the Brighton councillor who believed learning could change lives

Jacky Harding

Jacky Harding’s name still moves through Brighton and Hove.

It is carried on bus 314, passing through the city as part of everyday life. Most people waiting at a stop may not know the story behind the name. But behind it is the life of a woman who came to Sussex from Sierra Leone, made Brighton and Hove her home, and used education, politics and community work to help open doors for others.

Jacky, also recorded in council papers as Jackie Harding, came to the University of Sussex to study economics. From there, she built a life in the city rooted in public service. She joined the Labour Party, worked in education, became involved in adult learning, and later served as a councillor on Brighton & Hove City Council.

Her story belongs to a period when Brighton and Hove was changing. The city is often seen as open and welcoming, but that did not mean all communities had an equal voice in local public life. Records about Jacky’s life point to a city where minority ethnic residents were still under-represented in civic spaces. Her election in 2000 therefore mattered. She became Brighton and Hove’s first Black woman councillor, a milestone remembered in later discussions about representation in the city.  

That achievement alone would make her significant. But Jacky Harding was not only a first. She was remembered for the work she did.

Education

 ran through much of her public life. The Brighton & Hove Bus Company biography describes her as someone who believed people of all ages could benefit from learning. She became the Labour group’s lead councillor on lifelong learning and was also linked to early years education.  

This was not abstract policy work. Lifelong learning is about real people and real barriers. It is the adult who wants to return to study after years away.

The parent who wants to support their child but lacks confidence. The person learning English in a new city. The worker who needs new skills after losing a job. The young child whose start in life can shape everything that follows.

Jacky’s work connected those different stages of life. She worked for the University of Brighton and served on the management committee of the Friends’ Centre, a long-standing adult education organisation in Brighton. The Friends’ Centre supported learning through literacy, numeracy, English language classes, job skills, IT and community education.  

Friends Centre

That link to the Friends’ Centre is important. For many people, adult education is not just about gaining a qualification. It can be a way back into confidence, work, friendship and belonging. A place such as the Friends’ Centre could make learning feel possible for people who had been left out, overlooked or made to feel that education was not for them.

Jacky seems to have understood that deeply. Her life connected higher education, local politics and community-based learning. She had studied at university herself, but her public work was not only about universities. It was about widening the door so that more people could take part in learning, whatever their age or background.

After her death, Brighton & Hove City Council paid formal tribute to her. At a council meeting on 7 December 2006, the Mayor referred to the “recent loss” of ex-councillor Jackie Harding. Councillor Hawkes then spoke about her time on the council and her work on early years education, saying that this work was “now coming to fruition”. The council held a minute’s silence in her memory.  

It is a short record, but a powerful one. Council minutes are usually plain, formal documents. They rarely capture the full warmth of a person’s life. Yet even there, in that brief tribute, we can see what her colleagues remembered: her service, her education work, and the sense that what she had helped begin was still carrying on.

Jacky Harding died at the age of 45. The bus company biography says there was widespread sadness in the city after her death and records the cause as liver failure. The full Argus obituary still needs to be checked, but the title preserved in later references was “Skills pioneer Jacky dies at 45”.  

That phrase, “skills pioneer”, feels right for the outline of her life. It suggests someone practical, someone interested in what learning could do in people’s lives. Not learning as a slogan, but learning as a tool for confidence, independence and change.

Brighton names a bus

In 2019, more than a decade after her death, Brighton & Hove Bus Company named bus 314 after her. The company’s own records show the bus carrying the name “Jacky Harding”, and this has become one of the public ways her contribution is still remembered.  

It is a fitting kind of memorial. Her name does not sit still. It travels through the city she served.

Jacky Harding’s story is not yet complete. There is still more to find in council records, university archives, Friends’ Centre papers, local newspapers and the memories of those who knew her. We still need to confirm her ward, her exact years of service, her full role at the University of Brighton, and the full wording of her obituary.

But even with those gaps, the shape of her contribution is clear.

She came from Sierra Leone to Sussex and made Brighton and Hove her home. She entered public life at a time when Black women were rarely seen in the council chamber. She worked for education across a lifetime, from early years to adult learning. She gave her time to community organisations. And she helped widen the idea of who could belong, learn and lead in the city.

Jacky Harding deserves to be remembered not only as a first, but as a builder of opportunity. Her legacy lives in the quiet, practical belief that learning can change a life, and that a city is stronger when more people are given the chance to take part.

Sources:

Image curtesy of Brighton & Hove Bus company

Brighton & Hove Bus Company, “Names on the buses 314 Jacky Harding”
The Argus, “Skills pioneer Jacky dies at 45”
Brighton & Hove City Council, “Council minutes, 7 December 2006”
Brighton and Hove News, “Diversity in the spotlight as Brighton and Hove voters go the polls”