When it comes to fighting for their nation – be it politically, culturally, socially and ethically – the women of Wales have proven themselves invincible.

Yet despite their significant achievements, Wales’ heroines have remained largely hidden, and their stories forgotten.

Now, thanks to the commitment of the ‘Monumental Welsh Women’, five influential females have finally been acknowledged following commissions to erect public statues in their honour.

“Despite what so many women have done and achieved in Wales, there wasn’t one single public statue commemorating their achievements,” said Pembrokeshire historian Angela John, who has been one of the Monumental Welsh Women who has campaigned for their recognition for the last eight years.

“There has been a complete lack of visibility.”

Later this week, Angela will be giving a talk in her home town of Newport, Pembrokeshire, on the five women selected. 

 The first was Betty Campbell, a black woman of poor parentage who was told at school that the problems for a working class black girl would be ‘insurmountable’.  Despite this stark statement, Campbell won a place as one of the first female students to study at the Cardiff Teacher Training College where she enrolled whilst the mother of three young children.  She taught at Butetown, Cardiff, for 28 years where, as a black teacher, she experienced some hostility from parents.  In the 1970s, she became Wales’ first black head teacher at Mount Stuart where she began teaching children about slavery, black history and the system of apartheid.

“Betty Campbell was a huge influence in Wales who won the poll for the first statue which was unveiled in Central Square, Cardiff in 2021,” explained Angela John. 

The following year saw the arrival of Mountain Ash’s Elaine Morgan, born into a poor mining family but who won a scholarship to study at  Oxford.

Following her graduation she taught for three years with the Workers’ Educational Association and began writing plays to help make ends meet. She then began making an impact in the male-dominated world of the small screen with her first television scripts accepted before she even owned her own TV set. Elaine Morgan went on to become a top TV writer, a feminist icon and a ground-breaking evolutionary theorist, winning a host of awards and scripting some of the best loved dramas in television, including ‘How Green Was My Valley’, and ‘The Life and Times of Lloyd George’.

The Elaine Morgan statue is located in Oxford Street, Mountain Ash.

In 2023, Ceredigion celebrated the arrival of Llangrannog’s Sarah Jane Rees, better known by her bardic name of Cranogwen. 

Her first claim to fame was as a master mariner and for two years she worked as a sailor on cargo ships between Wales and France before returning to London and Liverpool to further her nautical education.  She gained her master mariner’s certificate – a qualification that allowed her to command a ship in any part of the world.  Back in West Wales, overcoming opposition to the appointment of a woman, she became a head-teacher at 21, educating the children of the village, and also taught navigation and seamanship to local young men.  Many men who would later go on to sail and captain ships across the world’s oceans were trained by Sarah Jane Rees.

In 1865 her writing skills turned her into an instant Welsh celebrity as she became the first woman to win a poetry prize at the National Eisteddfod, beating some of the major male Welsh poets of the day.  Her winning poem – Y Fodrwy Briodasal (The Wedding Ring) – was a satire on the married woman’s destiny, using the wedding ring as a recurring symbol. 

 At a time when public speaking by women was frowned upon, Cranogwen embarked on a career as a lecturer, Temperance campaigner and a preacher, travelling across America twice, and often facing opposition from male preachers when she took to the pulpit. 

Her statue is situated in the centre of Llangrannog, close to the church, where she was buried.

The fourth statue, erected in 2024,  is that of the iconic Lady Rhondda (Margaret Haig Thomas), a suffragette who made the fight for the women’s vote front page news.

She brought Emmeline Pankhurst to Wales and  confronted the anti-suffrage Prime Minister Asquith by jumping on his car.  She also set fire to a post box and was sent to prison, where she went on hunger strike while during the First World War she ensured women played a vital role, recruiting them into the women’s services. She became Commissioner for Wales in the Women’s National Service Department, then Chief Controller of women’s recruitment at the Ministry of National Service in London. 

She went on to become the greatest global business woman of her era and sat on the board of no fewer than 33 companies, and chaired seven of them.  She  oversaw an industrial empire of mines, shipping and newspapers and became the first, and to date, the only female, to be President of the Institute of Directors. 

The fifth and final  statue, which be unveiled later this year,is  in honour of Elizabeth Andrews who was a great social reformer and campaigner for women’s rights.

She was one of the most influential Welsh female political activists of the early 20th century, being an internationalist, a suffragist and a socialist.  Forced to leave school at 13 to help her parents make ends meet, the Welsh-speaking dressmaker brought the needs of working-class women into the political arena because she shared their lives and voiced their hopes and fears.

She became the first Labour Party Women’s Organiser for Wales and set up women’s sections, describing them as ‘working women’s universities.’ One of her earliest tasks was translating leaflets from English to Welsh to urge women to use their newly-won vote. She also became one of Britain’s first female magistrates and put the needs of women and children at the heart of her campaigns.

“Whittling our original list of 50 down to just five has been difficult, as there have been so many incredible women here in Wales who have achieved so many significant things for their nation,” concluded Angela John.

“But throughout our campaign, the support we’ve had has been tremendous with regular features on the media and support from the Welsh government who decided to give us £20,000 funding towards the cost of each statue, with each one costing around £100,000 to produce.

“We’ve also seen a huge public interaction, particularly with the number of school children who’ve been involved.

“This shows the enormous changes in the ways in which people are now relating to Welsh history.  Previously, it was taught around kings and queens, their battles and all their relevant dates, while now there’s far more attention being given to race and social issues, so history is no longer such an elite subject but is there for everybody.  The fabric of everyday life has become as much a part of people’s understanding of history as anything else.

“And each our five statues have gone a long way in helping to address this.”

Angela John will be speaking at Bethlehem Chapel, Newport, Pembrokeshire this Wednesday, February 26, at 7pm.