Focus on Statue of Millicent Fawcett and analyze the The campaign for a woman on Parliament Square.
The feminist campaigner and journalist Caroline Criado Perez began a campaign to install a statue of a woman in Parliament Square on 8 March (International Women's Day) 2016, after noticing while jogging that day that all the existing statues on the square were of men. Criado Perez had initiated the 2013 campaign to add a woman to British banknotes, after Elizabeth Fry was replaced by Winston Churchill on the £5 note, and soon thereafter the Bank of England announced that Jane Austen would appear on the new £10 note.The campaign called for a statue of a suffragette to be placed in Parliament Square in time for the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918. Following some research, Criado Perez discovered that only 2.7 percent of the statues in the United Kingdom were of individual women who were not members of the British royal family. On 10 May 2016, to launch the campaign, an open letter was written to the new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, signed by 42 prominent women, requesting a statue of a suffragette in Parliament Square by February 2018. Khan quickly agreed to a new suffragette statue, but did not commit to Parliament Square and instead said that the authorities would "explore a suitable site for the statue".An online petition for the suffragette statue received 74,000 signatures. This was presented to Parliament on 7 June, in an event hosted by the Fawcett Society. At the same time, Criado Perez stated that she backed Millicent Fawcett as the subject of the statue, adding that "It's shocking that she doesn't already have a statue of her own – and Parliament Square is the obvious place for her to be. Not round the corner, or up the road. Nothing less than Parliament Square will do."On 2 April 2017, it was announced that a statue of Fawcett would be erected in Parliament Square. The Prime Minister, Theresa May, said following the announcement, "The example Millicent Fawcett set during the struggle for equality continues to inspire the battle against the burning injustices of today. It is right and proper that she is honoured in Parliament Square alongside former leaders who changed our country." The Suffrage Statue Commission selected Gillian Wearing, a former Turner Prize winner, to create the statue with it funded from the Government's Centenary Fund.The statue was part of the 14-18 NOW series of artistic commissions that marked the centenary commemorations of World War I.
Gillian Wearing open letter Jane Austen Elizabeth Fry Representation of the People Act 1918 feminist Mayor of London 14-18 NOW Winston Churchill suffragette right £10 note Turner Prize Fawcett Bank of England i Sadiq Khan Theresa May London British royal family Caroline Criado Perez Fawcett Society Millicent Fawcett Parliament Square £5 note International Women's Day