Conwy receives its first ‘Purple Plaque’ thanks to Coleg Llandrillo lecturer

Coleg Llandrillo lecturer Gemma Campbell has been instrumental in the installation of Conwy’s first ‘Purple Plaque’ - celebrating remarkable women in Wales.

The Purple Plaques campaign was created to recognise the achievements and cement the legacies of women in Welsh history.

Gemma nominated the pioneering but largely unsung Ethel Hovey, following her own extensive research into the maternity campaigner, politician and magistrate.

A plaque commemorating Miss Hovey was recently unveiled in Colwyn Bay, on the site of Nant y Glyn, the maternity home she founded in 1938.

Gemma, an English lecturer at Llandrillo Sixth in Rhos-on-Sea, has researched Ethel’s career through local council minutes and newspaper cuttings from the time.

She said: “It took her 40 years, but opening the maternity home was her life’s work. Long before others did, she recognised that women were dying in childbirth when there were things that could be done to prevent this. She spent time trying to set up clinics and get salaries for midwives.

“In 1938 she found two properties she thought would be suitable for the maternity home and arranged for loans from the health board to fund this. At the time her fellow male councillors did not see the pressing need but she was well aware of women’s struggles and she wanted to help. She was pushing for it because it mattered.”

Ethel championed opportunities for women in health, education, music and politics at a time when only men had the right to vote.

In 1919 she became the first woman elected to Colwyn Bay’s Urban District Council, and would go on to be the town’s first female mayor (and the first in North Wales) and first female Justice of the Peace.

She achieved her life’s ambition when the Nant y Glyn Maternity Home opened in 1939. Remaining open up until the late 1970s, the home was even thought to have influenced Aneurin Bevan’s founding of the National Health Service in 1946.

Sue Essex, Purple Plaques chair and a former Welsh Government Minister, said: “It’s so appropriate that we honour the efforts of Ethel May Hovey at a time when governments are being pushed to focus more on women’s health than ever before.

“It is thought that Ethel’s maternity home was likely to have been one of the models that inspired Nye Bevan’s thinking ahead of the setting up of our NHS so, although her legacy had been all but forgotten up to this point, we hope the unveiling of this plaque will cement her courage and determination in the history books.”

Gemma was present at the unveiling of the plaque, along with Chris Winchester, great great nephew of Ethel Hovey.

She has also curated an exhibition on Ethel’s life and work at Colwyn Bay Library as part of her work with the Conwy Borough branch of the Historical Association, which she runs along with Coleg Llandrillo History lecturer Morgan Ditchburn.

The branch has hosted a range of talks, events and activities in Colwyn Bay to celebrate the town’s 150th anniversary - including the Hovey Project, an initiative embedded within the Cynefin curriculum in local schools, which encourages students to explore their local heritage.

It will continue to play an active role in the anniversary celebrations throughout the rest of the year, including in the Big Picnic in August, in partnership with Together for Colwyn Bay, and the Open Doors events across the county in September, as well as the town’s Christmas event.

The branch meets on the third Monday of every month. Topics of upcoming talks include the controversial Archbishop John Williams, and The Edwardian Castles of North Wales. More information here.

Want to study A-levels? Grŵp Llandrillo Menai offers more than 30 subjects at its Sixth Form centres in Dolgellau, Llangefni, Pwllheli, Rhos-on-Sea and Rhyl. Learn more here.