Oldham: Plaque marks newly uncovered birthplace of female suffrage

A plaque has been unveiled to commemorate what could be the birthplace of the women's suffrage movement.

The site of this historic event is a field in Lydgate, Oldham.

Unveiling the plaque, Oldham Council's leader, Arooj Shah, said: "Oldham has a history of radical thinking and deserves this recognition."

The plaque came about as a result of research on radical reform done by Helen Walton, from nearby Rochdale.

Ms Walton was studying for a masters in literature and arts and wrote a dissertation on how women were represented at the Peterloo Massacre. She discovered a book called Passages in the Life of a Radical, by Middleton-born radical speaker Samuel Bamford, which indicated that a meeting had been held in the field on 4 May 1818.

At that gathering, Bamford suggested women be given the right to vote in reformers' meetings, granting them equal status with men.

She and her colleague Danny Brierley, from Grasscroft, helped bring the details of the meeting to the attention of Oldham council, so that its place in British political history could be properly recorded and commemorated.

Its date was 85 years before Emmeline Pankhurst is credited with forming the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903 - but Ms Walton believes the seeds of change were first sown in this field in Oldham.

"According to historic accounts of the day, the women were laughing and slightly embarrassed. They couldn't have known that [this] was the embryo of change," she said.

Ms Shah said: "If it wasn't for the work of... Danny and Helen, people wouldn't understand the struggles that have [been] endured in the name of progress.

"It's cold and windy today as it was then. The weather they had is still with us, but so is the spirit of their sacrifice," she said.

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