Mary Clarke is to be honoured by the posthumous award of the Freedom of the City, a wonderful tribute. The award is to be made at a special  meeting of Brighton & Hove City Council at 3.30pm on Thursday 14 December at Hove Town Hall.

Mary Clarke Statue Appeal Trustee Briony Goulden, and her two daughters Sophie and Lena, will receive the award on behalf of Mary. They are several times great nieces of Mary Clarke, who was born Mary Goulden.  We hope supporters will come along to cheer them all on.

The meeting will take place at 3.30pm following an invitation-only reception for the Appeal at 2.30 hosted by the Mayor, Cllr Jackie O’Quinn. Councillors will make short speeches and Briony will respond. Child Ambassadors, including Sophie and Lena  and River Isaac, will be there. 

River Isaac will be accompanied by at least one other member of the Mary’s Lamp girls’ group, which she set up at Balfour School. River will be carrying Mary’s lamp, recalling Isabella McJKeown’s comment after Mary’s death that her friends and followers should “not mourn in silence” but “take up the torch and light the darkness”. We hope Isaac Abatan (21), our first Student Ambassador, will also be present to support the others. The Appeal Trustees will be there and our Patrons and Adult Ambassadors have been invited.

There will be photo opportunities in front of the large cut-out of the proposed statue. In addition to the lamp, we will also bring the resin maquette (the bronze one is too heavy to carry).  Provided we have someone to carry it, we will also bring our beautiful embroidered banner.

Though the reception is by invitation only, we hope other supporters will be there for the presentation. If you would like to attend, or know people who might like to do so, please let them know. Please be there for 3.15 pm, in good time for the start of the Council meeting at 3.30. You will have to sit in the gallery, but there is a good view and you can make some noise in appreciation! With luck, we may be able to meet for a hot drink in the downstairs  cafe after the event.

Led by River Isaac, our first Child Ambassador, they sold cakes, badges and pamphlets, 

ran a netball competition and handed out leaflets – and in a few short hours raised this wonderful amount. 

The group were ably assisted by Isaac Abatan (20), our very first student ambassador, who lives locally, but studies at Loughborough University. 

The ambassadors were supported by volunteers Paula Isaac, River’s mum, and Tunde Abatan, Isaac’s dad.

We are so grateful to them all and to the school students, parents and teachers who supported them. Children and adults alike must have spent hours baking. We know the very successful competition involved meticulous planning by the girls.

We hope that others will consider organising cakes sales, coffee mornings and other fundraising events for Mary.

As regular readers will know, the Appeal recruited River as our first Child Ambassador, during the period of COVID lockdown when she asked us to help her teacher to organise an on-line sculpture class about Mary Clarke. Since then she has helped us with fundraising events and lobbied councillors on our behalf.

Inspired by Mary’s example, she set up the girls’ group called “Mary’s Lamp”, which is growing and developing with the support of the school.

All our ambassadors are inspired by Mary’s courage. River tells us she was particularly struck by Isabella McKeown’s words after Mary’s death, when she told fellow suffragettes not to mourn Mary in silence, but to “..take the torch from her and light the darkness”. These striking words have fired many people’s imaginations, including that of our sculptor.

Denise Dutton’s design for the statue shows Mary standing tall, but laying down a lamp for others to pick up. We hope that many other young people (boys as well as girls) will take up the challenge, to secure equal rights, in particular the rights of women and girls, as well as respect for democracy.

marvellous donation to the Appeal. River Isaac and her Mary’s Lamp girls’ group at Balfour School have organised a cake sale at the school, ably supported by teachers and parents. 

Many hours of baking resulted in record sales, with huge numbers of enthusiastic school students involved. The group has now made a donation to the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal of £150.39, having also voted to make a smaller donation to homeless people as well. 

We are so grateful to them and hope that others (including grown-ups) will consider organising cakes sales and coffee mornings for Mary.

We recruited River (10) as our first Child Ambassador, during the period of COVID lockdown when she asked us to help her teacher to organise an on-line sculpture class about Mary Clarke. Since then, along with other young ambassadors, she has helped us with fundraising events, lobbied councillors on our behalf and appeared on television.

Most importantly, inspired by Mary’s example, she has set up a girls’ group called the “Mary’s Lamp Group”. This is growing and developing with the support of the school. The group arranged a power point presentation about Mary which was delivered by them in school assembly. As a result a huge number of girls and boys now know about this previously forgotten heroine. The group also helped organise a stall at the school’s summer fair, making and selling “Mary Cakes”.

River and the others have been very inspired by Mary Clarke’s  courage. In particular, River tells us, she was struck by Isabella McKeown’s words after Mary’s death, when she told fellow suffragettes not to mourn Mary in silence, but to “..take the torch from her and light the darkness”. These striking words have fired many people’s imaginations, including that of our sculptor.

Denise Dutton’s design for the statue shows Mary in the last days of her life, standing tall, but having laid down a lamp for others to pick up. 

We hope that many other young people (boys as well as girls) will take up the challenge, to secure equal rights, in particular the rights of women and girls, as well as respect for democracy.

£60 in aid of the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal, selling ‘Mary Cakes’, our version of traditional fairy cakes. 

The Mary’s Lamp girls’ group was set up by River Isaac, our first Child Ambassador. She and the group recently delivered a power point presentation about Mary Clarke to a packed school assembly and were determined to launch our new Mary Cakes. 

They spent hours baking their Mary Cakes and preparing a Guess-the-Number-of-Sweets competition to draw children and adults to the stall. They handed out leaflets to parents and explained to them why Mary is important. We were thrilled to see how interested other children were (boys as well as girls) and how many already knew about Mary. 

Many younger children were fascinated by our life size ‘cut out’ of the proposed statue and asked to be photographed with it. Others loved the life-size model of Mary’s lamp, which was kept on the stall near the cakes, to remind us why we were there.

Jean Calder, Chair of the Appeal said:

“I was so impressed by the girls’ enthusiasm and commitment – and the support they received from their parents and the school. The girls were determined to sell all the cakes and succeeded. We are so grateful to them all. We are confident the Mary’s Lamp group will go from strength to strength.”

The title Mary’s Lamp’ I was inspired by the lamp which is

depicted at Mary’s feet in Denise Dutton’s design for the statue. Mary is shown at the end of her life having laid down the lamp for others to take up. This idea springs from the words of  prominent local suffragette Isabella McKeown, who spoke at Mary’s memorial meeting on 6th January 1911, in the Royal Pavilion, telling the suffragettes not to “mourn in silence”, but to “take the torch from her and light the darkness”. These words will be written at the base of the statue, amongst other key quotes. We have found that young people, in particular, find Isabella’s words very inspiring. This was certainly true for River Isaac, who chose this title for the group. 

her teacher to organise an on-line sculpture class about Mary Clarke for Balfour School in Brighton.

This we did and subsequently asked River to become our first Child Ambassador for the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal. Since then she has helped us with fundraising events and lobbied councillors on our behalf. 

River has been very inspired by Mary’s courage. In particular, she tells us, she was struck by Isabella McKeown’s words after Mary’s death, when she told fellow suffragettes not to mourn Mary in silence, but to “..take the torch from her and light the darkness”. These striking words have fired many people’s imaginations, including that of our sculptor.

Denise Dutton’s design for the statue shows Mary in the last days of her life, standing tall, but having laid down a lamp for others to pick up.

Now, with the support of Balfour School’s head teacher and other senior staff members, River has set up a girls’ group at her school, which she has called Mary’s Lamp. All its members are nine years old and are in Year 4.

The girls have started to meet regularly, and recently, led by River, they recently delivered a very successful power point presentation about Mary Clarke to two full assemblies at the school. They took along photos, leaflets and badges and, most importantly, our resin maquette of Mary and a realistic  model of the lamp itself, both of which were made by Denise Dutton. 

Addressing hundreds of fellow students must have been

daunting, but the girls took it in their stride. Teachers have told us the presentations were extremely successful. 

We are lost in admiration and so grateful to the girls and their teachers. We hope that other primary schools will follow their example, finding a way to tell Mary’s story, while at the same time encouraging and empowering girls – and teaching all children about the importance of women’s rights and democracy.

We are thrilled to have been invited to have a stall at Balfour School’s Summer Fair on 16th July.