Shortlist drawn up for town's first ever female statue

As has previously been reported, a campaign is underway in the town for a female statue as currently all seven statues in Middlesbrough are of men.

Now a shortlist has been drawn-up and the public will be asked to vote for which woman associated with the town should have her likeness cast in metal.

The nominees include women from all walks of life including politics, suffrage, health and art.

They are: Alice Schofield Coates, Gertrude Bell, Marion Coates Hansen, Mary Jaques, Viva Talbot and Ellen Wilkinson.

People involved in campaign, called The Eighth Plinth, have promised that a fundraising campaign will start in earnest once the public has decided through the vote.

Campaign co-ordinator Emma Chesworth said: “There are many remarkable women who lived and do live in Middlesbrough and this campaign aims to highlight their tremendous achievements.

“All too often, women are erased from history and their achievements never known or given the recognition they deserve.

“I hope the public get involved, get voting and help start the process to see a female statue erected in the town.”

The campaign has the support of Middlesbrough Council. Middlesbrough Mayor David Budd said: “We have several statues in Middlesbrough in honour of some of the major figures in the town’s history but it’s currently an all-male club.

“That clearly ignores a number of women whose achievements are every bit the equal of their male counterparts, even though they might not be household names.

“I’m pleased to lend the council’s backing to this campaign, which will lead to greater understanding of their contribution to the town, and a fitting a tribute to one of their number.”

The seven men who have statues in Middlesbrough are footballers, Brian Clough, Wilf Manion and George Hardwick, pioneering industrialists Henry Bolckow, John Vaughan, industrialist and politician Samuel Sadler, and war hero Stan Hollis, the only man to receive a VC on D-Day.

Ms Chesworth said: "It's not saying for a moment that these men are not worthy. It's, as much as anything, about starting a conversation in our community. I'm sure there's other women people will want to see on the list and people will have their own views. We want people to get involved."

To find out more and vote see eighthplinth.com

The candidates:

Alice Schofield Coates:

Alice Schofield Coates was Middlesbrough's first woman councillor, elected shortly after the First World War when women got the vote. Born near Manchester, Alice Schofield Coates trained as a teacher. She moved to Middlesbrough and in 1909 became an organiser for the local branch of the Women’s Freedom League, which campaigned for equal rights for women. At one of her first meetings in Guisborough she was pelted with rotten eggs and tomatoes. She spent a month in jail after being arrested during a march with members of the suffragette movement on Downing Street. Joining the fledgling Labour Party she campaigned for improved public health and better homes. She died in 1975 aged 93 at Levick House on Cambridge Road.

Ellen Wilkinson:

Ellen Wilkinson was born into a poor Manchester family but went on to become Middlesbrough's first ever female MP in 1924, representing Labour. She is also famous for supporting the Jarrow Marchers later in her career. She visited the frontline several times in the Spanish Civil War and in the Second World War served in Churchill's Government. After the war she served in Clement Attlee's Government as Minister of Education and raised the school leaving age from 14 to 15. She died in 1947 when she was aged just 55.

Gertrude Bell:

Gertrude Bell, sometimes known as the 'Queen of the Desert,' was a legendary explorer and diplomat. Born in Redcar but strongly associated with Middlesbrough she played a pivotal role in the creation of modern day Iraq and had a significant impact on the Middle East at the end of the First World War when new countries and borders were drawn in the sand. She also worked tirelessly to protect ancient buildings and to establish museums and libraries.

Viva Talbot:

Viva Talbot is sometimes described as a 'steel artist,' for her work depicting the old steel mills of Teesside at a time when most women would not have had access to that world. She was the daughter of Benjamin Talbot (1864-1947), the inventor of the Talbot tilting furnace which transformed the open hearth method of producing steel. Her father moved to Teesside at the beginning of the 20th Century and many years later she became obsessed with the industry, making hundreds of historically important woodcuts depicting the steelmen's work. She later married a Lord and became Lady Nussey and moved to Rushwood Hall, near West Tanfield, Ripon, where she lived until dying in 1983.

Marion Coates Hansen:

Marion Coates Hansen was born in Osbaldwick sometime around 1870 but lived almost her whole life in Middlesbrough and nearby Great Ayton before dying in 1947. She was a feminist and women's suffrage campaigner, an early member of the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and a founder member of the Women's Freedom League in 1907. She is generally credited with having influenced George Lansbury, the Labour politician and future party leader, to take up the cause of votes for women when she acted as his agent in the general election campaign of 1906. After the First World War she took up local politics in Middlesbrough, became a local councillor in Middlesbrough, and was involved in housing reform and slum clearance.

Mary Jacques:

Sister Mary Jacques was vital in founding healthcare in Middlesbrough. She was called to the town after a boiler exploded at a works in 1858 injuring many men. At the time the population of the town was 15,000 but the nearest hospital was at Newcastle and some men died on the way there and two injured men had to stay in a stable. An appeal was made to the nuns at the Christ Church Sisterhood at nearby Coatham and Sister Mary came to the town to take action. She rented a cottage in Middlesbrough where injured men and the poor of the town could receive treatment. She eventually bought a house in Albert Road, where she lived with two other helpers and later, with financial help, bought two cottages in Dundas Mews and converted them into a Cottage hospital which contained eleven beds and a dispensary. The hospital opened in March 1859 and was the first cottage hospital in England. Details remain sketchy of other details of her life.