{"id":309506,"date":"2025-08-01T14:49:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T14:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/309506\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T14:49:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T14:49:13","slug":"still-lives-the-rapid-rise-of-female-statues-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/309506\/","title":{"rendered":"Still lives: the rapid rise of female statues in London"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mary Poppins statue in Leicester Square [Juliet Rix]<\/strong><\/p>\n

MEN on plinths, watch out! A new book by West Hampstead author Juliet Rix shows there\u2019s been a rapid rise in the number of female statues carving their place in London\u2019s scenery.<\/p>\n

In London\u2019s Statues of Women Juliet breathes life into sculptures new and old, contending that the females are a more varied and intriguing bunch than the men on pedestals.<\/p>\n

There are statues of queens, spies, actresses, activists \u2013 even one of a fantasy woman clutching a designer handbag, commemorating Joan Roberts, who worked at the Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead. She had her ashes interred in a Gucci bag.<\/p>\n

A 2021 survey found that only one in six of the capital\u2019s statues commemorating a named individual were for women, but Juliet said that in just three years since then \u201cmore statues of individual women have been erected in London than in the whole second half of the 20th century\u201d. In 2022-23 more statues of women were installed than of men.<\/p>\n

London\u2019s first statue of a named non-royal woman dates from 1897. It\u2019s of actress Sarah Siddons, on Paddington Green. New ones include a 2022 bronze sculpture of Victorian mathematician Ada Lovelace, high above Horseferry Road, Westminster, with two giant golden punch cards referencing her contribution to early computing.<\/p>\n

Juliet taps fascinating chinks into private lives. Lovelace eloped with a tutor in her teens and later, after her marriage, rumours of her extra-marital affairs swirled. She lost substantial sums gambling.<\/p>\n

Where there\u2019s a statue there can be an argument. Many thought feminist icon Mary Wollstonecraft\u2019s monument at Newington Green, featuring a nude female figure, had little connection with her. Juliet told Review she doesn\u2019t think it is appropriate to Wollstonecraft, \u201cespecially as she actually complained that women were judged on appearance not brains\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the statue\u2019s creator Maggi Hambling tells her: \u201cIt\u2019s a statue for Mary Wollstonecraft, not of her. For her spirit. And she was actually quite a goer herself!\u201d<\/p>\n

An 18th century statue in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, is \u201cwidely regarded\u201d as representing Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III.<\/p>\n

Juliet said: \u201cI thought how this unusual black lead statue was a figure for Bridgerton fans \u2013 Queen Charlotte of course being portrayed in the series as a woman of colour. The real surprise came when I started researching and found that Bridgerton\u2019s portrayal is not entirely their invention.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was speculation even in Charlotte\u2019s lifetime, but Juliet added: \u201cShe almost certainly was not a woman of colour \u2013 and what\u2019s more, some experts think this statue is not Queen Charlotte but Queen Anne\u201d.<\/p>\n

Arriving in London on September 8, 1761, teenage German princess Charlotte met the king, her husband-to-be, for the first time, put on her diamond-encrusted wedding dress \u2013 which nearly fell off because she\u2019d lost so much weight being sea-sick on the voyage \u2013 and married him, all within six hours.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Juliet Rix<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other Bloomsbury sculptures include Virginia Woolf and Second World War spy, hero and passionate anti-fascist Noor Inayat Khan.<\/p>\n

Another, 2022 statue of Woolf sits beside the Thames at Richmond, the location briefly criticised as insensitive because she drowned herself in a river \u2013 but that was the Ouse in East Sussex.<\/p>\n

\u201cLively, ambitious\u201d Royal Free worker Joan Roberts died in her 40s and left money for a statue.<\/p>\n

Her former colleagues chose the handbag-toting Doo Wah Diddy figure, opposite the hospital\u2019s main entrance.<\/p>\n

A \u201csaint-style\u201d figure commemorates Victorian philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts at Holly Village, Highgate. Dubbed \u201cQueen of the poor\u201d for her good works, aged 67 she \u201cscandalously\u201d married her 29-year-old assistant.<\/p>\n

Life-size and life-like, Amy Winehouse\u2019s statue stands in Camden Town, and in theatreland Agatha Christie looks out from the centre of a giant book. Christie learnt about poisons during her wartime work in hospital pharmacies. And who knew that she is said to have been the first Western woman to surf standing up?<\/p>\n

Suffragist Millicent Fawcett\u2019s statue \u2013 the only free-standing female one in Parliament Square \u2013 holds a banner declaring: \u201cCourage calls to Courage Everywhere.\u201d Juliet writes that unfortunately the banner has gained the statue a nickname: \u201cHanging out the washing.\u201d She laments: \u201cIt could only happen to a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAn astonishing number of bare breasts overlook London\u2019s streets,\u201d Juliet observes, \u201cand most date to periods famously prudish about actual women.\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast, prim Mary Poppins lands on a Leicester Square flowerbed, umbrella aloft \u2013 but minimally dressed Wonder Woman bursts from the side of a cinema nearby.<\/p>\n

Sculptures\u2019 stories are often moving. The Islingtonian War Memorial at Highbury Corner, featuring a woman as \u201cGlory\u201d, honours locals who died in the Boer War.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that it glorified a colonial war in South Africa, historian Neal Ascherson wrote that it remembers \u201cthe poor lads who died in this completely stupid war\u201d. Rather than remove it, he said, another memorial should be added.<\/p>\n

He suggested a black woman to commemorate those caught in the crossfire.<\/p>\n

Juliet admires the \u201cevocative\u201d Lai Dai Han Mother and Child monument, in St James\u2019s Square Gardens, Westminster, to Vietnamese women and the thousands of children born to them as a result of rape, or relationship and abandonment, by South Korean soldiers fighting alongside the Americans in the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most expensive flip-flops in town belong to park statue Golders Hill Girl. When one of her sandals was stolen, a similar pair was bought from Camden Market and given to the original foundry, resulting in her gaining the \u00a31,000 footwear.<\/p>\n

London\u2019s first public statue of an individual woman of colour, Joy Battick, was unveiled in 1986, part of a sculpture of three Brixton locals \u201cwaiting for their trains\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now there\u2019s a second, 2023, statue of Joy at Brixton station. She tells Juliet: \u201cIn 1986 we were just coming out of the Brixton riots\u2026 It was a harsh, tense time, and it shows.\u201d She says the second statue, created following her cancer treatment, \u201cwas a real tonic\u201d.<\/p>\n

The statue Alison Lapper Pregnant (she has congenital photomelia and was born with no arms and very short legs), displayed in Trafalgar Square from 2005-7, isn\u2019t on public view today. Alison says she\u2019d like to see it back in public \u2013 \u201cchallenging ideas of beauty\u201d and helping people get better at \u201cdealing with difference\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2022 London\u2019s Statues of Women. By Juliet Rix, Safe Haven, \u00a316.99<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mary Poppins statue in Leicester Square [Juliet Rix] MEN on plinths, watch out! A new book by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[3444,748,393,4884,257,113264,18394,18395,16,15,18396],"class_list":{"0":"post-309506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-maggie-gruner","14":"tag-the-camden-new-journal","15":"tag-the-islington-tribune","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-west-end-extra"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114954067445000738","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}