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 U.N.’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women which is part of the U.N. Secretary General’s ambitious campaign, entitled UNiTE by 2030 to End Violence against Women. Launched in 2008, this is a multi-year effort aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls around the world. We recall that Mary experienced abuse in her marriage as well as aggression and violence from political opponents. 

This year we chose to mark it by asking the City Council to wear orange ribbons and hold a minute’s silence for local women whose lives have been lost to violence. The moving minute’s silence took place on 21st October, at a meeting of full Council, but discussion of an all party Notice of Motion on the subject had to be postponed until a meeting of the Tourism, Equalities, Communities and Culture Committee, co-incidentally scheduled for 25th November. 

Our newest Child Ambassadors, sisters Sophie (9) and Lena (6) Goulden Mackerron (who happen to be Mary Clarke’s great great great nieces) represented us at that meeting by asking public questions. Due to COVID they did so remotely. However,  before the meeting began, their fellow Child Ambassador River Isaac (8) attended in person, with her mother Paula,  to hand Mary’s Lamp to Councillors Steph Powell and Martin Osborne, Co-chairs of the Committee. The lamp stayed at Steph Powell’s side while responded to public questions and during the debate.

Sophie addressed the Committee with the following challenge:

“We are child ambassadors for the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal. Mary was brave and gentle and died for women’s rights. Suffragettes at Mary’s funeral were told they should not be sad, but take up her torch and light the darkness. We are taking up Mary’s lamp to  try to make things better. We know you are discussing violence against women later on. We want you to stop girls being bullied or treated disrespectfully, especially at school. Will you make sure that by the time we are grown up, this city will be a safe place for women to live?”

Lena then asked the following short supplementary question: 

“We are pleased you stand up for women’s rights and support the statue for Mary. When you meet the police will you tell them what we have said – and ask them to also support Mary’s statue.”

We are so proud of all our Child Ambassadors.

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.”