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.

committed and generous than Penny Iveson, someone many local people will remember as a brave and life-long campaigner for women’s rights.

Very sadly Penny died last week at the age of eighty, after a long struggle with cancer that tragically affected her sight and balance and stripped her of her once confident stride. She lost the wild beautiful hair that had been one of her most noticeable features and walked with a new hesitancy, but, as our Trustee Andy Winter has written, “cancer could not blunt that fighting spirit”.

Andy recalls Penny as I do “Tall, elegant with a shock of red hair falling below her shoulders, it wasn’t just her appearance that made an indelible mark. It was also the fire in her belly for social justice, particularly the rights of women, that is unforgettable.” You can read Andy’s Argus article about her here. https://wp.me/pDTWu-2kX?

In her later years, ill and struggling to see, Penny remained  full of fight. From time to time, we’d meet for lunch. We’d often argue. She gave and asked no quarter. 

Over the years Penny was active in almost all areas of feminist campaigning. She’d been a peace campaigner at Greenham Common, then went on to campaign against pornography (well before the internet) and all forms of misogyny and domestic and sexual violence. 

In her last year of life, she became fascinated by the story of Mary Clarke and our campaign to commemorate her and others like her. Penny was fierce in defence of any women or girl subject to sex-based violence – and she admired those, like the suffragettes, prepared to resist injustice and make personal sacrifices in so doing.

She leaves two wonderful daughters and for those of us that knew her, treasured memories. She was a bright star and it is hard to believe she has left us.

at a special council meeting at Hove Town on  Thursday 14 December 2023. This followed a wonderful Reception for trustees of the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal and supporters, hosted by the Mayor Jackie O’Quinn.

Briony Goulden, Mary’s great-great-niece, and a trustee of the Appeal, accepted the honour, assisted by her daughters Sylvie and Lena. The two girls are Child Ambassadors for the Appeal.

The award was unanimously agreed by all three parties represented on the Council. Briony received the official certificate on behalf of the Mary and our Appeal. She thanked the council for its support and assistance over the years, in particular for its help in funding our bronze maquette made by sculptor Denise Dutton to the design of the proposed statue. The maquette was on display in the Council Chamber along with our embroidered banner, a poster of Mary and a seven foot cut-out of the proposed statue.

There were many moving speeches. Cllr Bella Sankey, the Labour leader of the Council and a campaigner for women’s rights and safety, moved the motion to honour Mary. She said: “It is only thanks to women like Mary that I can stand here, that women like me can enter politics and continue the fight for women’s rights.”

She added: “There is still so much to fight for. I want this award to be the first step in celebrating her legacy”…. “I want every girl and woman in our great city to know about Mary Clarke and what she did for us.” Cllr Sankey said that she hoped one day to see Mary Clarke’s statue in the grounds of the Royal Pavilion and Conservative councillor Carol Theobald and others agreed. 

Councillor Theobald said: “Let us hope that the statue proposed for Mary for will come

to the Pavilion estate, as it is thoroughly deserved.” She recalled 2018, when the blue plaque for the WSPU was installed at the Quadrant, commenting correctly that it was a shame that:  “…Mary had not been recognised among the women’s suffrage campaigners who were commemorated on the plinth of Millicent Fawcett’s statue in Parliament Square.” 

Cllr Theobald highlighted the terrible violence Mary and her fellow suffragettes suffered at Black Friday, when so many were attacked and sexually assaulted.

Labour Cllr Amanda Grimshaw, who has long supported our campaign and is an active campaigner against domestic abuse, also made a moving speech. There was warm support too from Green Councillor Sue Shanks who said she hoped to see many more women given the freedom of the city.

Labour Cllr Alan Robins spoke passionately about the importance of the statue and

paid generous tribute to the campaigning work of the Statue Appeal. He especially highlighted the awareness raising work of the child ambassadors and the Mary’s Lamp girls’ group at Balfour School. Since the 2018 centenary, Cllr Robins has worked with us in advocating for suffrage plaques and the statue of Mary. He too supports it being erected in the Pavilion Gardens near the Museum to ensure it is seen by as many people as possible, especially children.

When Labour Councillor Mitchie Alexander rose to speak she surprised those present, not by making a speech, but by reading a very powerful poem she had written herself about Mary’s  importance to women.

With Cllr Alexander’s permission, we hope to get the text of that poem and post it on the website

Statements of support were also read from the city’s three members of Parliament, Caroline Lucas, Peter Kyle and Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the first two of whom are Patrons of the Appeal.

After the meeting, Jean Calder, Chair of Trustees commented: “Our fundraising has

been hard hit, first by the COVID lockdown and then the cost of living crisis. This wonderful honour has raised Mary’s profile once again and will provide a renewed boost to the campaign as it relaunches in 2024. We are so grateful to the Mayor, Cllr Sankey and others for all their help.”

“Given an  increase in foundry costs, including the cost of bronze, our target is now £60,000, of which we have raised £20,000, almost all of it from small individual donations.”

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. 

£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. 

Ambassador. She is River Isaac who is 8 years old and in year four at Balfour Primary School in Brighton.

We first came across River during lockdown at the height of the pandemic, when she and her mother Paula contacted our chosen sculptor Denise Dutton to ask if she could help with an online art lesson about the proposed sculpture. River had read an article about Mary Clarke during the Christmas holidays and wanted to know more about her. This led to an online interview with Denise Dutton and Jean Calder led by River’s class teacher Nick Huxley which was played to the class, all of whom were working from home. River also put together a PowerPoint presentation for the class.

River’s interest in the suffragettes is not new. Two years ago, River attended a class trip to Preston Manor at which the children were encouraged to dress up as Victorian or Edwardian servants. River dressed as a suffragette rather than a maidservant because she wanted to highlight the importance of women’s struggle to vote.

When the maquette of Mary was first displayed at the Jubilee Library, River was  amongst the first to view it, along with her mother Paula and sisters Esther and Kitty. Over the summer, River and her family supported fundraising events the Appeal held in the Pavilion Gardens – even in pouring rain. 

Jean Calder, who is the Appeal’s Chair of Trustees, said: “River has demonstrated her ability to influence others for the good. She has a thirst for knowledge, a love of outdoor activities and, young as she is, a track record of supporting local charities. We have been struck by her passion for women’s rights and equality, her enthusiasm to learn about the suffrage struggle and her keenness to inform others about it. This is why we asked her to be our first Child Ambassador. We are so glad she agreed.”

River says she has been inspired by the design of the statue, which, amongst other things, has a lamp placed at Mary’s feet and quotes local suffragette leader Isabella McKeown’s instruction to the grief-stricken women at Mary’s 1911 memorial service in the Royal Pavilion “not to mourn” but to “take the torch from her and light the darkness…”.

River said: “I want to be a part of the  Appeal.  Mary Clarke was the first suffragette so brave that she died for women’s right to vote. I think she deserves a statue to remember her. I want to pick up the lamp depicted in the statue, that Mary has laid down. I want to take it up and continue girls’ and women’s fight for equality.”

The trustees hope River’s appointment will encourage others to take up this role. They hope to appoint ambassadors in as many schools as possible, to raise awareness of Mary Clarke and the local suffragette movement, encourage related educational activities and spark discussion about women’s rights and democracy.

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.