AN EXHIBITION on the life of two Ellesmere sisters who started Save the Children will be on display this weekend.

It will be 100 years on Sunday, May 19 since Eglantyne Jebb and Dorothy Buxton called a public meeting at London’s Royal Albert Hall to highlight the plight of thousands of children left starving in central Europe at the end of the First World War.

Soon after the public meeting, Eglantyne became the driving force to develop the charity while her sister devoted herself to other political issues.

Their campaigning efforts will be remembered and celebrated on Saturday, May 18, at a coffee morning and exhibition in Ellesmere Library organised by the Ellesmere Sculpture Initiative and the Friends of the Library.

Display boards telling the story of the two social activists have been lent by Eglantyne’s great-great nephew, Richard Jebb who lives at The Lyth, the country house on the outskirts of Ellesmere, where the sisters were born.

They were put together by his father Lionel whose recorded recollections of Eglantyne’s life will be played during the event.

Also on show will be a number of drawings made by pupils at seven local schools as part of an 18-month project to mark the centenary.

It is hoped that ideas generated at a series of art workshops in the schools will help to inspire the artist selected to create a landmark centenary sculpture in Ellesmere’s Cremorne Gardens.

More than a dozen sculptors submitted proposals for the project and a shortlist has been drawn up, with the final choice announced within a few weeks and the finished work is due to be installed before the end of the year.

The sculpture group’s project also involves a team of volunteers carrying out research with the aim of setting up a local archive of documents and photographs tracing Eglantyne’s life and the development of Save the Children as one of the world’s leading relief organisations.

It is hoped that some of their research findings will be revealed at the coffee morning, which takes place between 10am and midday on Saturday, with admission at £2.