London suffragist statue design unveiled

LONDON: The final design has been unveiled for a statue of suffragist figurehead Millicent Fawcett, set to go up in London's Parliament Square in time for the 2018 centenary of women getting the vote.
The monument to Fawcett, who spent nearly 50 years campaigning for female suffrage, will be the first statue of a woman erected in the square opposite the Houses of Parliament.
Artist Gillian Wearing revealed her design after it was granted conditional approval by Westminster City Council on Tuesday.
The model shows Fawcett holding a placard reading "Courage call to courage everywhere", in tribute to a speech she gave upon the death of suffragette Emily Wilding Davidson at the 1913 Epsom Derby horse race.
Wearing, who won the 1997 Turner Prize for visual arts, is the first woman to produce a statue for Parliament Square, which is fringed with 11 monuments to former British prime ministers and foreign statesmen.
The statue is set to be unveiled for the centenary of the 1918 Representation Of The People Act in February, which granted some women over 30 the vote for the first time.
"I am really delighted that planning has been granted, now Millicent Fawcett's statue can stand as an equal amongst male statues in Parliament Square," said Waring.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said a statue of a woman was long overdue in Parliament Square.
"Next year marks a century since the start of women's suffrage in the UK –– one of our country's most pivotal moments," he said.
"This will be one of the most momentous and significant statues of our time."
The 11 existing statues in the square are of former prime ministers Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George, Viscount Palmerston, the Earl of Derby, Benjamin Disraeli, Robert Peel and George Canning; South Africa's PM Jan Smuts and president Nelson Mandela; US president Abraham Lincoln, and Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. — AFP