Alice Ayres (c. 1859–1885) was an English household assistant and
nursemaid to the family of her brother-in-law and sister, Henry and
Mary Ann Chandler. The Chandlers owned an oil and paint shop in
Southwark, and Ayres lived with them above the shop. In 1885, fire
broke out in the shop and Ayres rescued three of her nieces from the
burning building but fatally injured herself. Ayres died during a era
of great social change in Britain in the wake of the Industrial
Revolution. The manner of her death caused great public interest, and
large numbers of people attended her funeral and contributed to the
funding of a memorial. She then underwent a "secular canonisation" and
became widely depicted in the popular culture of the period. The
circumstances of her death were distorted to give the impression that
she was an employee willing to die for the sake of her employer's
family. She was widely cited as a role model, and was promoted as an
example of the values held by various social and political movements.
In 1902 her name was added to the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice and
in 1936 a street near the scene of the fire was renamed Ayres Street in
her honour. The case of Alice Ayres came to renewed public notice with
the release of Patrick Marber's 1997 play Closer, and the 2004 film
based on it.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Ayres>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
435:
Nestorius, the originator of Nestorianism, was exiled by Byzantine
Emperor Theodosius II to a monastery in Egypt.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorius>
1916:
Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement was hanged at London's Pentonville
Prison for treason for his role in the Easter Rising, a rebellion to
win Irish independence from Britain.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Casement>
1948:
Before the House Un-American Activities Committee of the United States
House of Representatives, former spy turned government informer
Whittaker Chambers accused U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss
of being a communist and a Soviet spy.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittaker_Chambers>
1949:
The Basketball Association of America agreed to merge with the National
Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Association>
2005:
President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya of Mauritania was overthrown in a
military coup while he was attending the funeral of King Fahd in Saudi
Arabia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maaouya_Ould_Sid%27Ahmed_Taya>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
ochre (n):
1. An earth pigment containing silica, aluminum and ferric oxide.
2. A somewhat yellowish orange colour
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ochre>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
I did not want to move. For I had the feeling that this was a place,
once seen, that could not be seen again. If I left and then came back,
it would not be the same; no matter how many times I might return to
this particular spot the place and feeling would never be the same,
something would be lost or something would be added, and there never
would exist again, through all eternity, all the integrated factors
that made it what it was in this magic moment.
--Clifford D. Simak
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clifford_D._Simak>