International Women’s Day is celebrated on 8 March. It’s a day to commemorate the long fight for gender equality and women’s rights, and to reflect on the ongoing disparities and the steps that society can take to help overcome them.
The UK has been home to many of the most influential and inspirational women in history, and Sussex is not short of places to pay homage to some of their memories.
Read on to discover four of them.
1. Virginia Woolf, Monk’s House
Virginia Woolf is one of the UK’s most influential authors and a key figure in the 20th-century modernist movement and the Bloomsbury Group.
Her novels, like Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, are staple texts in literature classes, and her essay A Room of One’s Own became a central work in the feminist movement in the latter half of the century.
After leaving London, Woolf and her husband Leonard moved to Sussex and lived in a few different residences before settling in Monk’s House in Rodmell, just south of Lewes.
Woolf lived at Monk’s House until her suicide in 1941, and Leonard stayed there until his death many years later.
Today, the house is a museum that pays homage to Woolf and other writers and artists of the Bloomsbury Group. Visitors can explore the rooms where she wrote, wander through the garden she loved, and enjoy some of the art contemporary to Woolf that informed much of her thought and work.
2. Margaret Bondfield, Hove
Margaret Bondfield was a British Labour Party politician and activist for women’s and workers’ rights. In 1929, she became the first woman to be a cabinet minister in the UK government and the first to be a privy counsellor, when she was appointed Minister of Labour.
Bondfield was also a suffrage campaigner. However, unlike many others in the movement, she advocated extending the vote to all adults, rather than the “on the same terms as men” agenda, which limited male voting rights by property ownership.
Bondfield started her professional life in Hove, East Sussex. She worked as an apprentice at a draper’s shop, which is where she was first inspired to dedicate her life to advocating on behalf of workers.
There is now a blue plaque commemorating Bondfield at 14 Church Road in Hove, just above the shop she used to work in. The road runs parallel to the seafront, making it a great place to visit on a longer walk along the Kingsway promenade.
3. Gertrude Jekyll, West Dean Gardens
Gertrude Jekyll was a British horticulturist and garden designer who created over 400 gardens across the UK, Europe, and the US. She is regarded as one of the most influential designers in the modern world, and some of her best-known work lies in Sussex, including West Dean Gardens.
West Dean Gardens is a botanical garden near Chichester in West Sussex. Famed for its apple orchards, glasshouses, pergolas, and stunning views of the South Downs, the Gardens are open to the public and offer gardening courses as well as arts events and regular visits.
Jekyll designed many of the features at West Dean, including the famous water garden to the west of the main house.
Her planting style at West Dean reflected her approach of creating naturalistic yet highly detailed and structured layouts, filled with colourful layers and wild textures.
Today, you can still experience Jekyll’s vision, and West Dean Gardens offers one of the best places to do so.
4. Gluck (Hannah Gluckstein), Pallant House
Gluck (born Hannah Gluckstein) was a British painter who was famed for her portraits and floral paintings. Gluck rejected traditional feminine norms and insisted on being known by her preferred mononym rather than her birth name.
At a time when anything that wasn’t considered heteronormative was inadmissible and censored, Gluck was well known for her rebellious androgyny.
Gluck’s sometime partner was a married woman called Nesta Obermer, and it was she who introduced Gluck to Sussex. Indeed, many of Gluck’s paintings from the 1930s feature settings in Sussex landscapes, some of which include her and Nesta embracing.
The Pallant House Gallery in Chichester is home to many of Gluck’s works and is a leading museum of modern British art.
The gallery has played a key role in preserving and celebrating Gluck’s legacy, and displays several of her paintings that portray the Sussex landscapes in her own distinct style.
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Please note
This article is for general information only and does not constitute advice. The information is aimed at individuals only.
All information is correct at the time of writing and is subject to change in the future.
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