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Thank you all for your replies.
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In Walsall, my home town, the first non royal female statue was erected in UK, it was of Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison 1832 - 78 - Sister Dora

Sister Dora was an Anglican nun nurse, she has a stained glass window dedicated to her in the parish church of St Matthew's, the new hospital being built as she died was named the Sister Dora's Hospital. The newer section of the Manor Hospital Walsall outpatients carries the name Sister Dora and the local mental hospital is the Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison Hospital.

There was a 3 part serial about her life on TV in the 1970s starring Dorothy Tutin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Dora

I’d never heard of her before her statue was unveiled. If we were taught anything about the Women’s Sufferage movement, it was Emily Pankhurst & Emily Davison & the Suffragettes. Their activities would have been very close to our teachers ‘living memories ‘ or at least of their parents.

Let's hope it's the first of many statues of prominent women.

Part of my history syllabus was on suffrage for men and women in UK.

The suffragettes, according to what I was given to read, annoyed the government of the time so they opposed giving the vote to woman as it would appear they'd given in to people who had used violence to get their own way. They felt they couldn't set that precedent.

It was people like Mrs Fawcett who campaigned lawfully and wanted the government to allow women to take over what were seen as men's jobs during WW1 that won through. The women had come to the aid of the country in it's time of need and proved they could do it so in return the government rewarded them by giving them the vote.

Mrs Fawcett's sister was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson - if you don't know the name she was Britain's first female doctor.

Achievements of some people stand so tall that a statue in their honour could never match up.

Dear All

Hello

A statue commemorating the life of the suffragist, Millicent Fawcett was unveiled in Parliament Square in London.

Mrs Fawcett campaigned for women's right to vote during the early 20th Century and is seen as one of the most influential feminists of the past 100 years.

Prime Minister Theresa May paid tribute to the "truly great" campaigner's "lasting impact" after it was unveiled.

The bronze casting, by the artist Gillian Wearing, is the first statue of a woman erected in Parliament Square.

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The statue shows Mrs Fawcett holding a banner reading
"courage calls to courage everywhere".

The Statue was commissioned as part of this year's centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act - which gave some women over the age of 30 the vote.

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This followed a campaign by the feminist writer and activist Caroline Criado Perez, who also led last year's successful effort to get Jane Austen to appear on the £10 note.

She said she came up with the idea for the statue when she was out running on International Women's Day in 2016 and realised the only historical figures commemorated there were men.

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The 11 existing statues in Parliament Square are of

Nelson Mandela,

Abraham Lincoln,

Mahatma Gandhi,

Former prime minister of South Africa Jan Smuts

Former British prime ministers Sir Winston Churchill,
Sir Robert Peel,
David Lloyd George,
Viscount Palmerston,
Earl of Derby Edward Stanley,
Earl of Beaconsfield
Benjamin Disraeli and
George Canning.

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It is a great debt we owe to people like Mrs Fawcett and so many others who campaigned for equal rights to vote.


Take gentle care
Best wishes
Elizabeth, EOS
xx