Monumental Welsh Women project announces new statue

The Monumental Welsh Women Project has announced that it has commissioned their fourth statue to celebrate the achievements of Wales’ hidden heroines. The statue will be of Margret Haig Thomas, aka Lady Rhondda, an influential suffragette and will be created by sculpture Jane Robbins. The statue will be erected in Newport, where she campaigned and worked for over 40 years.  

The project celebrates the lives of women who contributed to the culture and history of Wales but have been overlooked because of the era in which they lived. Over the past few years, the project has campaigned on behalf of several influential women, erecting their first statue, dedicated to Betty Campbell, Wales’ first black headteacher, in Cardiff last September. Other statues that they have commissioned have included Elaine Morgan in Mountain Ash and Cranogwen.

Lady Rondda is the fourth Welsh heroine to get her story told by the project. Speaking to reporters, a representative from Monumental Welsh Women said: “Lady Rhondda’s achievements were vast and diverse, from her political campaigning to her pioneering business accomplishments, to her influential journalism.”

Lady Rhondda was born Margaret Haig Thomas, her father was 1^st Viscount Rhondda and she spent much of her early life at Llanwen House, her family home, near Newport before being educated in London and Scotland. Her mother had high hopes that she would become a feminist, which indeed she did. She returned to the Newport area after her schooling and married a landowner before joining the Women’s Social and Political Union, spearheading much of the campaign across South Wales. She took part in various protests and even once jumped on the prime ministers’ car! In 1913, she attempted to bomb a letter box which led to her arrest, she refused to pay a fine and was sent to prison but was released after going on hunger strike, something that she was given a medal for by the WSPU later.

As a suffragette, she campaigned hard for women’s rights and was a leading figure in the movement. She, along with two others, arranged the memorial for Emmeline Pankhurst and raised money for her gravestone and statue outside parliament.

Despite her elevated station, Lady Rhondda was not known to be ideal and during WWI when the suffragettes halted their campaign, she worked for her father who was very proud of her stance on equality. He even took her with him when he was sent to America by the British government to arrange the supply of munitions for the armed forces. It was on this trip, while travelling home on the RMS Lusitania that she was involved in a German u boat attack which sank the ship. Lady Rhondda spent a long period of time clinging to a piece of wreckage in the ocean until being rescued by a trawler, her father and his secretary were both blown overboard and managed to make it onto a lifeboat. Lady Rhondda was unconscious and suffering from hypothermia when she was recovered and spent several months recovering. After her recovery, she also worked to help refugees and to encourage women into work, even being promoted to Chief Controller of women’s recruitment by the Ministry of National Service where her advice was implemented into policy.

After her father’s death, the barony disappeared, however the title was passed to her by special remainder. Her father insisted that King George V grant his daughter the honour and this was upheld. Holding the title meant that she would be entitled to his seat in the House of Lords however this right was revoked as although women were allowed to take public office by 1918, membership to the House of Lords was altered. She campaigned for over 40 years to allow women to enter the Lords, something that was allowed shortly after her death thanks to the Life Peerages Act. On her father’s death, she also inherited his businesses and became director of over 30 companies. Her position as head of the firm as it where, gave her the ability to increase the number of women in business and lead to the creation of a networking organisation for British businesswomen. Her work in politics continued after WWI, and she was involved in a number of ministries and committees advocating for equal pay, status and opportunity for women.

In 1920, she founded Time and Tide, a left-wing feminist weekly magazine which she would edit. As her political views changed, so did the content of the magazine with it becoming increasingly right wing in the 1940s. For the last 25 years of her life, she lived with fellow editor and writer Theodora Bosanquet. Her statue is to be unveiled in 2024 and will be followed by one of Elizabeth Andrews, another political activist in 2025.

Monumental Welsh Women was founded to address the absence of statues of Welsh women and pans to honour five Welsh women in five locations around Wales in five years.