Erection date: 24/4/12018
Eleanor Rathbone, 1872 - 1946
Site: Millicent Fawcett plinth (52 memorials)
SW1, Parliament Square
Most statues have plinths, which often carry the identity of the statue but little more. The plinth for this Millicent Fawcett statue is a multi-memorial in its own right.
Around the top of the statue's plinth, on all four sides, is a continuous frieze consisting of 52 images of people who actively supported women’s suffrage. The people are drawn from both suffragist and suffragette groups. They come from the upper, middle and working classes, from all four nations, many from the north of England. A few are non-white, four are male and one is in a wheelchair. Truly diverse.
The frieze presents these people in birth year sequence so that is how we have numbered our photos, reading each side left to right: front (1-13), right side (14 -26), back (27-39), left side (40-52). We apologise for the poor quality of our photos - being low down and reflective these images are not easy to photograph, and some of them (especially those on the back) are already showing signs of weather-related distress.
Four of the photos show 2 people, and one of them shows 4 people (the Pankhursts). The total number of people represented is 59. Fawcett herself is not shown in the frieze but add her in and this statue with its frieze commemorates 60 people.
