A maquette of how the new statue of Sylvia Pankhurst would look

• BOTH the features article and letters page in the last two editions of the Islington Tribune have certainly raised interest on the issue of the Sylvia Pankhurst statue, (What would Sylvia have wanted? January 27).

The origins of the statue go back more than 25 years. The inspiration came at that time, from activists among the fringes of the TUC conference with radical historians, and members of the National Assembly of Women raising concerns as to why there was not a statue of this outstanding radical woman that sacrificed so much.

Out of this idea was born the Sylvia Pankhurst memorial organising committee, bringing campaigners and individual supporters together.

Under the umbrella of the regional Trades Union Congress, funds were raised from women’s groups and trade union branches.

This included a small but significant donation from Islington Trades Union Council, who held a public meeting in her name to highlight her life, work, and legacy, and the role of feminism throughout the years since.

Westminster was, in fact, the original site to have been approached to have a statue of Sylvia but the idea was rejected by both parliament and Westminster City Council.

Former Islington South and Finsbury Labour MP Chris Smith had an influence as well as Islington Council in finding a home for the proposed statue.

It is true to say that a statue would find a fitting place in the East End where Sylvia Pankhurst had helped set up the East London Federation of Suffragettes.

There is, however, a beautiful and striking mural of Sylvia on the side of the Lord Morpeth pub, Old Ford Road, Bow, where next door once stood the building of the East London Federation of Suffragettes.

I personally cannot think of a better place to have the statue than in Clerkenwell Green. It was in Islington’s Holloway prison that Sylvia went on hunger strike. In Clerkenwell Green stands the Marx Memorial Library, who have played a pivotal part in support of the statue.

What better place, as the annual London May Day March assembles at Clerkenwell Green before a rally in Trafalgar Square? Sylvia Pankhurst was a socialist and internationalist. It’s a path that must have been no easy one to take for a woman coming from a middle class, artistic, background.

It was a political journey, not just of the principle of votes for women, but recognition of women’s place equal in the workplace as well as in the home, and in society itself. And in particular working class women and their families in the East End. She achieved this not through philanthropy but through solidarity.

We have a sense that she would be standing side by side with working class families now suffering from the cost of living crisis and among striking public sector workers today. Her inspiration lives on. I look forward to the day when the statue is unveiled.

Islington Council have given this their full support, bringing women’s campaigners, trade unionists, and activists together to learn from the legacy of Sylvia Pankhurst.

CLLR MICK GILGUNN
Labour, Tollington ward