Statue for Lady Rhondda: Part of the Monumental Welsh Women

The Statue for Lady Rhondda campaign is led by a steering group of local women & enthusiasts raising funds for a monument to Newport’s famous daughter, Margaret Haig Mackworth, Lady Rhondda. The total estimated cost will be £90,000.00, to include planning, commissioning and unveiling.

A donation of £50 or more will result in a your name being included on the statue/plinth (subject to terms & conditions*). N.B. Naming closes 15.04.2024 due to artist/casting requirements.

We are part of the Monumental Welsh Women campaign, set up in 2018, to fund-raise for 5 new pieces of public art across Wales over 5 years. The intention is for a Lady Rhondda statue to be sited in a prominent position in Newport, Gwent.

Welsh Government have donated £20k towards our Lady Rhondda fund and we now need to raise the remainder. The money will be used to gain planning consent, commission an artist and to produce and install the statue. 

In 1908 Lady Rhondda, set up the Newport branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union (Suffragettes), and remained its secretary for the whole of its five and a half years’ existence. She was an international business woman, survivor of the Lusitania, founder and editor of what was acknowledged by many as the inter-war’s most significant weekly paper, ‘Time &Tide’, a feminist activist and prominent political campaigner. She founded the Six Point Group to promote the rights of women and children, echoing the six points of the Chartist's famous People's Charter a century before.

Lady Rhondda went to prison for her Suffragette activism, when she set fire to a post-box in Newport as part of the national campaign for Votes for Women. As well as being a suffragette before the First World War, during the inter-war period she was one of the leaders of the campaign that finally resulted in the Equal Franchise Act of 1928. 

Lady Rhondda's portrait now hangs in the Houses of Parliament, following her attempt to be the first woman to take her seat in the House of Lords, and her photo also features on the 2018 Millicent Fawcett statue in Parliament Square.

Lady Rhondda was one of five outstanding women in the BBC Wales Hidden Heroines  programme, linked to the Monumental Women Campaign.

Lady Rhondda was a rebel woman who deserves a permanent memorial in our rebel city - join in, together we can do it!

Find out more about Lady Rhondda:

Angela V. John's biography, Turning The Tide

The Dinner Puzzle website

Lady Rhondda's portrait in Parliament

Winding Snake's Bird in a Cage project

BBC Wales Hidden Heroines programme

Welsh National Opera: Rhondda Rips It Up!

The Blue Plaque on Risca Road, Newport

*The following terms & conditions apply for the 'rewards' of 'names' to be included on the statue plinth:

1. A donation of £50 or more will result in the donor being given the option to have a 'name' included somewhere on the statue/plinth as a 'reward'.

2. Donors should contact us by email to statueforladyrhondda at gmail.com to confirm the name they wish to have added, if it differs from the name stated on the donation, by a deadline of 15.04.2024.

3. Failure to contact us by the deadline date will result in the name on the GoFundMe donation being used.

4. Donors should ensure they give correct spelling of names on their donation/email to avoid mistakes on the final design. 

5. The inclusion, size and location of the 'name' will be subject to the design decision of the artist and the steering group, pending the commissioning of the artist and securing planning permission.

6. Maximum 30 characters per 'name' including spaces and punctuation;

   e.g. "Margaret Haig Mackworth" or "John & Jane Davies-Jones" or "John Davies & Jane Jones"

7. This reward is limited to the first 100 donations of £50 or more.

8. Offensive language or profanity will not be accepted as the 'name', and will result in your 'name' not being included in the statue/plinth design.

9. The decision of the steering group as to what constitutes offensive language or profanity will be final. 

10. We will do our best to include the first 100 names on the statue design, however if for any reason the design limitations or planning permission restrictions result in the inability to include any or all of the names on the statue/plinth, then no alternative reward will be made and the donation will not be returned to the donor.