COMMISSION: Ada Nield Chew

I am delighted to be appointed the sculptor for a statue of the incredible activist and campaigner Ada Nield Chew (1879-1945). Representation matters. My passion is to tell the stories in bronze of those who are missing from our visual and written histories. When I read Ada’s twelve anonymous letters, signed from ‘A Crewe Factory Girl’, I knew I had to sculpt her.

“Ada Nield Chew was born into a farming family in rural Staffordshire in 1870. When her father sold the farm, the family moved to Crewe, where she found work at Compton Brothers as a tailoress. Her activism was borne out of the injustices that Ada and her fellow workers experienced there. As the anonymous ‘Crewe Factory Girl’ she exposed the poor and unfair working conditions at the factory. Later, she became a fierce campaigner for universal suffrage and the rights of working class women.” – A Statue for Ada campaign

Read the article by the BBC’s Kaleigh Watterson – ‘Ada Nield Chew: The factory girl who fought for women’s rights’.

The ‘Statue for Ada‘ campaign, coordinated by the Cheshire Women’s Collaboration, is fundraising for the bronze statue to be installed in Crewe. But it is also raising awareness of Ada’s local and national contribution through a traveling exhibition at various locations across Crewe over the summer. It recently launched at the Crewe Market Hall, with Mrs Nield Chew’s great nephew Henry Wimby in attendance.