 Margaret Ashton was the first woman to serve as a city councillor in Manchester in 1908. In honour of her 70 th birthday in 1926 Henry Lamb painted her portrait and it was due to hang in the Town Hall. But Margaret was a pacifist, whose protest against World War I was wrongly interpreted as pro-German support. The council passed a resolution condemning her stance and refused to hang her portrait.
The story might have ended there but for Alison Ronan who unearthed the portrait in the City's Art Gallery store. Now, 150 years since Margaret Ashton's birth, the portrait has been restored and unveiled in the Town Hall's Conference Hall, the original council chamber where Margaret Ashton participated in many political debates. |
