in memoriam as a vehicle for advocacy on behalf of Ethiopia. Also during these years he came to know many prominent Ethiopians, including Emper- or Haile Selassie’s minister to England, Dr. Hakim Werkneh (also known as Dr. Charles Martin) and his children, the playwright and poet Mengistu Lemma and the artist Afewerk Tekle, among others. Having befriended many Ethiopians and visited their country, he chose to accompany his mother to live in Addis Richard Pankhurst Ababa in 1956. She went at the invitation of 1927–2017 Emperor Haile Selassie, who was grateful for Sylvia Pankhurst’s unrelenting efforts to win by Rebecca M. Nagy League of Nations and British support for ending the Italian Fascist occupation of Ethi- Richard Keir Pethick Pankhurst OBE, his- opia (1936–1941). The Emperor also wished to torian and scholar of Ethiopia, passed away show his appreciation for her work in raising on February 16, 2017 at the age of 89 in Addis funds and providing support to the Princess Ababa, Ethiopia, where he made his home Tsehai Memorial Hospital named in memory with his wife of sixty years, Rita Pankhurst of his daughter. Richard Pankhurst assumed (born Eldon). He was buried on the grounds 1 Richard Pankhurst in 2003. a teaching position at University College of of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa Photo: Achamyeleh Debela Addis Ababa (later Haile Selassie University near his mother, Sylvia Pankhurst. She is the and now Addis Ababa University). He and his 2 Achamyeleh Debela and Rebecca only European woman accorded this honor, Nagy with Richard Pankurst in his mother founded a journal, Ethiopia Observer, which recognized her support for Ethiopia garden in Addis Ababa, 2001. to report on many aspects of Ethiopian life. during the Italian Fascist occupation of the Photo: courtesy Rebecca M. Nagy Initially produced monthly, later the journal 1930s. Now her son has been similarly hon- was issued quarterly. When Sylvia Pankhurst ored for his role as, in the words of Ethiopia’s died in 1960, she was given a state funeral and Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu, “one of interred on the grounds of Holy Trinity Cathe- this country’s greatest friends.”1 Pankhurst was born on December 3, dral. Her influence on Richard Pankhurst Richard Pankhurst authored more than 1927, in Woodford Green, England, to Sylvia remained strong throughout his life, so much twenty books on the history of Ethiopia, edited Pankhurst, noted feminist and suffragette and so that he published two books on his mother, or compiled numerous others, and wrote later advocate for Ethiopia, and Silvio Corio, Sylvia Pankhurst, Artist and Crusader in 1979 many scholarly articles on a range of topics an Italian journalist, printer, and typographer and Sylvia Pankhurst, Counsel for Ethiopia: A in Ethiopian economic, social, and political with whom she worked. They named the child Biographical Essay on Ethiopian Anti-Fascist history, culture, art, and architecture (Rita after Sylvia’s father Richard Pankhurst, a bar- and Anti-Colonialist History 1934–1960 in 2003. Pankhurst 2002, 2007). He also contributed rister who, with his wife Emmeline, was active Pankhurst worked with his friend and col- articles early in his career to the Addis Tribune in the fight for women’s suffrage and other league Stanislaw Chojnacki, librarian at Uni- and more recently to Capital, a weekly Ethio- progressive social causes. Pankhurst attended versity College of Addis Ababa, to establish pian business newspaper, thus reaching a wide Bancroft School in his hometown and then the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES) and audience in Ethiopia and abroad. Pankhurst the London School of Economics, where he became its founding director, serving from was founding director of the Institute of Ethi- was awarded a doctorate in economic history 1962 to 1972. Chojnacki served as chief librar- opian Studies at Addis Ababa University and a in 1956. During his education he assisted his ian and museum curator of IES, while Rita leader in the Society of Friends of the Institute mother in editing the newspaper New Times Pankhurst became director of the University of Ethiopian Studies (SOFIES), the Institute’s and Ethiopia News, which she founded in 1936 Library. As Chojnacki recalled in an article private support organization. Pankhurst is also at the time of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia published in the Journal of Ethiopian Studies remembered for his tireless efforts to secure the return of an eighty-foot high, fourth- century granite stele taken as war booty by the Italians in 1937 from the ancient city of Aksum in northern Ethiopia (Richard Pankhurst 1999). The Italians erected the obelisk in the Piazza di Porta Capena near the Circus Maximus in Rome. In 2005, after many years of advocacy by Pankhurst and other members of the Aksum Obelisk Return Committee, they returned it to Aksum, where it was re-erected in 2008 alongside the city’s other ancient stele. Rebecca M. Nagy is the director of the Sam- uel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida, and is a member of the African Arts editorial consortium. [email protected] 8 african arts SPRING 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 1 Downloaded from| http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/AFAR_a_00388 by guest on 29 September 2021 (2007), the three of them worked together to informative article has been helpful to me as of the British Empire at the Queen’s Birthday assemble and develop research and teaching we build the Harn Museum of Art’s collection Honors in 2004 in recognition of his service resources and to preserve objects of Ethio- of Ethiopian art and when we receive inquiries to Ethiopian studies. pian cultural heritage.2 Today the Institute from collectors and others who have acquired Pankhurst is survived by his wife Rita they established is the world’s premier facility Ethiopian paintings on their travels or through Pankhurst, children Helen and Alula, and for the study of Ethiopian history, cultural inheritance. Richard and Rita Pankhurst also four grandchildren, Laura and Alex, Henok heritage, and art. In 1965 Chojnacki estab- contributed articles to African Arts. Together and Heleena. He is remembered with lished the Society of Friends of the Institute they wrote “Ethiopian Figurines from Mugar affection and gratitude by many friends and of Ethiopian Studies (SOFIES) as a private Monastery in Shawa” (2004), and he pub- colleagues in Ethiopia and around the world support arm for the IES. Although it became lished “An Ethiopian Painting of King Takla for his lifetime of dedication to Ethiopia and inactive in 1975 during a time of political Haymanot’s War with the Dervishes” (2006) its history and cultural heritage. upheaval, Richard Pankhurst was able to reac- after studying the painting while at the Harn tivate SOFIES as an integral part of the IES in Museum of Art for a meeting of consultants for Notes 3 the late 1980s. “Continuity and Change.” As a frequent traveler My sincere thanks go to Richard and Rita Pankhurst’s After the outbreak of the Ethiopian Revolu- on Ethiopian Airlines, I shared an experience daughter Helen Pankhurst and son Alula Pankhurst for tion and the overthrow of the Emperor in known to many who enjoyed Pankhurst’s work reviewing this tribute and for their thoughtful additions 1974, Richard and Rita Pankhurst decided to as a public historian through his articles on and corrections to improve the text, and also to my leave their adoptive homeland and return to Ethiopian history, architecture, and art contrib- colleague Professor Peter Garretson of Florida State University for his careful review and comments. England, departing in 1976 and remaining uted to Selamta, the airline’s richly illustrated 1 See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ in London for a decade. During that time in-flight magazine. news/2017/02/17/ethiopians-call-state-funeral-rich- he had appointments as a research fellow at Richard Pankhurst served for many years as ard-pankhurst-champion-ethiopian/ of 2/17/17. the School of Oriental and African Studies an editor and frequent contributor to the Inter- 2 Volume 40 of the Journal of Ethiopian Studies and the London School of Economics, then national Journal of Ethiopian Studies. Estab- is a double issue titled Festschrift Dedicated in Honor worked as a librarian at the Royal Asiatic lished in 2002, the journal is dedicated to the of Prof. Richard Pankhurst & Mrs. Rita Pankhurst. The Festschrift is guest edited by Dr. Heran Sereke-Brhan Society. After occasional trips to Ethiopia by research and study of Ethiopia and the Horn with co-editors Prof. Baye Yimam and Dr. Gebre Yntiso. Richard beginning in 1986, the couple moved of Africa and publishes two issues a year, with 3 For an alternative interpretation of the mural back there in 1989 and resumed their work articles in English and Amharic. Pankhurst painting proposed by historian Girma Y. Getahun, see as researchers and archivists at Addis Ababa also played a leading role in organizing the tri- Cooksey 2016. University against a backdrop of continuing ennial International Conference of Ethiopian political tension. Then in 1991, the long-time Studies beginning in 1966, when he organized References cited leader of the communist government of the third conference in the series, held in Chojnacki, Stanlislaw. 2007. “Collegial Wishes: A Few Ethiopia, Mengistu Haile Mariam, was over- Addis Ababa. He convened the first Interna- Remarks on Collaboration with Richard at the Institute thrown and a federal parliamentary republic tional Conference on the History of Ethiopian of Ethiopian Studies.” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 40 established. Having handed over their family Art and Architecture at the Warburg Institute (1/2):353–55. compound to Mengistu’s government, known in London in 1986 and edited the publication Cooksey, Susan.