Celebrating 100 years of women's suffrage

Twenty women from Paisley’s Ferguslie Park are working with Scottish artists to produce an exhibition commemorating working-class women’s fight for equality in Ferguslie Park at the time of the suffrage campaign.

The project, led by Paisley-based organisation New Tannahill Centre, is one of the 50 local and grassroots initiatives to have been awarded £170,000 from the Scottish Government’s Vote Centenary Small Grant Scheme.

Announcing the funding at PROCESSIONS 2018 Edinburgh, celebrating 100 years of women voting, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop, said:

“Celebrating the 100th anniversary of women securing the right to vote is a great occasion to inject new momentum into supporting women’s contribution to Scottish political, public and cultural life.

“While we have a come a long way since 1918, much still needs to be done to achieve gender equality and create a fairer country for all. This funding marks another step towards empowering women and ensuring Ferguslie women’s fight for equality is not forgotten.”

Linda Connor, one of the women from Ferguslie Park taking part in the project, said:

“We’ve really enjoyed coming together and have really bonded as a group. As well as being therapeutic and relaxing, it’s been a great way to share our skills with one another – for example, I’ve been able to use the sewing skills I gained as an apprentice tailor to help make a commemorative banner to be paraded at PROCESSIONS.

“This Scottish Government funding will enable us to continue to produce work that will commemorate the fact that women from Ferguslie are celebrating 90 years of suffrage.” 

Background

• The Vote Centenary Small Grants Scheme supports country-wide activities aiming to improve women’s political representation and participation in public life. A total of 62 applications were received between 15 April - 11 May. List of successful applicants.

• Paisley’s Ferguslie Park women took part in New Tannahill Centre’s project which enabled them to produce a banner to be paraded at PROCESSIONS on 10 June 2018. Scottish Government funding will enable them to further explore the theme developed when making their banner – the gap of ten years where working class women were denied the vote – and to develop an exhibition that acknowledges this shortfall.

• As part of the centenary programme, the Scottish Government is also providing £50,000 funding to PROCESSIONS 2018. The project is a large scale participatory artwork/march taking place in Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and London on 10 June 2018 and produced by arts charity Artichoke.