Radical – The Chartist Women of Sheffield Exhibition & Film

Sheffield has many claims to fame, but perhaps one of the least well-known is that the first-ever petition for women’s suffrage by a group of women came from the town in 1851.

This was organised by the Women’s Rights Association (WRA), a group of Sheffield working-class women under the umbrella of Chartism.

This exhibition aims to raise the profile of the WRA and Chartist women in the city and beyond as part of a larger story about female activism and feminism.

Using a range of sources and pooling academic, family and community history, the exhibition tells the story of the pioneering women who set up this society.

It also looks at what Chartism was, and who the Chartists were, and what life was like for the working classes of early Victorian Sheffielders.