of Angel Meadow and that whole area around Red Bank even if he didn't 'get his hands dirty' so to speak. I understand that Elizabeth's name is much less known , no surprise there of course but all of the Manchester unsung heroes' stories need to be unveiled.
There is a campaign under the banner of Trailblazers! Women of Greater Manchester that is working on commemoration of other women, including those long-listed for the statue which Emmeline Pankhurst won.
There is now a mural of Margaret Ashton and others are coming. Banners and other displays have been created and displayed at Manchester Histories Festival and at the annual Margaret Ashton lecture - this year given by MP Rebecca Long-Bailey on Ellen Wilkinson.
By the way, contrary to an earlier comment, Emily Williamson is one of the women in the book "First in the Fight" by Helen Antrobus and Andrew Simcock.
Yet another brilliant example of The Mill teaching me something about my city that I knew nothing about despite living here for over 70 years.
The exact opposite of clickbait journalism.
Thank you, Mohammed
Really interesting. Another “ hidden woman “ but now revealed. When Cllr Andrew Simcock was selecting, with public votes, a statue of a woman a book was published about 15 influential Manchester women. All “ hidden”. And it didn’t include Emily Williamson, a founder of the RSPB. But plans are afoot for a statue of her to be placed in Fletcher Moss Park where she lived. MUCH more needs to be done to reveal achieving women.
Thank you, Moira. I didn't know this
In this interesting but rather tortuous comparison of the lives of Elizabeth Prout and Friedrich Engels, Robert Pegg seems to want it both ways, first declaring that neither Engels nor Prout “would leave Manchester the way they found it” but then claiming that “Friedrich Engels played no material part in the outcome of the story of Manchester.”
But how would we know about the slums of Manchester if the author of The Condition of the Working Class in England had not published, in German at Barmen in Prussia, on March 15, 1845, Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England?
Elizabeth Prout looked out over Angel Meadow and Red Bank “one September morning in 1849” and the Engels report on Manchester did not appear in English until 1887, but to argue that the great reporter and historian who understood 25 languages has played no material part in the story of Manchester is like saying that Herodotus played no part in the story of modern Greece, or that Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1835 démocratie en Amérique had no outcome in the story of modern America, especially his famous warning in 1855: “I am pained and astonished by the fact that the freest people in the world is, at the present time, almost the only one among civilized and Christian nations which yet maintains personal servitude.”
Are we saying that in 1920, when Patrick Abercrombie identified out-of-town Wythenshawe as the future site of the biggest housing estate in Europe he had never read his Engels?
Are we saying that in 1926, when Alderman Jackson arranged for Manchester to buy 2,500 acres of Cheshire for a garden city and when Ernest Simon donated Wythenshawe Hall and all its farmland “solely for the people’s good” those men were not motivated by Engels’s description of “pale, lank, narrow-chested, hollow-eyed ghosts, whom one passes at every step, these languid, flabby faces, incapable of the slightest energetic expression.”
It was also unfair to call Engels a “champange socialist”.
I know that he once defined happiness as “Chateau Margaux 1848” but that was a private joke to Eleanor Marx about the “great year of revolutions.” In his answers to her 1868 questionnaire, Engels gave “take it aisy” as his favourite motto, a phrase undoubtedly cherished and learned from his Irish immigrant lover, Mary Burns, his invaluable guide to the lower depths of Manchester and a woman who was much, much more, than his “paramour”.
Dismayed by race riots and Brexiteer nationalism, I consider the nobility of the penultimate paragraph of the Condition of the Working Class in England:
“Though my English may not be pure, yet, I hope you will find it plain English. No working-man in England – nor in France either, by the by – ever treated me as a foreigner. With the greatest pleasure I observed you to be free from that blasting curse, national prejudice and national pride, which after all means nothing but wholesale selfishness.”
Very interesting. Don’t agree with the characterisation of Engels’ thought though - you could say it was precisely to celebrate the human. We can appreciate and acknowledge both Engels and Elizabeth Prout.
Beautifully written article and fascinating information about Elizabeth Prout, who deserves to be remembered for her compassion and determination to educate the poor. Definitely deserves a statue!
Thanks, David
Absolutely love this story - bringing into the light another previously invisible extraordinary woman. I for one will be heading to St. Chad's church on Cheetham Hill Road to catch a glimpse of her and will be telling fellow Mancunians all about her. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Barbara.
This is a strange piece. By devaluing and comparing Engels as a way to raise Prout's value, the author actually dilutes his argument. I am not against a statue to her, but why bring Engels into it at all?
There is a bigger issue here that has been much discussed. If a political system produces extreme poverty, is it more important to work to change the system, or to help the poor? Both are needed, but there is a way in which charitable work is part of an unjust system, and usually requires the recipients to be grateful rather than angry. And the idea that socialist ideas are no longer needed because things are now better ...
I assume that the author has his own hobbies and drinking preferences, and that it is not relevant to his writing!
I want to repeat that I am happy if there is a statue of Prout, that is not my complaint!
I think both were (and are) needed. Without people like her, poor workers could not have responded to people like him.
Brilliant. Again reminded about why I subscribe to your publication and its sister publications in Liverpool and Sheffield. New and fascinating information What a great read. What an amazing woman.
Thank you so much, Zenobia.
Marvellous piece. I hope she gets her sainthood: this is a true saint doing the work of God, regardless of miracles (although maybe there were miracles in the scale of her achievement). I'm so sick of the way Victorian ideas still dominate our thought, even more than 100 years later. Superb work from the Mill again. Love you lot!
Thank you, Paula
Top piece.
Interestingly two local artists from Moston - who go by the name Malandra Jacks- have just completed the first part of a project which honours modern day unsung community heroes like Elizabeth Prout was. They chose to create busts of their subjects- inspired by the same sort of questions posed in this article.
Prototype (and small) they were unveiled - to little fanfare- at The Halle in... George Leigh St. It would be nice to see something like that at full scale around the city. A proper recognition of Manchester's incredible but unsung heroes who tireless support communities.
Thanks, David. St Michael's (the Halle) in George Leigh St Is where the former St Chad's school was
Thank you! A great piece of writing and a very important reminder of who the true heroines/heroes are. Manchester is not short of them now, either, thankfully.
This is a beautiful article. Thank you
Thanks, Nicky
What a beautiful piece. Elizabeth Prout's story should be an inspiration to people of all faiths and none. Thank you!
Thank you, Janet
Thank you Robert for this well researched piece. I have heard of Sister Elizabeth Prout's name before whilst undergoing my research of all things Manchester history but not much specific to her.
I know St Chad's particularly well but only the outside of the church and only due to the bus stop being there where I caught the bus after school back into town.
Her work with the poor was exemplary of course , without these special people during those years very little would have been done .
Engels observations and writings are an important part of the history of Angel Meadow and that whole area around Red Bank even if he didn't 'get his hands dirty' so to speak. I understand that Elizabeth's name is much less known , no surprise there of course but all of the Manchester unsung heroes' stories need to be unveiled.
I so enjoyed reading this.
More please.
Thank you, Anne
There is a campaign under the banner of Trailblazers! Women of Greater Manchester that is working on commemoration of other women, including those long-listed for the statue which Emmeline Pankhurst won.
There is now a mural of Margaret Ashton and others are coming. Banners and other displays have been created and displayed at Manchester Histories Festival and at the annual Margaret Ashton lecture - this year given by MP Rebecca Long-Bailey on Ellen Wilkinson.
By the way, contrary to an earlier comment, Emily Williamson is one of the women in the book "First in the Fight" by Helen Antrobus and Andrew Simcock.
So interesting. Thank you!