Meet the women being honoured alongside Lady Rhondda in a statue of Monumental Welsh Women

  • ITV Wales' Andrea Byrne went to see the process for herself


Lady Rhondda is the latest Monumental Welsh Woman to get a statue.

But it won't just be of her- it will also feature the hands of around 40 women from Newport joined in a circle.

Olivette Otele is a Professor of History and is one of the women featured. While she was having her hand cast in plaster, she said it was "such an honour." to be asked to be a part of it.

"Beautiful energy- remembering that wonderful woman, Lady Rhondda, but at the same time all the woman who put their work into this project. I love it.

"Women in Newport- I'm very fond of them. Of course I am, I live in Newport.

She also said she hoped the statue, once it is unveiled, will help young girls "be able to see and recognise themselves and building up some strength, womanhood, and sisterhood."

Tracy is another lady being recognised. She volunteers with Pride in Pill, a community group helping people in Pillgwelly and further afield.

She said the experience was "a bit overwhelming, I didn't expect to be chosen, coming here today I feel quite honoured."

Former Wales footballer Helen Ward will also have her hand featured.

She said the project was "hugely important.

"Women are part of everything that happens in this world and only recently have we started to celebrate these sorts of things.

She said her part in the statue wasn't just about her, saying "It's representing women's football.

"It's about representing everyone else who has pulled on that red jersey and if that can inspire some young girls in the area to go and do the same then all the better."

The sculptor, Jane Robbins, said the idea to bring more women into the sculpture was about bringing the past into the present.

"I didn't want it to just be a figure of somebody from the past because what she did was very current, so the idea was I'd get woman of today in Newport- and the hands are all clasped, symbolising that Lady Rhondda's work with women and women's right continues.

"It's a symbol of women's unity, they're all holding hands, we've got a little girls hand, and the last hand is Lady Rhondda's hand."


Who was Lady Rhondda?

Lady Rhondda was born Margaret Haig Thomas in 1883.

She was a suffragette, spearheading the campaign for votes for women in Newport.

She set fire to a postbox that still stands on Risca Road in Newport.

She was the first woman to hold a hereditary peerage, but she was never allowed to take up her seat.

She was sent to prison and went on hunger strike.

She even survived the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, crediting the event for some of her activism.

She said, "what it did do was to alter my opinion of myself.

"I had lacked self-confidence…and here I had got through this test without disgracing myself. I had found that when the moment came, I could control my fear."


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