 Hello, my name is Nicola and I'm one of the archivists at West Sussex Red Office. Today, in a video generated to celebrate International Women's Day 2021, and as part of our West Sussex Unwrapped Series 2 campaign, I'm going to explore the life of Ethel Margaret Madge Turner. Now most likely you've never heard of Madge, but I think her story is fascinating, and it illustrates the impact that their campaign for women's suffrage had on one women's life story. Madge was born in Chichester on the 24th of July 1884 to Edwin and Mini Turner, who ran a successful family groceries business at 26 and 27 South Street. Unfortunately, there are very few surviving records which document Madge's early life, but we know that she was a skilled artist and she enrolled at the New Chichester School of Art alongside the very famous Erika McDonald Gill and was awarded a certificate for a drawing in 1900. The photograph you can see is a picture of South Street Chichester taken in 1897, and this would have been a very familiar sight to the teenage Madge. Her home and her parent's shop were further down South Street and she would have walked up towards the market cross, as you can see right in the centre there, and if she'd been going to the School of Art she'd have gone straight over onto North Street, just behind the cross there, and sometimes she might have turned left onto West Street to worship at St Peter the Great Church, for example, where her father was Church Warden, or she might have turned right onto East Street, walking all the way down the street to St Pancras to visit her mother's family, who lived and worked down at the very far end. So it's evident that Madge was a Liberal from an early age and in June 1905 the Chichester Observer reports that she was elected Assistant Honorary Treasurer to a newly formed Women's Liberal Association alongside several other family members. In January 1906 she spoke with the public meeting in Fishbourne in favour of women's suffrage, where she's reported as stating, only a woman knows how nice it is to be a man. In May 1908 the recently formed Women's Freedom League, one of whose motos, as you can see on this banner, was Dare to be Free, set off on a caravan campaign, which aimed to bring news of the suffrage campaign to the rural towns and villages of the southeast, including West Sussex. Led by Muriel Matters, a charismatic Australian actress and Lillian Hicks, a seasoned suffrage campaigner, the caravan arrived in Chichester at the beginning of June, and according to the Chichester Observer Madge was on the hand to support the campaigners throughout their stay, and I imagine it must have caused great excitement, not only to have the suffrage campaign brought to her doorstep, but to be able to play some wide apart in the national campaign for women's suffrage. Now you might have noticed that I haven't shown you a picture of Madge yet, and that's because sadly I've not been able to locate any photographs of her. In fact, as I said earlier, there are very few surviving records of any nature for Madge. The photograph you can see now shows the suffrage caravan lodged in Chichester, probably near St Pancras Church, which was coincidentally near the home and business of Madge's grandparents, and you can see Muriel Matters standing on the step on the left. Now I believe that the young woman on the far right wearing a hat is Madge, but unfortunately I can't be certain. We do know that this photograph was taken by Madge's sister Winifred, who is listed as a photographer's assistant in the 1911 census, so it does seem very likely that this is Madge. Now the caravan spent only two nights in Chichester, but Madge seems to have been inspired by its presence. At the end of June, she spoke at the Conference of the Home County's Women Liberals Association, held in the assembly rooms in Chichester, where she's quoted as saying, it is very difficult being a woman liberal in a place like Chichester, but those of us who are could go on, cheered and encouraged by those who had come from many parts of Sussex to show their interest in them. On February the 18th, 1909, Madge was arrested and later imprisoned at Holloway for obstructing the police as she marched on Downing Street. She was part of a group of 50 to 60 women who were attempting to present Prime Minister Herbert Asquith with a resolution. Madge had been chosen to represent the West Sussex branch of the WFL at this event, and as such she carried the branch banner. Madge's arrest and subsequent imprisonment caused quite a sensation, and she was met with a mixed reception on her return to West Sussex in April. She was fettered by her fellow suffragists who took her to Midhurst, where she toured the streets in a beautifully decorated carriage and a torch lit procession to the strains of violins surrounded by hundreds of people, but at the same time she was cheered and booed by those unsympathetic to the cause and did well to avoid the assortment of mouldy fruit and vegetables, rotten eggs and mud which were flung at her and her fellow suffragists. Now it must have been quite a sight to behold and a moment to experience, uplifting and perhaps terrifying at the same time, but certainly thrilling I think. Madge spoke of her time in prison at Midhurst's assembly rooms, but the missile's cat-calling and insults continued to such an extent that the meeting was eventually abandoned. Madge was however able to tell her story of prison life to a much smaller, more agreeable audience in Chichita as the newspaper clipping you can see on your screen shows. And alongside the clipping is this lovely miniature Holloway banner made by members of the WFL featuring the motto, stone walls do not a prison make, and this is taken from the poem to Althea from prison written by Richard Lovelace in 1642, and this was a popular motto with the suffragists. Madge had even found these words with its following line, nor iron bars or cage, scratched on a prison knife by a fellow suffragist inmate during her sentence in Holloway. Now at her talk in Chichita Madge remarked that the long hours in prison had given her time to think that the more she thought the more determined she was to go on with this movement. And Madge would go on with the movement and the WFL. By February 1910 she was working as an organiser for the WFL and this saw her working in Strud and Gloucestershire, Edinburgh and then London. As organiser she was responsible for helping to raise the profile of the WFL and its campaign by encouraging new recruits and then coordinating their efforts and activities to form a cohesive successful unit. And Madge's work for the WFL would also introduce her to Alison Neelans, a prominent suffrage campaigner who was imprisoned at Holloway on three occasions and during her third sentence she went on hunger strike and was force fed. Now in this photograph of the WFL's suffrage caravan you can see Alison Neelans seated to the right at the window and she's next to Charlotte Despar who was one of the founders of the WFL seated on the left there. Madge and Alison would become lifelong colleagues eventually working together at the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene from 1919 and also lifelong companions and the two women elicited at the same London address on the 1911 census which they boycotted as did many of their fellow suffragists and throughout the electoral registers from 1918 onwards until Alison's death in July 1942. Madge nursed Alison for two years as a gradual paralysis took over her body whilst continuing to work for the Association of Moral and Social Hygiene where she had served as secretary from 1941 after Alison had retired. Madge herself retired in 1945 and she spent three years happily tending her garden until her own death in 1948. So I hope you've enjoyed finding out about the life of Madge Turner the campaign for women's suffrage had a great impact on her life not only on a political level but it also provided her with work, companionship and energy and she retained that energy and continued to work for equality for women of all classes and backgrounds for the rest of her life long after British women had finally achieved the vote in 1918. The campaign may have taken her away from Chichester and West Sussex but I think her story the story of a woman who really did dare to be free is important to our county's history and if you've enjoyed this video and want to find out more about the suffrage campaign in West Sussex all delve into any other aspects of West Sussex's fascinating history please visit and follow our blog westussexrecordofficeblog.com and as part of our West Sussex exam rat campaign you can also find links on our blogs to film town by our partners Screen Archive Southeast and you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram thank you for listening and goodbye.