Anne Knight Mosaic
‘Anne Knight and the Dawning of the Women’s Movement in the UK’
A Mosaic Mural by Artist Coralie Turpin.
Ceramic tiles, Oak, etched brass. 4m x 5m
Location : Knight House, iQ Student Accommodation, St George's Close, Sheffield., 2019
Commissioned by iQ Student Accommodation 2019.
Timeline by Julie V. Gottlieb, Professor of Modern History, University of Sheffield.
Mosaic constructed by Coralie in her studio at Persistence Works and Installed by Wayne and Rod from Anglian Tiling.
This mosaic mural represents Anne Knight (1786-1862), her legacy as a pioneer feminist, and the cyclical progress of the women’s movement in Britain from the era in which she was born to our present day. Knight was a Quaker and an anti-slavery activist, and she formed the first women’s suffrage society in Sheffield in 1851.
Like this mural, the women’s movement has developed in waves, but consistent throughout has been the aim to achieve equality for women in political rights and representation, education, work, health, and in the family. It is something special that Sheffield is the birthplace of a campaign that finally attained its objectives when Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act (1918), and, a decade later, the Equal Franchise Act (1928).
These achievements are not the credit of great leaders alone but to the power of collective action, solidarity and sisterhood.
An artwork conceived as we mark the centenaries of women’s (partial) suffrage and women’s entry into Parliament, artist Coralie Turpin gives visual form and texture to the uneven and fluctuating yet overall progressive movement towards gender equality in Britain.
Julie V. Gottlieb, Professor of Modern History, University of Sheffield
Timeline explained:
Quaker symbol, representing Anne Knights family background. Several members took an active part in the Anti Slavery movements.
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797). Book- A Vindication of the Rights of Women 1792.
Anne Knight’s birth (1786). Her father was a Chelmsford grocer.
Portrait of Anne Knight.
Anti Slavery Society logo. Anne campaigned for the abolition of slavery (1825), when she attended the World Anti Slavery Convention in London in 1840, many other women were prevented from attending which outraged Anne.
Anne knight's first banner (1847). ’By tortured millions, By the divine redeemer, Enfranchise Humanity, Bid the outraged World, BE FREE’.
Sheffield female political assoc. Anne formed this in 1851, the first women’s political group in the UK.
1862 Anne Knight died.
1866 first women's suffrage petition presented to parliament.
Suffrage movement, National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (founded in 1897, president Millicent Garrett Fawcett).
Suffrage banner "Votes for Women”.Women's Social and Political Union (founded in 1903 by the Pankhursts) - slogan became 'Deeds not Words’.
Women's service in the Great War (1914-1918).
1918 Representation of the People Act, votes for women over the age of 30 - 8.5 million enfranchised.
1928 equal franchise.
Women of Steel, World War Two (1939-1945).
1968 Women’s lib.’The Personal is Political’.
Women at Greenham Common. (1981 - 2000).
#March4Women, Global annual march for equality on March 4th.
#me too (2017) a movement against sexual harassment and assault.