'Mary Bamber - A Revolutionary Woman'

This mosaic sculpture, 'Mary Bamber - A Revolutionary Woman', by artists Carrie Reichardt and Nick Reynolds, is a tribute to the influential social activist and women's campaigner, Mary Hardie Bamber, 1874-1938. Mary, (mother of Labour MP, Bessie Braddock), was known an inspiring public speaker. She organised women workers, promoted socialism across Merseyside and supported the Women's Social and Political Union. The WSPU had been established in Manchester in 1903 by six women including Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. In Liverpool many working class women and socialists supported the more militant WSPU, as opposed to the NUWSS (National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies) and the Liverpool Society for Women's Suffrage (affiliated with the NUWSS) led by city councillor Eleanor Rathbone. The sculpture of Mary is covered in tiles printed with the names and roles of the women who contributed to the local Suffragette Movement. It was commissioned in 2010 as part of the Liverpool Discovers public art trail which documented some of the city's most significant historical and cultural achievements. It was displayed on St George's Plateau and became part of the collections of the Museum of Liverpool the following year.