A statue of Salford Suffragette Mary Clarke is planned to be built in Brighton to recognise the work she has done for women’s rights.
There is currently a campaign to acknowledge Mary Clarke who was recognised to be Emmeline Pankhurst’s younger sister.
With enough funding, the statue will ‘’be a figurative, bronze sculpture, either life-size or larger, which will be in keeping with the environment’’ according to Jean Calder, the chairwomen of the appeal.
Campaigners have been asked by the Brighton and Hove City Council for a report on the appeal for the sufragette statue.
They need to present the report to research how the council can work with the appeal to raise £60,000 towards the statue.
Mary Clarke co-founded The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) who helped to implement women’s rights in the UK.
She lived in Brighton for a year before her death in 1910 and became an organiser for WSPU.
The WSPU’s slogan was ‘’Deeds, not words’’ which was demonstrated by hunger strikes and damaging property.
The suffragette was arrested three times and attended the notorious ‘Black Friday’ events where over 300 women were sexually assaulted by uniformed police officers.
Clarke died of a brain haemorrhage on Christmas Day 1910 following street violence and forcible feeding in prison.
After her death, Emmeline Pankhurst wrote “She is the first to die. How many must follow before the men of your party realise their responsibility?”
She was considered to be the first suffragette to give her life for women to have the ability to vote.
The statue has the support of campaigners who say that it would be “a symbol for the city of equality, democracy and women’s rights”.
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