WHEN Emily Davidson died at Epsom Derby after throwing herself under the king's horse, she gained worldwide fame for her campaign demanding votes for women.

Her suffragette contemporary Lady Rhondda is less well known, but one group of Newport women are doing their best to change this.

They started a campaign to commemorate Newport’s firebrand feminist with a blue plaque, and raised their total of £1,104 in just 12 days.

You can watch the unveiling of the plaque in the video below

Earlier today they unveiled it next to the Risca Road postbox the young activist set on fire in 1913 by dropping two vials of chemicals through the letter box.

Lady Rhondda, or Margaret Haig Mackworth, was imprisoned by an outraged police force after witnesses saw the smoke, but she refused to let her husband pay the £10 fine demanded by the authorities. Instead, she went on hunger strike and was eventually released five days later.

Other suffragette action we know about includes lending her bright pink Sunday best hat and dress to a comrade who wore them to the Caerleon Campus opening, where she shook Prime Minister Asquith by the collar.

Her remarkable life also involved an escape from the doomed Lusitania, the passenger ship sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland.

She became editor of and a journalist at ‘Time and Tide’ magazine, was the first female president of the Institute of Directors and her portrait now hangs in the House of Lords.

Women over 30 eventually got the right to vote in 1918 in the UK, but it was not until 1928 all women over 21 could vote, making women’s suffrage equal to men.

Great-grandmother Gwendoline Hester, who lives in the house where the plaque has been installed, said: “Considering what it was like in that period of time, she was very brave and bold. She was a voice for women and we can thank her for where we are today.

“I think this is a momentous occasion making people aware of what she stood for.”

Arguments against giving women the right to vote included the claim they didn’t have the mental capacity to understand what they were doing, and that they would just vote the way their husbands told them too.

Jayne Bryant, a member of the project group and Labour candidate for Newport West in the next Assembly election, said: “Women in politics have a lot to thank Lady Rhondda for, including me. It is an honour to help Newport to rediscover this national hero; just like the Chartists before her, she fought hard for the rights we have today and deserves this new memorial in our home city.”

Julie Nicholas, the project group coordinator said: “We are so proud that the community has come together to honour Lady Rhondda. She had a remarkable life.”