Bristol: Plaque unveiled for women's rights campaigner

Emma Martin lived on Bridewell Street from 1835

A blue plaque has been unveiled to celebrate the legacy of a women's rights campaigner.

Emma Martin, from Bristol, was a significant thinker of the 19th Century.

The plaque was installed on the YCMA building on Bridewell Street, her last known residence in the city.

A spokesperson for Bristol Humanists said the plaque "ensures that she is finally recognised in her home city and can continue to inspire us today".

Ms Martin was born in 1812 and raised in Bristol as a strict Baptist. As she grew up, her religious beliefs began to weaken.

She lived in the city until 1839, before moving to London.

During the same year, she attended her first Owenite socialist meeting, where she heard beliefs closely aligned to her own.

Ms Martin began to recognise the impossibility of improving women's status without better education and employment, as well as removing the barriers caused by religion.

Prof Alice Roberts unveiled the plaque with the Lord Mayor of Bristol and Emma Martin's fourth and fifth generation granddaughters

She toured the country, delivered speeches to thousands of people and wrote numerous pamphlets.

Her work was focused on tackling inequality and fighting for a better, more fair world - similarly to Humanists UK.

Later, she retrained as a midwife, but was forced to practice from home as atheists were not allowed to work in public hospitals.

The Lord Mayor of Bristol, Paula O'Rourke, and vice-president of Humanists UK, Prof Alice Roberts, unveiled the blue plaque.

'Radical women'

Prof Roberts said: "I am delighted to be celebrating Emma Martin in my home city, one of so many important campaigning radical women.

"At a time when women were supposed to leave politics to men, they spoke, wrote, marched, organised, asked questions, challenged power structures, sometimes went to prison and even died.

"History has not usually been kind to them, but now Emma Martin can take centre stage and in doing so brings different voices to the more familiar accounts of the period."

Chrissie Hackett, chair of Bristol Humanists, said: "Bristol Humanists are delighted to be celebrating the life of Emma Martin, one of our heroines!

"As a free-thinker, public speaker, socialist and advocate of women's rights, she fearlessly challenged the religious status quo, paving the way for all of us to enjoy the freedoms that we now take for granted."

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