No history of Cambridge would be complete without a mention of cycling, and Shape East’s new Walking with Women is no exception. One stop on this self guided tour recalls a day in 1897 when the effigy of a lady cyclist effigy flew high above a raucous crowd gathered to oppose the admission of women to the university.
Walking with Women, curated by poet Hollie McNish, tells the story of the city from a feminist perspective through historical sketches, art, architecture and poetry. The tour was launched at Michaelhouse Cafe 21 Jan 2013 with an exhibit and night of poetry and readings from the booklet. The exhibit is on display until 3 Feb 2013 at the Michaelhouse Cafe, Trinity Street, Cambridge. The best way to experience it is by picking up a copy of the tour book and hitting the streets.
Cambridge’s history is dominated by stories of triumphant men,
but Walking with Women documents how women were part of its brickwork too. A stop in Cambridge’s main Market Square serves as a reminder that this part of the city has been a commercial center and gathering point for men and women since Anglo Saxon times. Elizabethan later women met here to gather fresh water from the communal fountain erected in 1610. A few centuries on, a group of suffragists led by Mrs Rackham assembled around the square’s then grand Victorian fountain, now a crumbling ruin, before setting off on the 1913 NUWSS Great Pilgrimage to London’s Hyde Park.
Gazing west from the fountain, the white limestone pillars of the University’s Senate House are just visible in the next square over. A shop lined cobbled lane leads to the vast gated lawn of this stately neoclassical building, where key decisions determining the governance of Cambridge have been made since 1730. A quick right turn delivers you into the shadow of a towering red sandstone building with stacks of spires and wide gabled windows. This is Gonville and Cais College, and it was from one of these windows that protesting students suspended an effigy of a lady cyclist in 1897. You can see the scene today compared to a picture of the event published in the day’s newspaper in the photo below.
“The Cyclist,” a midway stop along the tour, is an expanded version of a posting you may have read on www.sheilahanlon.com. You can read the story as it appears in Walking with Women, with an accompanying poem by Roseanna Waterfall and illustration by Dilara Arin, here.
Newnham College Archives supplied the image shown left of the protest and effigy reproduced from the original photograph held in their collection.
The Walking with Women self guided tour book is available at the Cambridge Folk Museum, Michaelhouse Cafe and other local galleries.
You can also help support the project by purchasing a copy here. Guided tours can be booked through Shape East. Watch for further developments, including the Walking With Women iphone app.
