A new plaque commemorating Lady Harris will be unveiled by the Frome Society for Local Study at Merchants Barton, Frome, on Friday 27th October.
Alice Seeley, Lady Harris (1870-1970), was a former resident of Frome and first centenarian of the Society. She and her husband, (Sir) John Hobbis Harris, were Baptist missionaries in the Congo Free State. Many graphic lectures in Europe and USA by Alice and John, accompanied by her early black and white photographs of atrocities by soldiers and overseers in the rubber plantations, led to King Leopold II of the Belgians ceding ownership of the Congo to Belgium in 1908.
Alastair MacLeay of the Frome Society for Local Study says, “Please join us at Merchants Barton, Frome on Friday 27 October at 11am and afterwards at the Old Bath Arms, Palmer Street.
Merchants Barton is the passageway between Saxonvale and the Silk Mill.
