Names on the buses

307 Mary Clarke

Connections with Brighton and Hove : Mary Clarke was the first suffragette to die for women’s right to vote. Born in Salford, Mary was artistic and designed and sold fancy goods. She managed to escape a marriage which was deeply unhappy and abusive and thereafter dedicated herself to women’s rights. With her sister Emmeline Pankhurst she was a founder member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). In 1909 she became WSPU Organiser for Brighton, campaigning and speaking at meetings, including in the Dome and Hove Town Hall. She boarded with Minnie Turner in Victoria Road and worked from the WSPU Offices near the Clock Tower. She was present on 18 November 1910 (“Black Friday”) when a peaceful march to Parliament was met by 6 hours of sexual assault and violence by police. Though injured, two days later she returned to London to protest about police conduct. She broke a window and was sent to prison for one month, where she went on hunger strike and was forcibly fed, a brutal activity, now accepted to be a form of torture. On Christmas Day 1910, two days after her release from prison, she died of a brain haemorrhage. Her Obituary called her the “first woman martyr who has gone to death for this cause.

307 Alexander Dennis Enviro - carried name since September 2019.