Staff and students from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David are marking the centenary of the beginning of votes for women by celebrating a historic pilgrimage originally undertaken by members of the women’s suffrage movement.
The event has been organised by members of staff from UWTSD’s Swansea College of Art. A group of 20 students will be celebrating a historic march taken by the Suffragists, a non-violent women’s suffrage group operating at the same time as the Suffagettes, by conducting a re-imagined pilgrimage that will end up at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. The march will begin on the 29thApril and finish the next day, when the group will be met by Julie James AM. It will be followed by an exhibition in the Mission Gallery in Swansea and a spoken word performance by the Swansea-based group Poets on the Hill.
Clare Bottomley is a Lecturer in Photography in the Arts at UWTSD and a key organiser of the event. She said:
“The original pilgrimage was a one-off event that happened in 1913. It was a UK-wide event in which women marched on London. The South Wales contingent began in Cathays in Cardiff, joined the march that was coming from Land’s End and marched to London as one. We wanted to re-imagine this pilgrimage. It is our belief that one of our roles as an educational centre is to promote this conversation.”
The group’s pilgrimage will begin in Merthyr Tydfil, making its way along the Taff Trail to Pontypridd. They have invited local women’s groups, such as political activist groups and branches of the Women’s Institute to join them. Along the way, the group is going to make a record of their discussions which they will then present as a manifesto for equality at the Senedd the following day.
They will also be making visits to sites of significant historical interest such as Aberfan, to visit the memorial of the 1966 coal mining disaster. Clare said:
“We’re starting in Merthyr because of its history as the industrial centre of Wales. The Taff Trail follows the Glamorgan Canal, the bloodline that took the coal from the Valleys to the docks in Cardiff. It feels like we’re modernising as we’re making our way through the South Wales valleys. Stopping at Aberfan is going to be poignant, because it is the site of an industrial disaster that was a direct result of the industrialisation that was taking place and, unfortunately, it was women and children who were the direct victims of that.”
The following day, the group will be taking the train to Cathays, where they will be continuing their pilgrimage by following the route taken by the original march in 1913. The route will take them from Cathays, through Queen Street in the centre of Cardiff and past Cardiff Castle. They will then make their way to Cardiff Bay to be be received by Julie James AM, where they will be presenting a manifesto that they will be creating along the way. There will also be a performance by Cardiff-based choir Songbirds.
The event will be captured on photography and film which will be displayed in an exhibition in Swansea’s Mission Gallery. The exhibition will open on 7thMay and run until 8thJune, and all are welcome to attend.
