HEREFORD Cathedral has unveiled a new project across the city to commemorate key moments within the suffragette movement with Violet Plaques.

The Violet Plaques Project has seen 11 temporary plaques installed across the city in historically relevant locations.

The idea for the violet plaques arose during the research phase of the Eastern Cloisters Project, a Heritage Lottery Funded project based within the cloisters of Hereford Cathedral which uncovered many interesting stories from the archives of the cathedral including the story of the Davises who lived in No 7 The Cloisters.

Sarah Hollingdale, Eastern Cloisters Project activity officer, said: “Reverend George Herbert Davis was an Assistant Vicar Choral at the cathedral prior to the First World War.

"He travelled the country to speak on women’s suffrage and his wife Ethel May Davis was secretary of the Hereford branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU).

"When we discovered that The Davises were so involved with the suffragette movement, it seemed only right to commemorate it. The idea of the Violet Plaque was born and as we researched the suffragette movement in Hereford we uncovered more locations which we felt should be observed.”

Hereford Cathedral will also host two other plaques within its grounds. One will commemorate a day of special meditation and silent intercession (1 February 1913) which had to be cancelled after a petition was raised against the event and collected 40 signatures. The other pays tribute to Dame Ethel Smyth, a high-profile member of the movement, who wrote suffragette anthem March of the Women in 1910. The original score of Mass in D, which many consider to be her masterpiece, is currently on display as part of the Sounds Divine Exhibition in the Mappa Mundi & Chained Library Exhibition. Mass in D will also be performed as part of the opening night programme of the upcoming Three Choirs Festival on Saturday, July 28.

The Hereford Times office is also hosting a plaque to mark the contribution of Charles Anthony Junior, the son of the founder of the Hereford Times who later became editor in succession to his father. He wrote a pamphlet in 1867 called The Social and Political Dependence of Women, which went through numerous editions into the 1880s.

In May 1878 he chaired a meeting in support of women’s suffrage at Shire Hall, which will also host a plaque in tribute to the many public gatherings which took place there.

 Other places which will be commemorated within the city include High Town, the location of a suffrage rally in 1908 in which someone threw a stone at Christabel Pankhurst, and the Herefordshire Archives and Records Centre (HARC) which holds many records and documents relating to women’s suffrage campaigns.

St Martin's Church has also been featured in the project to highlight the contribution of Reverend George Kirwood who campaigned extensively for women’s equality, as well as Tupsley Church in tribute to artist Florence Canning. The daughter of the vicar of Tupsley, Reverend Thomas Canning, she gave up painting to become a militant suffragette and later chairman for the Church League for Women’s Suffrage. She was injured in the Black Friday protests at Parliament and passed away on Christmas Eve 1914 and was buried in Hereford with a suffragette wreath on her coffin.

Other keen activists with a link to the city include The Parlby Sisters, whose plaque will reside at Castle Cliffe.

The final plaque will be located at the Bishop’s Palace to mark Reverend John Percival, who became Bishop of Hereford in 1895 and was active in condemning the forced feeding of women prisoners.

The plaques will be in place until August 6. To find out more information about the stories behind plaques visit the Hereford Cathedral website.