Four new Blue Plaques for Ipswich women

Illustrations from The Women's History Festival Group website.

Exciting times are in prospect for the Blue Plaques with which the society adorns our town this coming autumn. Having received mild criticism from feminist groups for the lack of female candidates for the plaques since inception of the scheme at the turn of the millennium, we now look forward to four Blue Plaques being unveiled during the course of October.

The Ipswich Women's Festival Group, which aims to research and celebrate local women's achievements via their excellent website, in conjunction with the Society will oversee the unveiling in early October of plaques around the town.

Joy Bounds, who leads the women's group and Tony Marsden, Society Vice-Chairman and responsible for the plaques, have spent a great deal of time during the course of the year establishing the credentials of the women in question. With other members of the Festival Group, speedy activity has seen the compilation of data, lengthy negotiations for permissions and detailed discussions in two cases with the Borough Council on the exact placement of plaques themselves.

The role of the Society has been to sponsor this event and to support it fully, procuring the plaques and seeing the new Blue Plaques brochure into production ready for the unveiling.

On October 8th from 2 till 4pm a trail which starts from St Edmunds Road via Foundation Street ending up at the Cornhill will witness the celebration of, respectively the artist/illustrator Margaret Tempest, (Lady Mears); Nina Layard, the archaeologist; leading Ipswich suffragette Constance Andrews and Mary Whitmore MBE who was the first woman mayor in 1946.

Tony Marsden