Georgina Baroness Mount-Temple of Torquay

This should have been yesterday for International Women's Day


One of the local leaders of the Torquay Anti-Vivisection Society was Babbacombe's Georgina Baroness Mount-Temple. A great humanitarian, her interests also included the Band of Mercy founded by Lord Mount-Temple, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Temperance Movement.

She lived at Babbacombe Cliff (later re-named the Babbacombe Cliff Hotel and now flats) and fed birds from the veranda at the front of the house. Georgina died in 1901 and her obituaries recorded a woman who campaigned with "passionate indignation against cruelty and injustice?" However, the Manchester Guardian felt it necessary to comment on her commitment to "lost causes and impossible beliefs".

In 1903 this bronze statue was erected by her friends in her memory. People regularly put flowers in the hands of the statue.

There's also a horse trough dedicated to Georgina at the Torre Station end of Avenue Road. Indeed, practical provision was often made by those campaigning for the welfare of animals..

We were walking from Shaldon to Torquay and stopped for tea at the Cliff Cafe just near this statue.