A life lived to the full
n 28 September 1960, Sylvia Pankhurst’s funeral was held at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, Addis Ababa, on the orders of her good friend Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia. One of Britain’s most notorious suffragettes was buried in state in the Kiddist Selassie Men- bere Tsebaot Church Cemetery, reserved for Ethiopian patriots, the only non-Ethiopian to be honoured in this way (until her son was given the same treatment in 2017). It was a bizarre end for a lifelong republican atheist: chanting Orthodox bishops conducted the service; her coffin draped in gold cloth was buried by the Imperial Guard in full regalia, overseen by priests holding embroidered parasols. Haile
