A campaign to erect a statue of suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst on Clerkenwell Green is seeking £50,000 for its final phase.
The campaign, which has actress Maxine Peake as a patron, began in the 1990s. The founders believe that Pankhurst deserves greater recognition, as she does not feature on the Westminster memorial honouring suffragettes who were imprisoned and force fed while campaigning for the right to vote in the 1910s.
The statue, which has been sculpted in clay and is now ready to be cast in bronze, is the work of the late Ian Walters, who is best known for the statue of Nelson Mandela’s head on London’s Southbank.
Philippa Clark, one of the campaign founders, believes that Pankhurst, an early anti-racist and long-standing champion of revolutionary causes, will find a natural home in the historically radical area of Clerkenwell: “it is not just a statue about the past, but about the future,” she said.
The campaign to install a statue of Pankhurst has become part of a wider movement to improve the representation of women, people of colour and other minorities in public monuments. An October study by cultural charity Art UK found that just 4% of 1,500 monuments in London are dedicated to named women; by comparison, 8% are dedicated to animals, and 20% are dedicated to named men. Just three are dedicated to named women of colour.
The statue of Pankhurst was originally intended to sit opposite the House of Lords, but the location was changed after failing to get approval from the Lords themselves.
