Wayward Women Exhibition; The Hub at St Mary's

Hi there, thank you for checking out our GoFundMe page!

We are a group of local women, exploring the histories of forgotten women in Lichfield! As a group, our main aims are to:

1) To encourage interest and research into local women’s history, and especially into the lives of forgotten and unrecognised women.

2) To increase public representation and recognition of the experiences and achievements of women in Lichfield’s history.

3) To demonstrate how reclaiming women’s history can empower present-day girls and women.

4) Organise and publicise meetings, events and exhibitions to research and present aspects of women’s history in Lichfield and elsewhere.

5) Campaign for better public recognition of women in Lichfield through memorial plaques and other displays.

6) Work with similar groups to exchange information and ideas.

Our group came together when Rosie’s Plaques announced a tour across the UK to help other groups create blue plaques of forgotten women to display in cities across the UK. Rosie’s Plaques began in Norwich and 8 plaques were created and put around the city in 2019 to represent everyday women after discovering out of the 4500 plaques in the UK, only 12% are women.

We undertook a year of research and Wayward Women were delighted to welcome the Rosie’s and their delightful ‘plaque shack’ to Lichfield in June 2021, after a year delay due to covid! We spent an exciting weekend, creating 6 plaques to represent women and displaying them around various locations across the city. The 6 women we chose were Sabrina Sidney, Lichfield Women and the Civil War, Priscilla Poynton, Daisy Stuart Shaw, Bertha Frankham, Mary Salt. To find out more information about these women please visit our Twitter page @Waywardwomen

The plaque tour garnered a lot of interest and we have decided to host an exhibition to display the plaques locally, and to discuss the representation of women! We hope to have a public discussion and share stories of local women! We are excited to be bringing an exhibition to the city, at The Hub at St Mary’s. The exhibition is due to begin from March/April 2022 (dates TBC), with local historian Professor Ann Hughes, scheduled to give a talk about forgotten women on Thursday 5th May. We hope to grow our group membership and to learn more about the forgotten women across Lichfield. We are looking to raise around £1000, to help cover the costs of the exhibition including refreshments. We would be really grateful for the support!

Many thanks

Wayward Women