Mary Wollstonecraft: 2020 a year of controversial statues
Writing in the Telegraph in June Boris Johnson said he would resist calls to remove a statue of Winston Churchill in Whitehall. Who was making this call? No one. It wasnt a demand of Black Lives Matter or anyone else. It was just another shot in Tory culture wars
There is though rightly some focus on re-situating some statues of prominent slave traders and imperialists away from very public positions. There is no great demand to take down any war memorial, not even that of Bomber Harris in Aldwych which is probably amongst the most contentious.
Black Lives Matters is not about taking down or putting up statues but since the issue has been raised I list below a handful that seem long overdue. I’m sure there are others.
10th November sees, finally, the unveiling of a statue of Mary Wollstonecraft on Newington Green in North London. There has been a public campaign and fund raising effort for this and the statue is long overdue.
A work of art by the artist Maggi Hambling, the form, a naked statue of woman (not Wollstonecraft) has proved controversial:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54886813
I support the erection of the Wollstonecraft statue and was a supporter of the campaign. As for the form of it, as might be expected I wish they had consulted a feminist historian before getting it designed.
Video of the new statue
Putting up some statues
Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) socialist suffragette
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women
William Cuffay (1788-1870) Black Chartist leader in London
Jayaben Desai (1933-2010) Led Grunwick strike of Asian women, for equal pay, against racism
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