Lady Rhondda

Margaret, Lady Rhondda, née Haig Thomas  (1883–1958) was an international business woman, Welsh suffragette and campaigner for gender equality. She joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1908 and became Secretary for Newport, where she lived. Imprisoned for trying to destroy a post box with a chemical bomb, she went on hunger strike and received the WSPU medal ‘for valour’. In 1915 she was rescued from the Atlantic, suffering with hypothermia after hours in the water when the Lusitania, the ship in which she was travelling, was torpedoed. The event is recorded in this statue by the plinth which takes the form of a ship’s prow.

On the death of her father his title passed to Lady Rhondda, but as a woman she struggled over many years to be allowed to take her seat in the House of Lords. Although she never achieved this, she campaigned for 40 years for female peers. Women finally took seats in the Lords in 1958, the year in which she died.

 Lady Rhondda was founder of Time and Tide magazine, which had an all woman board and staff.  Initially a weekly magazine,  under her editorship this became a prominent interwar literary journal publishing work by leading modern  authors. The statue shows her holding a rolled up copy. Lady Rhondda was highly successful in business and  was keen for women to enter the corporate world. In 1926 she was elected the first female president of the Institute of Directors.

This statue was erected due to a campaign by the not-for-profit organisation Monumental Welsh Women  in partnership with the Statue 4 Lady Rhondda group, The Waterloo Foundation and Studio Response. The circle of hands around the statue is cast from the hands of 40 present-day women. A symbol of recognition and solidarity with women in the past, who fought for equality.

Location: Eastern side, Millennium Footbridge, Newport, Wales.