News Reports

On 4th March, internationally-acclaimed jazz singers Claire Martin and Liane Carroll gave their much-anticipated concert at St George’s Church in aid of the Appeal.

The concert was hosted in sparkling style by comedian Zoe Lyons and the hugely effective appeal for donations was made by broadcaster Simon Fanshawe, one of our Patrons. After all expenses had been met, the event raised £4,500.

Cllr Alex Phillips, Mayor of Brighton & Hove, was there, as were many councillors. Juliet Smith, Deputy Lieutenant for East Sussex was present, and introduced the evening in her capacity as one of the charity’s Patrons.

Jazz fans and others who knew little about jazz, packed the church to hear the two singers present “Double Standards – an evening of jazz and joy”. There were numbers by Waits, Mitchell and Bennett skilfully mixed with lesser known classics. At times the audience sat in rapt silence, stunned by the talent of the singers and at others, they cheered, whooped and sang along. Claire Martin’s extraordinary rendition of A Natural Woman had most of the audience singing. 

Claire Martin and Liane Carroll were supported by local a cappella group Women of Note and feminist punk band Siren. Siren gave an upbeat first public performance of their moving Song for Mary, especially written by Jude Winter in support of the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal. Women of Note’s rendition of Nana Was a Suffragette was a revelation to many of the audience, who had never heard it before.

The event was organised by Jean Calder and the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal, but with the support of many, many others. Jean said:

“We are so grateful to Claire and Liane for generously sharing their superb music with us. Many thanks too to Siren and Women of Note for their music. Also to Zoe, Simon and Juliet for their pitch perfect interventions. However, the evening could not have been the outstanding success it was without the help of our wonderful team of volunteers the Friends of Mary Clarke. Also our helpers from the B&H Women’s History Group, inVISIBLEwomen and others. I’d like to add my personal thanks to Kate Ray of Whiskey Bravo Productions Ltd, our brilliant stage manager on the night; to Pepper our superb Sound Engineer; and to Laura Chatburn of St George’s Community Centre. Last but not least, thanks are due to Jenny Stroud, jazz fan extraordinaire, who introduced us to Claire Martin.”

.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 will open at 6.30pm. Local a cappella group Women of Note and feminist punk band Siren, will open the concert. Siren will provide the first ever public performance of their new “Song for Mary”. Tickets via Eventbrite (double-standards-4mar.eventbrite.co.uk/ ) or from Resident in Kensington Gardens, Brighton.

The MC will be comedian Zoe Lyons and writer and broadcaster Simon Fanshawe will Appeal for funds.

Claire and Liane will sing numbers by Waits, Mitchell and Bennett skilfully mixed with stylish reworkings of lesser known classics and new original material. The two friends will provide some seriously swinging music. 

These internationally acclaimed singers and their performances have been described as:

“Worldclass’” – The Times

“Faultless”  – London Jazz News

“An evening of musical fireworks that excites and delights.” – Musical Theatre Review

“Liane Carroll doesn’t just sing jazz, she is jazz.” – MOJO Magazine

“Claire Martin ranks among the four or five finest female jazz vocalists on the planet”. – Jazz Times USA

Brighton-based comedian Zoe Lyons has agreed to act as MC on 4th March at our benefit concert “Double Standards”. Like our great singers, Claire Martin and Liane Carroll, she is in huge demand. We  are so grateful she is making the time to be there and proud to have her support for the statue of Mary Clarke.

Zoe took her first steps down the comedy path in 2003 after training as an actress at the Poor School in London. She went on to win the Funny Women Competition in 2004 and her debut Edinburgh show was nominated for the if.comedy newcomer award.

In 2008 she won the Dave, Funniest Joke of The Fringe Award. Zoe has appeared in many TV shows including Mock the Week, The Wright Stuff, Michael McIntyre Roadshow and many more. 

Don’t miss seeing her at our concert Double Standards on 4th March at St George’s Church.

Our chosen sculptor, Denise Dutton, has begun the early painstaking stages of her work. This will result in a small exact bronze model of what will eventually become the statue. Denise has been researching the clothing  women of Mary Clarke’s time would have worn. She is already knowledgeable, because she sculpted the statue of suffragette Annie Kenney in Oldham. She has been working with an original dress of the time, loaned from the Hope Museum, Derbyshire. She’s studied the few photographs of Mary (we have no photographs of her whole body) and taken numerous photographs in Brighton and elsewhere. She has studied details of the borrowed dress, working with models to observe how the dress hangs on a live person.

Now work has begun on the ‘maquette’ , which, as she explains, is the name given to an artist’s study, sketch or model. A simple back bar supports the figure. She said “I’m using wax to form the study. It suits detailed smaller models but is more labour intensive than clay, requiring to be heated to make it malleable. Once a stick version of the body is formed and attached to the back bar the wax can be applied and filled out to form the figure.”  We are looking forward to bringing you further reports and photographs. 

We are very grateful to Independent Councillor Tony Janio of Brighton & Hove City Council. Tony took a Notice of Motion supporting our appeal to the Brighton & Hove Council meeting of 30th January 2020. It  gained all-party support, was seconded by Labour Councillor Amanda Grimshaw and was passed unanimously. We are so grateful to the councillors for their support and are sure this will help us achieve our £60,000 target.

The Notice of Motion read as follows:

“This council is honoured to have granted £10,000 to the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal – to provide a bronze maquette (model) of the eventual statue – and recognises the historical importance of this memorial statue and its social and educational potential as a symbol of democracy, equality and women’s rights and should therefore continue to actively support and publicise this initiative. This council requests the Chair of the TECC Committee ensures that officers bring a report to the next meeting of the committee that details ways in which the council, working across its departments and in liaison with the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal, can promote public awareness and help raise the remaining £60,000 required to fund the statue.”

Dear Supporters,

Jazz legends Claire Martin and Liane Carroll are to perform in a benefit concert for the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal. Please support this event, come along if you can and publicise the concert through your own networks. You can book tickets for the event here.

If you can help on the night, please contact information.mcsa@gmail.com.

Hope to see you there.

Jean Calder,

Chair, Mary Clarke Statue Appeal.

Great news. Broadcaster, writer and activist Simon Fanshawe has agreed to join the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal’s group of Patrons. He has already proved himself worth his weight in gold by putting us in touch with Comedian Zoe Lyons and some other famous folk.

There’s even a possibility Zoe Lyons may MC  our benefit concert on the 4th March at St George’s Church. But more about that later…. Tickets for “Double Standards” the concert by jazz legions Claire Martin and Liane Carroll can be booked at: double-standards-4mar.eventbrite.co.uk/ . Simon will be there, possibly serving at the cash Bar or making himself very useful in some other capacity.

Simon joins our other Patrons: local M.P.s Maria Caulfield, Caroline Lucas and Peter Kyle; Baroness Joyce Gould, life long campaigner for women’s rights;  Professor June Purvis, academic and biographer of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst (Mary Clarke’s sister and niece); and Juliet Smith, Deputy Lieutenant of East Sussex. We are very grateful to them all for their support.

Note that the M.P.s are very unlikely to be able to attend the concert because Parliament is sitting and the concert is mid-week.

Jean Calder (Chair of Appeal)

Tickets are now on sale via Eventbrite for our 4th March benefit concert. Double Standards – an evening of jazz and joy! will include songs by Waits, Mitchell and Bennett skilfully mixed with stylish re-workings of lesser known classics and new original material. Join these two friends for some seriously swinging music. Not to be missed! Support from members of Siren and Women of Note.

This benefit event will raise funds for a statue for Mary Clarke, the Brighton suffragette who was Emmeline Pankhurst’s sister and the first to die for women’s right to vote.

Wednesday, 4th March 2020, 7.00pm (doors & cash bar open 6.30pm) at St George’s Church,  St George’s Road, Brighton, BN2 1ED. The concert will finish at 9.00pm. The cash bar will close at 10.30pm.

Tickets £20.00 plus admin fee from Eventbrite: double-standards-4mar.eventbrite.co.uk/   

Please help us publicise this event through all your networks and come along to help us celebrate and raise funds. We need volunteers, so if you are able to help on the night – or with the wider campaign – please contact jeancalder.mcsa@gmail.com.

Mary Clarke was the first suffragette to give her life for women’s right to Vote but, there is no public memorial to her anywhere in the UK. Brighton, where she lived and worked, has few memorials for women and no statues other than of Queen Victoria. 

The Mary Clarke Statue Appeal was set up in late 2018 to fund a statue of Mary Clarke, as a symbol for the city of women’s rights, equality and democracy. The Appeal aims to site the statue in  or very near the Royal Pavilion Estate, where the suffrage movement had strong historic links. The hope is to place it in the garden near the Museum entrance, where it can easily be seen by every school party, resident and visitor. The Appeal needs to raise £60,000.

The Mary Clarke Statue Appeal is pleased to announce that in the past month:

• Charity status has been achieved
• Brighton & Hove City Council has granted the £10,000 previously pledged to fund a bronze maquette (model) of the planned statue
• a sculptor has been chosen, following a short competition for the commission between three excellent sculptors

Denise Dutton MRSS from Leak in Staffordshire has been appointed to make the initial bronze maquette of Mary Clarke and then, provided the funding can be secured, to make the statue. Denise studied sculpture at the prestigious Sir Henry Doulton School of Sculpture in Stoke-on-Trent. She has worked on numerous commissions, both public and private over the past 24 years.

Her works include: the suffragette Annie Kenney, unveiled in December 2018 in Oldham;  the Land Girls and Lumber Jills memorial statue at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas which was unveiled in 2014 by The Countess of Wessex; a portrait bust of Sir Neville Mott Nobel prize winner for physics, at the Mott Building, Cambridge; and a life size equestrian statue of the last Maharajah of India, Duleep Singh, unveiled by Prince Charles.

Denise said:

“I will be pleased to work with the trustees of the Mary Clarke Statue appeal and to be a part of realising their mission in bringing the memory of Mary’s life story to others through the statue. The making of a sculpture goes further than a sheer physical task it’s also about the artist’s engagement with the subject. I feel empathy with Mary, for what for she endured through her life and what she fought for. These emotions will be ever present during the realisation of the commission.”

Jean Calder, the Chair of the Appeal said:

“We are delighted that Denise has agreed to take on this commission. She is a fine sculptor with experience of producing inspirational commemorative work. She also has an excellent understanding of the suffrage movement because of the work she did on the sculpture of Annie Kenney.”

“At Mary’s memorial service in Brighton, local suffragette Isabella McKeown said “Her they must not mourn in silence. They must take the torch from her and light the darkness…”. We are asking local people to take up the torch and support this campaign to commemorate Mary and the ideals for which she gave her life – freedom, democracy and equal rights.”

To donate, click the Donate button above. To support the Appeal in other ways contact jeancalder.mcsa@gmail.com.