St David's Day (2019)

And so it was that on the first day of March in 1886, a tall, thin, dyspeptic Anglo-Indian gentleman, late out of the wilderness of Pennsylvania, founded a beacon of truth and light in an island of the Main. There may it stand, from year to year, an emblem of grand endeavour.

That same gentleman was heard to say decades later that one main lesson of his life was that women did more of the work, and that one Blackmore did the most of all, in 1887. To her, he said, a statue should be raised if any should be raised at all.

These thoughts come to mind on St David's Day this year. For he too agreed that we should say who did the work, and all should do it well.