A Community of Interest: The Story of the George Eliot Fellowship, 1930 - 2000

When the George Eliot Fellowship was born seventy years ago, the infant had emerged after a labour of some 25 years. A. F. Cross, its founder, had been editor of Nuneaton newspapers since 1895. For much of that time he had been campaigning for a memorial to George Eliot in her native town, but had met with apathy at every turn. For two weeks during the summer of 1930, Mr. Cross handed over the Editorial chair of the Nuneaton Chronicle to a Cambridge undergraduate, to give the young man an opportunity to gain an inside knowledge of newspaper production. His young understudy managed to extract columns of unpaid contributions from such distinguished literary men of the day as George Bernard Shaw by asking of them a pertinent question, "Should Nuneaton erect a memorial to George Eliot? If so, what form should it take?" ... View item