Today I visited a favourite spot in Liverpool Mossley Hill – Greenbank Park.
Greenank was part of the home of the Rathbone family. William Rathbone VI was Liberal MP for Liverpool and Chief Whip in Gladstone‘a Government.
He was one of the principal founders of what is now Liverpool University (which foolishly recently removed Gladstone’s name from a nearby building https://www.davidalton.net/2021/05/05/times-report-liverpool-university-should-listen-to-dr-david-jeffrey-one-of-their-own-lecturers-in-politics-on-gladstones-denunciation-of-slavery-and-show-less-historical-illiteracy-and/ ).
William‘a daughter, Eleanor, was a great campaigning MP be and City Councillor for Granby Ward.
In 1788 the Rathbone family acquired Greenbank Houuse as a holiday house. They lived there until 1940 but in 1897 had made an agreement with the Corporation of Liverpool to sell and make available what is now Greenbank Park as an open space and recreation area for the people of Liverpool.
Five years ago in the House of Lords I reminded Parliament of the campaign which Eleanor Rathbone played in championing the plight of Jews fleeing Germany after Kristallnacht:
“ For obvious reasons, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, also referred to the Kindertransport. The reputation of politicians and diplomats from that era is redeemed by the extraordinary bravery and determination of men such as Sir Nicholas Winton, the diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and Eleanor Rathbone, “the refugees’ MP”, as she was known. This year is the 70th anniversary of her death.
In 1938, after Kristallnacht, she established the Parliamentary Committee on Refugees. Two years later, on 10 July 1940 in a six-hour debate, she intervened on no fewer than 20 occasions to insist that Britain had a duty of care to the refugees being hunted down by the Nazis. She said that a nation had an obligation to give succour to those fleeing persecution—in her words,
“not only in the interests of humanity and of the refugees, but in the interests of security itself”.—[
Official Report
, Commons, 10/7/40; col. 1212.]
In words that have an echo in the debates we have been having during the course of this Bill, she wrote that discussions about asylum seekers and refugees,
“always … begin with an acknowledgement of the terrible nature of the problem and expressions of sympathy with the victims. Then comes a tribute to the work of the voluntary organisations. Then some account of the small, leisurely steps taken by the Government. Next, a recital of the obstacles—fear of anti-Semitism, or the jealousy of the unemployed, or of encouraging other nations to offload their Jews on to us”.
It is hard not to see the parallels. The debates about the Kindertransport continued in Parliament until literally hours before war broke out. In 2016 we should do no less than those who preceded us.”
She was also a great champion of children and the family: “the whole business of begetting, bearing and rearing children is the most essential of all the nation’s business.”
No doubt such politically incorrect opinions will bring down the wrath of the thought police but I for one was glad to be reminded of this great Liverpool family and the contribution they made to our civic and national life.
