Published: April 23, 2019
I recommend the work of Elizabeth’s Group in promoting one of the unsung heroines of British suffragism. I am very proud to be Elmy’s biographer and to see her, at last, taking her rightful place at the heart of the history of women’s suffrage. Dr Maureen Wright.
Susan Munro, Chair of the Elizabeth Group, Congleton, writes for the Women’s Political Rights project about the group’s development, its inspiration and its current research.
It all began on International Women’s Day in March 2018 when Congleton Women’s Forum held a march through the town centre to commemorate 100 years since women got the vote. Following the march, a local librarian gave a talk about a suffragette who had lived in Congleton for more than 50 years.
A group of us were really excited by the story of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, whom we were hearing about for the first time. We went away to do some further research.
We discovered a brilliant, remarkable woman who was truly inspirational, but who was unknown and unsung. We called a meeting in April 2018 and discussed the possibility of some fundraising for a memorial or statue of her in the town and Elizabeth’s Group came into being. Since then the project has grown and taken shape into something which we hope will run for many years and have a huge impact.
We hope to carry out some research to track down Elizabeth’ work and get some of it into an accessible form on a website. We want to raise her profile in the community in Congleton and nationally. We have recently gained a Heritage Lottery Grant of £10,000 to do the research work and the community work, and we are continuing to raise funds for a statue. To date we have received grants and donations from several local charities and businesses and have raised almost £10,000 of the £60,000 we need for a high quality bronze statue by a known artist.
We discovered a brilliant, remarkable woman who was truly inspirational
– Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy
Our group has now gained charitable status and is a member of Congleton Partnership. We hold monthly stalls on local markets and have carried out presentations to local groups and schools. We have featured in the local press on numerous occasions, been filmed for a TV show, taken part in our local carnival and in ones in neighbouring towns. We also had a pop-up shop in the town centre on International Women’s Day 2019 with an exhibition loaned to us from Congleton Museum. We are working hard to identify other ways of networking, raising our profile and educating the community.
We are particularly interested in sharing Elizabeth’s philosophy to the young people in our community as we believe it is as important today as it was then. Issues around equality, education and relationships still challenge us and Elizabeth had so much to say on these topics. For example, domestic violence which is still an important issue.
Elizabeth can be a great role model for women of all ages and young girls in particular. It was encouraging that at a recent talk I gave in a local secondary school, the boys were just as interested as the girls and asked really sensible questions, we can challenge toxic masculinity just as Elizabeth and Ben tried to do.
The UK is heavily populated with statues but less than three per cent are of women, and most of those are of Queen Victoria. There is a move to address this by erecting a heritage trail of female statues across the country and we would want Elizabeth to feature in this in Congleton Town Centre.
We feel Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy is truly an unsung hero and the women of this country do not know how much they owe to her. We hope to change that.
Contact Elizabeth’s Group
Facebook page @elizabethsgroup (opens in new window)
Email Suzie Munro
Photo permissions: Elizabeth’s Group and Ricochet TV for Channel 5, which was filming the group in Congleton for the programme ‘Celebrity 5 go Barging: 2’.