From Wikipedia

The statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, Westminster, London, honours the British suffragist leader and social campaigner Dame Millicent Fawcett. It was made in 2018 by Gillian Wearing. Following a campaign and petition by the activist Caroline Criado Perez, the statue’s creation was endorsed by both the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. The statue, Parliament Square’s first monument to a woman and also its first sculpture by a woman, was funded through the government’s Centenary Fund, which marks 100 years since some women won the right to vote. The memorial was unveiled on 24 April 2018.

The bronze statue portrays Dame Millicent at the age of 50, when she became president of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). The figure holds a banner reading COURAGE/ CALLS TO/ COURAGE/ EVERYWHERE, an extract from a speech Fawcett gave in 1920. She wears a walking suit, typical attire of that period featuring an overcoat and a long dress. The artist integrated the pattern and texture of the tweed fabric into the bronze of the suit. The Fawcett Society lent a piece of Fawcett’s jewellery to Wearing, who scanned the brooch and incorporated it into the statue’s design.

The initial design was modified following feedback from members of Westminster City Council, as they felt that the sign Fawcett was holding made her look as if she were hanging laundry out to dry. Wearing modified her design to move Fawcett’s hands to the corners of the sign, and lowered and flattened the sign itself.

Object description
Type: Monument > Statue
Location: Parliament Square, London SW1
Material: Bronze, stone
Artist: Gillian Wearing CBE RA (b. 1963)
Date: 2018

Image details
Date: 10 April 2025
Camera body: Nikon D50
Lens: Nikkor AF-S DX 18-55mm ƒ3.5-5.6G ED
Focal Length: 38mm
Aperture: ƒ/5
Shutter Speed: 1/500s
ISO: 400
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International