Women and Children’s Rights Campaigner (1882-1960)
Rhondda Heritage Park Museum (former Lewis Merthyr Colliery), Coedcae Road, Trehafod, South Wales, UK
One of the most influential Welsh political activists of the twentieth century, Elizabeth marks the fifth and final women statue in the Monumental Welsh Women campaign, seeing 5 women statues in the nation unveiled over 5 years, thus ending a dearth of zero named (non- royal) women statues in Wales.
Born into a Welsh speaking family in the former mining village of Hirwaun in the Cynon Valley, Elizabeth originally aspired to be a teacher, but her ambition was thwarted at the age of 13 when she left school to help her parents support her 10 siblings. Upon marriage she moved to the Rhondda Valley and became involved in the Labour party and subsequent campaigns focusing suffragism, maternity and childcare as well as public health and education. Her work made her the first Labour Party Women’s Organiser for Wales and saw her translating English leaflets to Welsh to ensure Welsh speaking women, after the 1928 Equal Franchise Act knew their voting rights.
The statue is etched with Elizabeth’s rally cry of, ‘educate, agitate, organise’ and sees her standing on an upturned tin bath – highlighting her campaign to create pit-head baths for miners, where previously women were tasked with carrying back-breaking boiling vats of water in the home to prepare for coal dust washing when miners returned home, thus preventing scalding atrocities to women and children.
I arrive – as standard procedure – after the museum is closed, thus missing out on what looks like a great place to visit. Sigh, another time. Still, the museum site is open, allowing me access to take in a 360-degree wonder/wander (see what I did there?) around the statue and sit down next to the little child, based on a real girl – Rhona Allen who, likewise, was born into a large mining family, thus representing the generations of lives improved by Elizabeth’s tireless work in welfare, health and education.
