\n<\/strong>
\nJacqui and I were on the selection panel to choose a sculptor for a statue of my grandmother, having chosen the talented Hayley Gibbs, we then followed the project through for a year, from the initial drawings to the pouring of the bronze.\u00a0 Jacqui and I made frequent visits to Hayley’s studio\u00a0and to the foundry throughout the year.\u00a0 Together we had the responsibility of signing off the statue, a big responsibility as Nancy has many grandchildren, all with their own strong opinions\u00a0and more than happy to voice them!<\/p>\n
![\"3](\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/astor100\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/Unorganized\/Stella-Astor-Hayley-Gibbs-and-Emily-Astor-225x300.png\")
<\/p>\n
Stella Astor, Hayley Gibbs and Emily Astor<\/p>\n
Throughout this entire journey I was grounded by the historically accurate input of Jacqui, whether it was, her shoe size, her clothing, her hat, we made the decision that she had to wear gloves, her pose, her position, personal likeness and how the general public would look at the finished statue through their own eyes. The statue now stands outside The Astor\u2019s former house on Elliot Terrace in Plymouth overlooking the Hoe, a much loved place of both my grandparents.<\/p>\n
This statue will be a wonderful lasting legacy to our grandmother, for someone who once said she would like litter bins to be placed around her beloved\u00a0city of Plymouth, in order to keep it clean and tidy, I cannot imagine her thoughts on there being a statue of herself, she would I know want there to be a litter bin nearby!<\/p>\n
We as a family were also proud that GWR chose to name one of their trains after Nancy and I had the honour of unveiling the train.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Astor Papers<\/strong><\/p>\n Astor 100 has given me the opportunity to learn so much, not only about my grandmother, but about the fascinating and daunting challenges she faced day to day being the first woman to take her seat in Parliament, together with being a wife and\u00a0\u00a0 mother of\u00a0six children. I have been very fortunate to work at the archives at the University of Reading, Special Collections, sieving through documents, letters, newspaper clipping as well as photographs.<\/p>\n We knew that Nancy could be considered a controversial figure and she needed to be represented accurately as a rounded person, as a whole with all her complexities.<\/p>\n Also, it is so interesting\u00a0to me that at the time Nancy was sitting in Parliament before the granting of the federal vote in America. She was a MP in Britain before her sisters could vote at home in America!<\/p>\n Virginia and A Life in Photographs<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Nancy Astor was born in Virginia and I have come to understand more fully what her journey from there to England must have been like, as I have been lucky enough to spend time in Virginia recently, I am on the board of a school, which my grandmother was one of the founder of. Many of her Langhorne relations over the past one hundred years have attended this school and the school chapel was built by her father in memory of her mother.<\/p>\n These visits to Virginia have allowed me to research more in her home state, visiting her relations, friends, houses and archives in which I have found further information. This led me to follow my personal passion and love of old photographs, I then put together a small book of photographs to coincide with Astor100, NANCY ASTOR – A LIFE IN PHOTOGRAPHS.<\/p>\n The initial idea was that future generations of Nancy\u2019s grandchildren would be able to look back at her life through photographs. It is accompanied by some text as well as many quotes of Nancy. The quotes are what I so enjoyed discovering as she had a fierce wit her entire life.\u00a0\u00a0 My favourites are her signing a letter to her father, \u201cAffectionately the battle Ax \u201cand \u201cMuch love, and though I\u2019ve the tongue of a shrew, and many vices, I adore my cranky old Pa \u201c<\/p>\n This wit\u00a0appears to have surfaced early on as a young girl, perhaps as she was one of eight children she\u00a0felt she needed to be heard from an early age. She was the fifth child of eight, competing for her own place in the family. She and her siblings were\u00a0all very accomplished riders and there was nothing Nancy enjoyed more as a child\u00a0and young adult, than spending the day riding, she and her horse jumping over huge fences!\u00a0\u00a0 Parts of her childhood no doubt helped her face the challenges of political life and cope with sitting alone as a woman for almost two years amongst more than five hundred men in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n![\"Female](\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/astor100\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/Unorganized\/Emily-Astor-unveiling-train-300x169.jpg\")
![\"3](\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/astor100\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/Unorganized\/Stella-Emily-Alice-Astor-with-maquette-300x225.png\")
![\"back](\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/astor100\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/Unorganized\/Astor-as-a-baby-225x300.png\")
![\"Astor](\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/astor100\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/Unorganized\/Astor-portrait-with-Emily-Astor-book-225x300.png\")
![\"Emily](\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/astor100\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/Unorganized\/EMily-and-Jacqui-with-MA-students-225x300.png\")