Our initial proposal was to erect the statue in the Pavilion Gardens near the entrance to the Museum, where most visitors and crucially all school parties would have seen it. Though there was widespread community support, this was opposed by the Royal Pavilion and Museum’s Trust (RPMT). As a consequence, and following advice from Brighton & Hove City Council Heritage Planners and Highways Engineers, we proposed a new site on New Road opposite the Theatre Royal. This is an accessible site close to the historic buildings where so many suffrage meetings were held and in sight of the Royal Pavilion within which Mary’s memorial meeting was held.

Following several months of quiet consultation with local councillors, planners, highways engineers, community associations and conservationists – and crucially neighbours and businesses within New Road – our planning application BH2025/02949 has now been submitted. Public comments will be accepted up until the 16th of February. We hope that interested local people will comment in support of this application using the following link: https://planningapps.brighton-hove.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=T6QV3XDM0K500. Even a few sentences will have great impact.

Our application has focussed on the statue’s educational and cultural  value, raising issues of women’s rights,

equality and democracy. Also Mary’s and the suffragettes’ historic connection with New Road, The Dome and the Royal Pavilion. We have stressed our conviction that the statue  will increase footfall, attracting many visitors and tourists. In particular, we believe the statue could play a key role in the overall regeneration of New Road. We have stressed this point in our planning application, referring to a need to promote public safety, calm traffic and ‘design out’ the anti-social behaviour which has troubled this area.

For more information please look at “The Hidden History of Mary Clarke – Revised and Updated” which can be found on this website under the heading of  “History” . This is an account of Mary’s life, along with a description of the design and the new proposed site. Printed copies are also available.

Please contact us with any comments or ideas via jeancalder.mcsa@gmail.com.

We’re especially proud right now of our first Student Ambassador, Isaac Abatan. Isaac was also our first male Youth Ambassador. He has helped run fundraising events, carried heavy equipment for us, offered lifts and supported us at Brighton & Hove City Council events. Our only worry about Isaac is that he may not be a ‘student’ very much longer. 

Isaac Abatan is now a graduate. On 14 July 2025 he received his BA (Hons) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Loughborough University in the presence of his parents Kathy and Tunde, the former a trustee and the latter a stalwart volunteer. Isaac’s sister Isobel was also there.

Our hope now is that Isaac will undertake post graduate work, so he can carry on being a Student Ambassador.

Our warmest congratulations to Isaac and to all his family.

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.

The Chair of Trustees of the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal Jean Calder said: “This wonderful news. It is unusual for such an award to be considered for someone who is no longer alive, but it is an honour for Mary that we gratefully support.”

“We are thankful to Cllr Bella Sankey and her colleagues for this recognition of Mary’s courage and of her contribution to the struggle for women’s rights and universal suffrage.”

Women’s suffrage founder to be awarded freedom of the city

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 an educational tool to raise awareness of the importance of equality and women’s rights, including the right to safety from abuse and violence, of the kind experienced by Mary, during her marriage and subsequent political life. We commemorate Mary, but Mary’s legacy demands we also honour the lives of other women who have died as a result of misogynist violence.

Like others, we were horrified by the terrible death of Sarah Everard and appalled, though not surprised, by emerging information about the numbers of women killed since then. We decided there was a need for wider commemoration, in particular, for women and girls who have died locally. 

In Parliament, of recent years, a Member of Parliament has read out the names of women killed during the previous twelve months. Spontaneous local vigils followed Sarah’s death, but here in Brighton and Hove, there have been no formal Council-led commemorations.

We approached the current Mayor Cllr Alan Robins, along with leading councillors of all

parties, to ask them to work together to give much greater priority to this issue. We also asked them to commit to high profile commemoration, each year, as close as possible to the U.N. International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25th November and the U.N. 16 days of Activism to End Violence Against Women and Girls* which follow it. We requested that the U.N.’s designated campaign colour of Orange be worn by councillors and if possible be used to light up civic buildings. We also asked the Mayor to hold a minutes silence for women – and, as he did so, to remember Mary Clarke, who almost certainly sustained her fatal injury during the violence of ‘Black Friday’ on the 18th November 2010 (dying on 25th December of a brain haemorrhage).

On 21st October 2021, a full meeting of Brighton & Hove City Council prepared to move a Notice of Motion which included most of the proposals we had made. That meeting did not proceed because a councillor who was present was found to have tested positive for COVID.

The Notice of Motion will be discussed at the next meeting in December and we look forward to that. However, we are delighted to report that, before the meeting of the 21st October was halted, the Mayor was able to start the meeting with a minute’s silence, while all councillors wore orange ribbons as a gesture of support. Not only that, our replica of ‘Mary’s lamp’ (a model of the lamp planned for the eventual statue donated by our sculptor Denise Dutton) was at the Mayor’s side as he did so, the candle inside flickering softly in remembrance. 

We are so great full to the Council and hope this commemoration and associated discussion will be repeated in future years.

* The 16 Days of Activism are part of The UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE by 2030 to End Violence Against Women Campaign (UNiTE campaign), managed by UN Women. As the U.N. Website states it is “a multi-year effort aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls around the world. It calls on governments, civil society, women’s organisations, young people, the private sector, the media, and the entire UN system to join forces in addressing the global pandemic of violence against women and girls.”

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.”