Plans to commemorate the “Chichester martyr” – but first a photo is needed

Former Mayor of Chichester Richard Plowman is working with Chichester sculptor Vincent Gray and the Record Office to get the project off the ground, ideally with a view to producing a statue of her in the city.

A photograph exists which is likely to be of Madge, but Richard and Vincent are hoping for confirmation. Even better would be a much clearer image of Madge who really rather disappeared from history after her campaigning work in Chichester.

“Back in 1905 she joined the Women's Liberal Association Chichester branch and she was out and about speaking at various meetings about suffrage”, Richard says. “She was also there when a very charismatic Australian actress called Muriel Matters came to Chichester with her caravan.”

Muriel moved to England in 1905 and joined the Women’s Freedom League soon after its inception. Muriel became Organiser in Chief for the WFL’s Caravan Campaign, and from May to October 1908, she brought the campaign to South Downs, including stops at Midhurst and Chichester – a story researched by Nichola Court, an archivist at West Sussex Record Office. A photograph shows WFL’s suffrage caravan, probably in a yard in St Pancras, Chichester, with Muriel Matters on the left and quite probably Madge Turner on the right, though it is not possible to be certain.

Nichola’s researches have uncovered an article in The Chichester Observer, June 3 1908, which gives an account of the first meeting in Chichester where ‘a crowd of several hundred had gathered and it was soon apparent that the majority were not sympathetic, for when Miss Metters [sic] got up to speak, there was a good deal of interruption. She spoke for about a quarter-of-an-hour, but hardly a word of what she said could be heard, and finding that it was useless to go on further, she declared that “under the circumstances” as the men would not allow her to speak she would be pleased to have “a special meeting for women.”

"Miss Metters and her supporters then left the steps to proceed to their caravan, which had been placed in Mr Grainger’s yard close by St Pancras Church, but they were immediately hemmed by the crowd (...) A portion of the crowd rushed up East Walls from where they could see the caravan which was then pelted, but the Suffragettes quickly put it under cover.”

Madge went on to be part of Chichester women’s Downing Street march, Richard says: “On that day she refused to be bound over and was sentenced to 14 days in prison in Holloway which gave her the name of the Chichester martyr. She disappeared from Chichester in the 1920s and I gather she went London but after that all the leads that we have for her have come to nothing. We have this image of her and we are confident that it is her but we're not absolutely certain and I would love to find an image so that Vincent can start to think about making the maquette so that we might one day have a statue. It's obviously early days.

"There is a long, long way to go but we hope there might be one or two leads somewhere. Perhaps there might be someone still around who was in the family or possibly we might find out more through the photograph itself which was taken by Winifred Turner who we are pretty certain was Madge’s sister. She was a professional photographer at that time. We think she may have had a studio in Bognor, but really for the moment we're a bit stuck.”

Richard is particularly keen to progress this given, as he says, women's part in history in Chichester is under-represented in terms of statues.

“We have got none of the women who played such an important part in the history of the city.” Anyone who can help should get in touch with Richard at [email protected].