Twin exhibitions highlighting the work of suffragettes and women’s rights campaigners – including an inspiring trio from Sidmouth - are now on show in the phone box ‘museums’ in Market Place.

The display in the ‘Museum of Antiquities’ phone box is called Suffragists and focuses on the work of Sidmouth’s Annie Leigh Browne, her life partner Mary Kilgour and Annie’s sister, also called Mary, who went on to become Lady Lockyer.

The other display in the ‘Museum of Contemporary Art’ is called Suffragettes and is a more general exhibition on the women’s suffrage movement.

Annie Leigh Browne, her sister Mary and partner Mary Kilgour were educationalists, scientists and philanthropists. They were also social reformers and active suffragists – peaceful campaigners for the rights of women, led by Millicent Fawcett. Through their funding, campaigns and activism they made significant positive changes to improve the health and lives of women, girls and boys in Sidmouth.

Having bought Woolcombe House, Annie and her sister Mary set up Sidmouth’s first Maternity and Infant Welfare Centre on the ground floor. Annie also purchased 20 acres of land by the River Sid and shaped its design to become a beautiful riverside park.

It was on Mary’s land – herself an astronomer and botanist - that the Norman Lockyer Observatory on Salcombe Regis Hill was built.

The Suffragists exhibition was inspired by the Peace Garden Mural at the top of Sidmouth High Street at Dissenter of Sidmouth, which also features the three women as a central motif in the design.

The Suffragettes exhibition in the other phone box comprises some of the iconic signs, slogans and leaflets from the Women’s Suffrage Movement. It represents the struggles, hardships and injustices the women experienced as they mobilised and fought for the right to vote.

The movement was instrumental in leading to the 1918 Representation of the People Act which gave the right to vote to some women, and later the 1928 Equal Franchise Act equalising the vote to everyone over the age of 21.

The artefacts include:

A copy of the so-called Cat and Mouse Act postcard, a reference to the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act 1913. This was the government’s attempt to stop women from going on hunger strike alongside the brutal actions of force-feeding women imprisoned for their actions.

Pamphlets from The Women’s Social and Political Union, founded in 1903, the militant women-only direct action organisation led by Emmeline Pankhurst.

A song sheet of The March of the Women, which became the anthem of the women’s movement

Posters advertising suffrage demonstrations and a 1912 Metropolitan Police charge record against women for ‘wilful damages’ as they took part in demonstrations for the cause.

Sidmouth School of Art is open to project ideas and collaborations for future exhibitions. The two telephone boxes in Sidmouth’s market square have generated interest in their history, with local people and visitors asking about which model they are. Sidmouth’s telephone boxes are the K6 model, constructed in cast iron with a concrete base. Commissioned by the General Post Office in 1935 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George, they were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. More details about the project can also be found on the Sidmouth School of Art website www.sidmouthart.org