THE mayor of Darlington marked International Women’s Day by unveiling a blue plaque on the home of the town’s first woman councillor, who won her first election 130 years ago.
Councillor Jan Cossins unveiled the plaque on the wall outside where Clara Curtis Lucas lived in Abbey Road.
Ms Lucas (above) was a leading campaigner for women to get the Parliamentary vote, touring the North East and giving speeches, during which she received "a considerable amount of opposition".
In 1894, she became only the second woman in Darlington’s history to win an election when she was voted on to the board which ran the town’s schools, and then in 1915 she became the first woman councillor, representing the Cockerton ward.
“I’ve always been aware of Clara, especially as I am also a Cockerton councillor, and then in 2018, which was the 100th anniversary of the first women getting the vote, a rosette was placed on her photograph in the Town Hall, so when I became mayor, I really wanted to mark her contribution and International Women’s Day seemed the most appropriate time,” said Cllr Cossins.
“People like Clara inspire women and girls to fulfil their potential, potential which, in the past, has been thwarted because we have not had equality.”
The plaque is only temporary because it is hoped that Darlington is soon to introduce a scheme across the borough in which many of its historic people and places are commemorated with permanent blue plaques.
Before the unveiling, Cllr Cossins gathered some of today’s female councillors (above) who are following in Clara’s footsteps for a photo call in the Town Hall. She was joined at the unveiling by members of the town's Soroptimists.
The plaque is on the wall outside Fieldhead in Abbey Road, opposite the sixth form college playing fields. Clara built Fieldhead with her sister, Alice, around the start of the 20th Century, and she died there in April 1919, just a few months after she had been able to vote in a general election for the first time.
READ MORE: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF CLARA CURTIS LUCAS
Fieldhead was bought in 1981 by Colonel James Bradshaw, an army doctor based at Catterick, as his wife, Josephine, needed to be near the Memorial Hospital for treatment for her kidney problems. His daughter, Viveca, has been pushing to have a plaque on the house ever since reading about Clara in the Memories section of The Northern Echo seven years ago.
“Clara was a strong woman, like my mother who was on dialysis for 12 years, and now my sister, Sam, and I live here just like Clara and her sister lived here, so there are lots of parallels, and I just think it is really cool to have this connection,” said Viveca, a singing teacher who runs the Abbey Vocal Studios from the house.
“My mum was a spiritual woman and she used to say that she felt the presence of a woman in the bedroom even before we knew about Clara, so perhaps she was right.”
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