Parliament Square Statue for Millicent Garrett Fawcett
The suffragist Dame Millicent Fawcett is to be the first woman to be honoured with a statue in Parliament Square, the prime minister has announced.
The equal rights campaigner who dedicated her life to getting the women's vote, will stand alongside Sir Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela.
Theresa May said Dame Millicent "continues to inspire the battle against the injustices of today".
All 11 statues in the central London square are currently men and the TG Trustees have been lobbying Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan and members of both Houses of Parliament to get this situation changed. We are delighted to hear this news.
The new statue will be funded using the £5m fund announced in this year's spring Budget to celebrate next year's centenary of the first British women to get the vote.
Millicent Fawcett formed the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) in 1897.
The organisation used peaceful tactics to campaign, including non-violent demonstrations, petitions and the lobbying of MPs and worked for many years before the radical and militant suffragettes led by Emmeline Pankhurst came onto the scene. The Suffragettes disbanded after the first, limited group of women got the vote but the NUWSS continued to campaign under the new name of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC).
Townswomen's Guilds (TG) was born from NUSEC once all women were enfranchised on equal terms to men (in 1928) with the aim of providing education in citizenship for women in urban areas.
Dame Millicent died in 1929, having given her blessing to the first Townswomen's Guilds.
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