Greetings from Manchester!
We have just passed a resolution calling for the Government to establish a fund to celebrate the centenary of women securing the vote on equal terms with men in 2028.
We are supporting this petition which is now live on the Government petitions website.
Create fund to celebrate 100th anniversary of women fully achieving the vote - Petitions
Your support with this petition is greatly appreciated and we ask that you share it with all your networks.
This has already been raised with Bridget Phillipson, as Equalities and Women’s Minister, and Chancellor John Healey.
Please can Mumsnet members sign the petition and write to your local MP urging them to support this with written or oral questions in parliament?
We have also made a submission to the 28th October Budget process asking for the Chancellor to announce this fund when he speaks.
Attached is a photo of a statue of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst in St Peters Square Manchester, which was supported by a similar fund in 2017. The Council motion was proposed by Councillor Andrew Simcock and seconded by Councillor Angeliki Stogia, who are also photographed beside it.
Notes on the project
In the UK there are more statues of men called John than there are of women.
There are also more statues of animals than there are of women.
In 2014 there were statues of 17 men and one woman – Queen Victoria – in Manchester.
Emmeline Pankhurst was unveiled in 2018.
Since then a further five statues of men have been unveiled in Manchester but no women.
Brief history
In 1918 women finally secured the vote. But because of the World War One slaughter of so many men women outnumbered them. So whilst men had the vote at 21 years old, for women it was 30.
In 1928 the voting age was equalised at 21.
Sadly ,Emmeline Pankhurst died before seeing this come in for the 1929 General Election.
The statue of Emmeline Pankhurst is now the most popular in Manchester and is a Mancunian cultural icon, celebrated in all manor of promotional material such as cards sold in our own Central Library shop.
The other nineteen women who featured in that 2014 campaign has their own chapter in this book, First in the Fight.
Women such as Ardwick born Ellen Wilkinson, a Manchester city councillor who went on as an MP to lead the Jarrow march.
Anti-racism campaigner Louise da-Cacodia from Moss Side
Emily Williamson, who founded what is now the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds at her Didsbury home.
The Emmeline Pankhurst statue was partly financed from a fund created by then Conservative Chancellor Philip Hammond in 2017 to celebrate women winning the vote.
It’s worth noting that this money would be spent in the UK economy to support designers, sculptors, bronze foundries, quarry workers, stonemasons, city centre guides and many more. All of whom pay taxes in one form or another.
But it is also a wide ranging petition which suggests that this proposed fund could be used for all sorts of events celebrating the women of today too.
Many thanks for signing and sharing!