CAMPAIGNERS are calling on the government to honour acts of "extraordinary self-sacrifice" by women - including an elderly woman who was murdered trying to defend a neighbour.
Jean Calder, chairwoman of trustees for the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal charity, has urged the government to recognise the lack of memorials honouring women and "act to redress this balance".
It comes after a group of Conservative MPs proposed local authorities fund and erect civic statues to all holders of the Victoria Cross and George Cross.
READ MORE: International Women's Day: banner made to honour 'forgotten' Brighton suffragette
Ms Calder said while the charity fully supports memorials to these brave individuals, "most were men, usually under arms, and therefore tend to already be well memorialised".
She says women's lives and sacrifices have been forgotten, and pointed to Sandra Seagrave as an example of someone who deserves to be remembered for bravery.
The 76-year-old intervened when she saw a man attacking his wife in their driveway in Crawley Down on December 22, 2019.
Both Sandra and the other woman, Amy Appleton, were brutally murdered by the attacker, Daniel Appleton, who was jailed for life last year.
Writing to Culture, Media and Sport secretary Oliver Dowden, Ms Calder said: "We wish you and the Common Sense group to consider our view that it is women whose lives and sacrifices have been forgotten – despite many acts of extraordinary self-sacrifice and heroism, almost all performed as voluntary public service, generally in civilian life and sometimes in domestic settings.
"We think particularly of Sandra Seagrave in Crawley Down, an elderly, frail woman less than five feet tall who bravely intervened to protect a neighbour she saw subjected to brutal domestic violence and threats to kill.
"The 17 stone attacker turned Sandra Seagrave’s own walking stick against her, using it to beat her and his wife Amy Appleton, to death.
"Surely Sandra’s intervention was an act of bravery equal to any on a bloody battlefield."
Ms Calder added that if there is public funding available for memorials, "we would hope that projects such as ours and other similar schemes might be able to benefit from it".
READ MORE: The story of Mary Clarke, Brighton's 'forgotten suffragette'
She has received backing from Hastings and Rye MP Sally-Ann Hart, who sits on the Common Sense group of MPs.
The Mary Clarke Statue Appeal was launched in 2018 to install a monument of “the forgotten suffragette” in the Pavilion Gardens.
Mary Clarke, who lived in Brighton and was the leader of the suffragette movement in the South East, was the first suffragette to die following police violence and forcible feeding in jail.
Despite her bravery and influence on the cause for women’s suffrage, there is no public memorial to Mary - the younger sister of Emmeline Pankhurst - anywhere in the country.
The first phase of fundraising for the statue has been completed and sculptor Denise Dutton delivered her bronze maquette of Mary to Brighton and Hove City Council last year.
A banner depicting Mary Clarke has also been hand-stitched by embroiderer Jenny Engledow and the charity hopes it can be displayed in the Jubilee Library in Brighton, once it reopens.
They also plan to carry the banner through the city to mark key dates such as International Women’s Day and November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, once coronavirus restrictions are lifted.
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