From a rejected blue plaque to a statue campaign, a landmark museum exhibition and a powerful collaborative flag created with four local charities.
In Chichester, a project that began with one woman’s frustration is now becoming something far bigger: a growing movement to put women back into the story of the city: not as a footnote, but as a visible, physical, permanent presence. It started, as Francesca Tambling (founder of Chichester Women’s History Group) tells it, when a blue plaque application in 2016 in respect of women’s suffrage commemorations was refused by the City Council.
What might have ended as a closed door became, instead, the catalyst. Francesca went away and researched “something like 45 other women” with connections to the city. Among them, she discovered Ethel Margaret ‘Madge’ Turner (1884–1948), Chichester-born, a member of the Women’s Freedom League, and, crucially, a lifelong campaigner for women’s and children’s rights.
“I presented the list of names to The Novium Museum,” Francesca explains, “and they said they’d like to do an exhibition on it, which is great. And then somebody said, ‘Can we have a statue of Madge?’ And I thought, well, that’s a great idea, not really knowing what it would involve.”
That moment, the casual suggestion of a statue, is now the spine of a multi-part programme that includes: a public sculpture campaign, a two-years-in-the-making exhibition (ChichestHER: Their Story, Our Inspiration which will uncover, celebrate, and share the stories of remarkable women from across Chichester District), a network of community talks and workshops, and a striking textile flag created collaboratively with women supported by four Chichester charities.
“They don’t give a reason,” Francesca says of the blue plaque refusal. “They just said no. But the good thing about it was, it annoyed me so much… they did me a favour.” Since then, she notes, more plaques for women have been awarded locally, but the imbalance remains stark. “We will have five blue plaques for women, but there are something like 20 for men. So we’ve still got 15 more to go to catch up.”
Why Madge and why now
For Francesca, the project sits at the intersection of memory, education and visibility. “If you look back in history and at statues and blue plaques,” she says, “it looks as though there were no women in the world, and they just suddenly appeared out of nowhere.”
That erasure isn’t merely symbolic. It shapes what children learn, what communities celebrate, and what a city unconsciously communicates about whose lives mattered. “I don’t know if you realise,” Francesca says, “but the school’s curriculum is just 12% about women. That means 88% of history taught in schools now is about men.”
It’s one reason she believes a statue matters, not as decoration, but as correction. A figure in bronze on a street corner becomes a daily reminder: women were here; women acted; women changed things.
A statue by a woman
When the idea of a statue became real, Francesca had one clear principle: it should be made by a female sculptor. “The situation with statues in England, as everywhere else, is that they’re mainly statues of men by men,” she says. “We wanted a female sculptor.”
Enter Kate Viner, local public artist and sculptor, described by Francesca as “recommended” and quickly essential. Kate produced a maquette (a small-scale model of the proposed sculpture), which Francesca calls “absolutely brilliant”, and which the city council funded. Kate’s practice sits naturally with Madge’s story. “I’m a public artist,” she explains, “and predominantly I’m a figurative artist. My concerns are around human narratives, the intersection of religions and women and war.”
Madge, she says, was immediately compelling, not only as a suffrage figure, but because of what she stood for. Kate draws a distinction that matters, “What’s really interesting about Madge, and the difference between suffragists and suffragettes and the Women’s Freedom League, is that they wanted the vote for all women, not just privileged women, not just middle-class white land-owning women, and that was quite radical.”
For Kate, it isn’t simply a history project. It’s contemporary. It’s about rights and dignity now and about who gets to feel seen in public space.
The exhibition: “You’ve never had an exhibition about women”
Alongside the sculpture campaign, the project expanded through The Novium Museum. Francesca “went to the Novium Museum and said to them, ‘You’ve never had an exhibition about women… local women… and we’ve got a lot of very interesting local women.’. Since then, the museum has successfully secured major funding through the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The point of the exhibition is not simply to display objects. It is to change the frame: to treat women’s lives and achievements as central, not supplementary.
From sculpture to flag: “Dare to be free”
Then came a second artwork: a collaborative flag. Kate knew early on that Madge should carry one. The Women’s Freedom League used banners and flags, and Kate was drawn to the power of that imagery: a woman striding forward, holding something that declares belief and intent. But her next step is what turns this from a conventional commission into something much more participatory.
“Because I like to bring collaborative outreach projects into my practice wherever possible,” she explains, “immediately I started thinking these flags would have been sewn by women, and they would have all got together to do them.” So she decided to do the same with women in Chichester who “don’t normally get those opportunities”, and whose voices are rarely centred.
The flag project brought together women supported by four charities: Sanctuary in Chichester, Stonepillow, Lifecentre, and My Sisters’ House. Each has a different remit: refugees and asylum seekers; homelessness; domestic and sexual abuse support; rebuilding lives and yet, Kate notes something that became significant as the collaboration grew. “What I hadn’t understood,” she says, “is the four charities have a significant crossover in terms of funding and beneficiaries, but previously had worked independently. This project has brought them together to work as a community.”
The flag itself carries the Women’s Freedom League slogan “Dare to be free”, which Kate calls “a perfect logo” for the women involved and the project’s aim. Workshops were run across multiple venues, including the Cathedral, the Novium, Assembly Rooms and charity spaces, carefully structured with safeguarding and emotional safety in mind. “We really planned workshops,” Kate says. “We did icebreakers, mood boards, and a shared sketchbook. Although we have brought the groups together in many ways, each group worked separately, so they didn’t influence each other.” Therapists supported the process because, as Kate puts it, “creating art is intense… you can bring up trauma without intending to.”
The impact, she says, was visible, not in the polished output alone, but in what happened in the room. Women who arrived anxious began teaching and supporting each other. One small line in the shared sketchbook captures the tone: “Don’t be afraid — if sewing scares you, glue is your friend.”
Flowers, symbolism, and the next generation
Madge’s own interests have been woven into the project too. She wrote about British wildflowers, and the project is incorporating floral symbolism as part of the flag and the statue’s future setting. “On the ‘Dare to be Free’ side,” Kate explains, “we’re putting the national flowers of the countries of the women who have been part of this flag prject, sewn around the edges.” There’s also a plan to involve children, particularly those who are excluded from school or who are young carers, in creating floral designs that will embellish the base of the statue. It’s another way the project holds two truths at once: history matters, and the future does too.
What happens next: timelines and legacy
The statue has an ambitious target: 2028, marking 100 years since equal voting rights were achieved for all women in the UK. “That’s our target,” Francesca says. Funding is now a major focus; the group has been fortunate with private support so far, but the next stage requires momentum and public backing.
The flag is also moving into a new phase. Rather than casting the original textile (a process that would destroy it), Kate explains they chose preservation. “This work is too special,” she says. “So we’re 3D scanning it.” The intention is that the flag will have a long life: displayed, cared for, and used by the four charities and the wider community for future events.
And in the background, the movement to raise the profile of women and their role in our history continues to grow: through talks, exhibitions, school engagement and community conversations.
How to support the project
Francesca and Kate are clear: the work is now at the stage where funding and community support are crucial. “We’ve got to the stage where we need to get the money now,” they say.
If you would like to donate, visit: https://www.chichesterwomenshistorygroup.org/
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