Black Friday is an Americanised term for a day of cheap bargains in the shops. It is a means of selling. The fact that this celebration of consumerism happens in November, the month of remembrance, is particularly galling for anyone wishing to remember the sacrifices made by suffragists and suffragettes and the terrible events of 18th November 1910, also called ‘Black Friday’. Three women died as a result of these events, of whom Mary Clarke was the first.

It was on 18th November that Mary, along with 300 other suffragettes, assembled peacefully to petition Parliament. Over several hours, the women were systematically physically and sexually attacked by London police officers who had been given instructions not to arrest the women, but had clearly been given licence to abuse them. Some police told the women they had been told they could do anything they liked “today”. The women were often subjected to violent attack, but the assaults of Black Friday seem to have been particularly vicious and sustained.

There are several heart-rending accounts of the terrible way women were treated and injured. We don’t know exactly what happened to Mary, just that afterwards she was bed-ridden for three days. She was advised not to get up even then, but she insisted on going back to London to protest about the police’s treatment of the women. There she was arrested and imprisoned for one month, during which time she was forcibly fed. She died of a brain haemorrhage two days after her release from prison. 

Mary’s sister Emmeline Pankhurst, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and other leaders of the WSPU all blamed the events of Black Friday for Mary’s death.

Each year we try to commemorate Black Friday by arranging a display in foyer of the Jubilee Library. This year the display includes the bronze maquette of Mary Clarke along with information about the targeted violence of Black Friday. We do not forget that Mary also experienced domestic abuse as well as state violence. 

We are conscious that the 25th November is the U.N. Designated Day of Action against Violence Against Women and that it begins the U.N. 16 Days of Action against Violence against Women. This year our display is being held in the Jubilee Library from 13th to the 26th November. 

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 women’s rights at a time when they were not only overlooked but also violently suppressed.

“I hope she would be delighted to see that, not only does modern day policing employ female officers and staff across all sectors but, increasingly, we are seeing a welcome growth in the number of women in senior roles, as we now have in Sussex.  I’m pleased to support the campaign to install a statue in her honour in celebration of her message and memory.”  

Katy Bourne, Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner, 19th February 2021.

This is a remarkable statement, both because Mary was three times imprisoned for her beliefs and because her death by brain haemorrhage was attributed to police excesses on ‘Black Friday’, 18th November 1910, when London police violently and sexually attacked 300 women outside Parliament, over a period of six hours, almost certainly on the orders, or with the agreement, of the Liberal Government of the time. Sussex police officers were not involved.

Mary was bed-ridden for three days following Black Friday then returned to London to protest about police conduct. She was advised by a friend not to go, because she was ill and for fear of further violence towards her. She wrote in explanation:  “I had to protest somehow: You would not have me a shirker”. 

Mary was arrested after breaking a window in Cannon Row Police Station, where her sister Emmeline Pankhurst was being held. It was her first illegal act, apparently undertaken as an act of loyalty to other women already under arrest. She told the Constable who arrested her: “I voted that the deputation (to Parliament) should go, and am morally as responsible as they are. If they are guilty of wrongdoing so am I, and I mean to share their punishment.”

She was imprisoned for a month and died two days after her release on Christmas Day 1910.

Mary was loved and respected for her gentleness and calm commitment to non-violence, as well as her good-humour and personal courage in the face of attack. Even her opponents admired her courtesy, quick wit and bravery. She was a survivor of an abusive marriage, which she was forced to flee more than once before finally freeing herself. Thereafter she devoted herself to the suffrage movement, her self-confidence slowly growing.

In the last eighteen months of her life, she led the movement in the south east, working as the paid Organiser for the Women’s Social and Political Union, based and living in Brighton, but campaigning across Sussex and Hampshire. 

Mary would have been amazed and proud to have seen a woman elected as Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner (with another appointed as Chief Constable). No doubt this modest and self-effacing woman would have been stunned to learn that the Commissioner  and at least three of Sussex’s female MPs – Maria Caulfield, Caroline Lucas and Sally-Ann Hart – support the campaign for her statue, in common with Brighton & Hove’s male MPs, the entire City Council and countless local people.

Cllr Alan Robins, the Mayor of Brighton & Hove received it on behalf of the Appeal and the people of Brighton & Hove in a brief socially-distanced ceremony on the evening of Friday 11 December 2020 at Brighton Town Hall. A more elaborate event to welcome the figure had had to be cancelled.

The Mayor thanked Denise Dutton saying he was “honoured” to receive the maquette. Chair of Trustees Jean Calder also thanked Denise for the maquette and expressed gratitude to the Council for its support and generosity in helping to fund the maquette and the planned statue. Jean also conveyed the Appeal’s thanks to the Mayor for his “unstinting support”.

The next day, on the 12 December 2020, the charity’s trustees met the sculptor once again to launch its Christmas Appeal, aimed at funding the next phase of the campaign. The time-limited appeal will last from 12th December to the 31st January and will aim to raise £5,000 in the first instance as  “A Gift for Mary”.  

December was a very significant month for Mary. Born in December, she spent her last birthday in Holloway Prison. Released on 23rd December 1910, she died of a brain haemorrhage on Christmas Day.

The maquette represents Mary released from prison, in Brighton, a day or two before her death. 

She wears a suffragette sash and on her left arm carries a last few copies of Votes for Women, the suffragette newspaper she regularly sold in Brighton. The front page of the November 1910 issue depicts the events of ‘Black Friday’, when, a few days before she was arrested and imprisoned,  she and hundreds of other women were assaulted by police. 

Mary wears the Hunger Strikers’ medal and walks with gentle dignity over the implements used in forcible feeding, which are imbedded in the surface of the plinth. Her clothing, accurate for the period, subtly references her background as an artist, her love of flowers and her time in prison. She gestures towards a lamp at her feet which she has placed there for others to pick up. This refers to the words of Isabella McKeown spoken after Mary’s death “Her they must not mourn in silence. They must take the torch from her and light the darkness…”.  Mary’s hand is positioned low, so that children can hold it.

A low plinth carries the above quotation from Isabella McKeown and others from  Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and Mary’s sister Emmeline Pankhurst – as well as Mary’s own courageous words: “I am glad to pay the price for freedom..”

Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence’s statement about Mary as the “..first woman martyr who has gone to death for this cause..”, provides another iconic quotation on the sides of the low plinth, while Emmeline Pankhurst’s moving words: “She is the first to die. How many must follow…” are etched into its surface, curving around the line of the feeding tube embedded in the bronze. 

Those wishing to give a special ‘Gift for Mary’ can do so online via Local Giving or PayPal. Please invite your friends to visit our website or go directly to https://localgiving.org/charity/mary-clarke-statue-appeal/ or https://www.paypal.com/gb/fundraiser/charity/3881341. If they wish they can send cheques to The Mary Clarke Statue Appeal, c/o the Regency Town House, 13 Brunswick Square, Hove BN3 1EH. 

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 of which depict Mary’s whole body. In addition to that, we set her the difficult task of depicting someone who was both frail and self-effacing, but at the same time, strong and formidably brave, a shy leader, a ‘martyr’ with a wry sense of humour.

We asked Denise to tell the story of Mary’s life and death, expressing her gentle dignity and calm strength as well as her courage and determination. The agreed design depicts Mary after leaving prison, two days before her death. She gestures towards a lamp at her feet which she has left for others to pick up. Her hand is held low, so that children can hold it and pose for photographs (we suspect many will want to rub the lamp and make wishes). The lamp references the statement by Isabella McKeown, made at Mary’s memorial meeting in the Royal Pavilion. She said “Her they must not mourn in silence. They must take the torch from her and light the darkness…”

Mary wears a suffragette sash and on her left arm carries a last few copies of Votes for Women, the suffragette newspaper she regularly sold in Brighton. The front page of the November 1910 issue depicts the events of ‘Black Friday’, 18th November 1910, when she, like so many other women was injured by police violence. Mary was deeply distressed at the suffering of women that day, many of whom were subjected to sexual abuse.

Mary wears the Hunger Strikers’ medal and walks across the implements used in forcible feeding, which she ignores and which are imbedded in the surface of the plinth. Her clothing, accurate for the period, subtly references Mary’s background as an artist, her love of flowers and her time in prison. The pattern on the skirt includes the ‘prison arrow’ which was used on convicts’ clothes and was carried with pride on suffragette banners.

The low plinth carries Mary’s words “I am glad to pay the price for freedom..”, with the above quotation from Isabella McKeown, as well as Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence’s statement that Mary was the “first woman martyr who has gone to death for this cause.”  Just days after Mary’s death, her grief-stricken sister Emmeline Pankhurst wrote: “She is the first to die. How many must follow…”. Those words will be on the surface of the plinth, curving around the line of the feeding tube embedded in the bronze, bringing the two sisters together.

This was the text of the Oration delivered at Mary Clarke’s Memorial meeting in Brighton. It is a heart-rending speech, made by Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, a woman  who knew Mary well and who, with Emmeline Pankhurst, was one of the outstanding leaders of the suffrage movement. It identifies Mary as an influential and well-loved leader of the movement, while conveying anger, grief and huge respect for Mary’s  contribution. It gives a real sense of  Mary’s warmth and gentleness as well as her formidable bravery. Grateful thanks to our Patrons June Purvis and Elizabeth Crawford for sending copies of the Obituary in a legible form (Votes for Women on line is not easy to read!). I’ve retyped it, so any errors are mine.

The Utmost for the Highest 

A Memoir By Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.” Mary Clarke laid down her life for the most deeply wronged, the most cruelly bound of all the human race. She died for those women numbered in this land of ours, and in all lands of the Earth, by the thousand thousand; women to whom death would be merciful, so cruelly used have they been by man and by man-made law. These defenceless and voiceless ones were  “her friends”. Because of the great compassion for them that was in her heart she faced ridicule, blows, brutal usage by roughs, the handling of the police, and three imprisonments. For them she paid (to use her own words) “the price of freedom”. Glad to pay it – glad though it brought her to her death.

I vividly remember seeing her suddenly in prison. She had gone with two or three others to knock at Mr Asquith’s door. Some weeks later I was myself arrested for attempting to take a petition to the House of Commons, and went for two months to Holloway Gaol. On the first morning I heard  a low voice speaking my name. I turned round, and it was some seconds before I recognised her in the disfiguring criminal garb. It seemed to me especially shocking to see that frail, refined, sensitive woman, clad in so coarse and grotesque a way, “numbered” amongst the depraved, for, of course, she was wearing the prison badge. Her face wore that look of extreme patience and extreme gentleness which was it’s habitual expression in repose. In that dreary place of despairing souls she seemed indeed a “Prisoner of Hope”.

It was her second imprisonment. The first time she had been arrested as a member of the deputation that sought to interview the Prime Minister in the “People’s House“. For the third and last time she endured that experience which, as she expressed it in her speech two days before she passed from us, stamped fast and indelible the “purple, white and green” upon the soul of every woman who went through it. She referred to herself as dyed, double-dyed and thrice dyed a suffragette by the baptism of imprisonment.

Beside that vision of Mrs Clark in prison I have another specially clear remembrance of her. This was at the first informal meeting of the WSPU in London, February, 1906, when we originally formed a London committee. Mrs Pankhurst was there, Mrs Drummond, Sylvia Pankhurst, Annie Kenney, Mrs Clarke and one or two others beside myself. From that little meeting the entire Movement in London and the entire National Movement sprang and developed. During all those years Mrs Clarke has been identified with it.

She was naturally so quiet, so shrinking that, when the way cleared for her to devote her whole time to the work and when the post of Organiser was offered to her, she could not believe that she would be able to fulfil the onerous duties of leadership. She quickly became a remarkably successful organiser, winning the love and confidence of members wherever she went, inspiring courage and devoted service, dominating the rough elements that are always found in election crowds, quelling the brutality of Liberals of a baser sort, roused to fury by party fanaticism as they realised the damage done to their side by her lucid argument and persuasive speech.

In that frail and delicate woman’s body there was an indomitable spirit and courage past belief. No stress of weather, no intimidation or actual violence could deter her. She would hold at election times and at other busy seasons, three or four open-air meetings a day, day after day, standing in the rain so long as people would listen. A Brighton member writes that once a mob of young men surrounded her and refused to let her past. She reasoned with them at first, but when she saw they were determined to detain her she began to read her paper Votes For Women as if she had been in a drawing room. Seeing her so indifferent and unperturbed the youths got tired of this noble sport of woman-baiting, in which they have been so conspicuously encouraged by those in high places, and slunk away in small groups. 

She was on several occasions very much knocked about, and some of her young workers were inclined to strike out in her defence, but she always restrained them. A Brighton member writes:  “Once some roughs tried to pull me off the van by my coat, and I wanted the whip to hit them off, but she would not let me have it, offering to change places with me. Of course I refused.“

We extract from an appreciative article in the Sussex Daily News a testimony to her habitual sweetness of temper: “Her ability as a speaker is well known by the hundreds who have listened to her earnest addresses on the Front, for she was the most indefatigable organiser of the Brighton Branch of the WSPU. Of heckling Mrs Clarke could stand a great deal. Though jeered at, mocked and ridiculed, her face wore always a sweet smile, and she was quite ready and willing to answer any reasonable questions put to her.”  “She realised one’s ideal of courage and gentleness,“ writes one of her workers.

Mrs Clarke was greatly distressed by the terrible scenes she witnessed on Black Friday. She could stand ill usage herself, but could not bear to see others victimised. The tears were streaming from her eyes as she watched the women flung like footballs between the police in uniform and the organised mob of roughs led on by plainclothes offices of the force. She determined there and then to take part in any further action that might be necessary. But she became ill on her return to Brighton, and was obliged to keep her bed all the following Sunday and Monday. Her members  implored her not to come up on the Tuesday. At last she promised one who loved her with great and special tenderness that she would not run the risk of being knocked about, but would choose another method of making a protest against the way the deputation had been treated. When she heard that the Tuesday deputation had been arrested she said, “Prison is the only place for self respecting women”. She calmly put a stone through the window of the police-station, saying to the constable who arrested her, “I voted that the deputation should go, and am morally as responsible as they are. If they are guilty of wrongdoing so am I, and I mean to share their punishment.“ She wrote to the friend who had implored her not to expose herself to violence, “I had to protest somehow; you would not have me a shirker.“ When her sentence was pronounced she telegraphed to her Brighton members, “One month. I am glad to pay the price for freedom“. In her letter to them from prison she said, “At 9 o’clock every night I shall be singing ‘To Freedom’s Cause Till Death’.”

The price has been paid – paid to the full. Mrs Clarke is the first woman-martyr who has gone to death for this cause. And quickly upon her footsteps has followed Henria Williams, another victim of Black Friday. How many more lives must be laid down, how many more of the best and noblest of the daughters of the people will be sacrificed before an elementary act of justice and reparation is done to the womanhood of the country? There will be no holding back of the women of this Union. Inspired by the example of our “saints“ there will be an eager desire to press forward, cost what it may. One letter is typical of the general feeling that animates the Union: “Somewhere I’ve read that ‘we mourn best when we do what the dead desire.’ I wish to go on the next deputation.“

“The last thing we did“ writes one of her fellow prisoners released earlier, “when we left Holloway  was to call up ‘Good luck and goodbye’ to her window. She has had good luck, for death has honoured her.“ “I grieve with you,“ says another member of the last deputation. “I would that a worn out brush like myself might have paid the price.“ “Her work is by no means done.“ Another writes, “By her example many others will try to follow in her footsteps.“ Again and again recurs in  the letters received at headquarters the acknowledgement “We realise that she literally laid down her life.” From Ireland comes a letter from one who was released with Mrs Clarke: “In ancient Ireland the monument to the beloved and respected dead was made by the friends bringing one stone each to the mound, and the size of the accumulated pile showed the number of the friends. Truly, did ancient custom prevail amongst us, her cairn would rise like unto one of those hills single “‘from which come as our strength’.“

A working girl sends a verse from (“Poems by the Way”) William Morris:

“Here lies the sign that we should break our prison,
Amid the storm she won a prisoner’s rest,
While in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen
Gives us our day of work to win the best.”

On the day of her release from Holloway Prison she spoke, with eyes shining with happiness, of her joy in the welcome given to her and those with her, adding, “If only it were not for the thought of those we have left behind!“

I remembered those words as I stood with the mourners at her grave side. Again she had found the joy of release. She had passed now and for ever out of the human power of those who hate Justice and keep Liberty in chains. Was the joy of her free spirit touched with sorrow for us whom she had “left behind“?

We may be sure that those whom she left in prison, who are still in prison and will be for many days to come, have no thought of pity for themselves. They have their work to do “to win the best“. 

That thought is our inspiration also. Writing from prison to a girl whose youth prevented her from taking part in militant work, she said: “I wish you would hold a meeting on the Front as my deputy. Never mind about being too young. Tell them that while the old are in jail the young ones must do their work.“ The spirit of that instruction is the spirit of Mrs Clarke‘s message to young and old in this Union. Those who have held aloof hitherto or have refused the ultimate sacrifice must come forward now as her “deputy“. 

Upon her last resting-place lies a laurel wreath, and upon it is inscribed those words which she telegraphed from the police court: “ I am glad to pay the price of freedom.“ This was sent as a tribute from the Brighton members. Upon a wreath of lilies and palms sent by the members of the Headquarters Committee, were the lines:

“The Spring will come, though we must pass
Who gave the promise of its birth.“

There was no singing at the grave side, for owing to the breakup of the holidays the funeral was private, and but few were able to be present. 

I would that we could have sung our marching song:  

To Freedom’s Cause till death 
We swear our fealty,
March on, march on! Face to the Dawn,
The Dawn of Liberty.

Also the one and only hymn adequate to the occasion –  the Church’s victory song:

Oh blest Communion! Fellowship Divine, 
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine, 
Yet all or one in Thee, for all are Thine, 
Alleluia!

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)