This Appeal is pledged to remember 18th November, the anniversary of ‘Black Friday’, the notorious day in 1910 when three hundred suffragettes were attacked outside Parliament as they tried to petition Prime Minister Asquith. Three women died as a result of the violence that day, the first of whom was Mary Clarke. Another key commemorative date for us is the 25th November. This is the…
The Statue Appeal’s primary focus is to fundraise for the statue of Mary Clarke and following the difficulties posed by COVID and lockdown, we plan to redouble our efforts to raise the £35,000 we still need. However, the Appeal’s purposes are broader than just the achievement of a statue. An important aspect of our purpose has always been to use the commemoration of Mary’s life as…
We are proud to announce that the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal now has its first Child Ambassador. She is River Isaac who is 8 years old and in year four at Balfour Primary School in Brighton. We first came across River during lockdown at the height of the pandemic, when she and her mother Paula contacted our chosen sculptor Denise Dutton to ask if she…
Peter Barratt from Leicester is a great grandson of suffragette Alice Hawkins and has been an inspiration to our Appeal. From 2012 he co-led a fund raising campaign for a statue of Alice and after several years of hard work and effort this proved successful. On February 4th 2018 a statue of Alice was unveiled in the Leicester market place and has been credited with…
During the pandemic, like other charities, we have found our fundraising badly affected. We have been unable to run events since our very successful benefit concert in early March 2020, with fabulous jazz singers Claire Martin and Liane Carroll. Instead we have worked to broaden support, particularly at a national level. National media coverage has brought us new donors from across the country and we…
March is Women’s History Month and the 8th March is International Women’s Day. Jenny Engledow, well known local peace campaigner and an extremely accomplished embroiderer has just completed a banner depicting Mary Clarke. The suffragettes’ processions were central to their campaigning. They used fantastic costumes, flowers, horses, choirs and bands, and above all, beautifully coloured banners, to wonderful effect. Many banners were designed to be carried…
We are delighted to have received a statement of support for our campaign for a statue for Mary Clarke from Katy Bourne OBE, the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner. On 19th February she wrote: “Despite being the first suffragette to die for her cause, Mary Clarke has been largely forgotten by history. She was a determined woman who was not afraid to fight for…
Following months of discussion, research and painstaking work in miniature, our wonderful sculptor Denise Dutton has completed the rough plaster line maquette of Mary. She is now in the process of preparing a resin copy and a mould for the final bronze. Denise has faced many challenges. She has had to work from only 5 photographs, some of which are of poor quality and none…
Supporters living in Brighton & Hove will have noticed that, post lock-down, many of the city’s free community magazines have re-appeared and combined. Sussex Magazines has gathered several titles into two new umbrella publications – The Brightonian and The Hovarian. We are so proud that in their inaugural July editions they chose to feature articles about the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal. Please support these worthy new publications…
.Tickets are on sale for the Claire Martin and Liane Carroll Benefit Concert on 4th March at St George’s Church, Kemp Town in Brighton. “Double Standards – an evening of jazz and joy” in support of the Appeal, will start at 7.00pm and finish at 9.00pm, though the cash Bar will remain open and audience members are welcome to stay, make music and socialise. Doors…