Category: Uncategorized

Florence Nightingale

(1820 – 1910)

Waterloo Place, St James’s, London SW1Y

Social Reformer, Statistician and Founder of Modern Medicine

This is the first but certainly not the last tribute to Florence Nightingale.  She stands at Waterloo Place – a short walk from the Stafford but up so high I’m struggling to take a decent shot.  Created by Arthur George Walker, it shows her as ‘the Lady with the Lamp’, a nickname she earned on her nightly inspection rounds in the hospitals of the Crimean war and was unveiled in the midst of the First World War in 1915, with little fanfare, as was appropriate given wartime.

Twiggy

(1949 – )

Bourdon Place, Mayfair, London SW1

I’m staying in the nation’s capital and determined to get some more statue sightseeing done.  I can travel easily around London so whilst here I want to get in as many as I can.  I’m giving myself a year to see all 128 statues so the city gives me a chance to get ahead of myself – or so I think.

Standing in Bourdon Place, is the model Twiggy.  Born Lesley Lawson but better known by her nickname, she is often touted as the first supermodel and was iconic in the 60’s fashion industry and beyond.  She also has an acting and singing career as well as being an ardent animal rights campaigner.  But Twiggy is not the only sculpture here.  The street holds the photographer Terence Donovan plus an onlooker, thus allowing you to gaze at the model through the photographer’s eyes, but also the shopper passing by. 

You can also stand with Twiggy and take in her view.  It’s a lovely concept, allowing you to flit between the pieces of art, each one giving a different angle to the next.  It is part of the Mayfair Sculpture Trail, https://www.bondstreet.co.uk/art-in-mayfair

with artist Neal French http://www.nealfrench.co.uk/ entitling the work as ‘Three Figures’ in 2012.

Noor Inayat Khan

1914-1944
Gordon Square, London

Initially employed as the first female wireless operator in the war efforts, Khan was subsequently recruited as a Special Operations Executive (SOE) and was sent to occupied France 1943.  In October of that year she was betrayed by a Frenchwoman and arrested by the Gestapo.  She was sent to Germany’s Pforzheim prison and was kept in chains in solitary confinement. 

In September 1944 Khan and three other female SOE agents were transferred to Dachau concentration camp and subsequently executed on 13th September, with her last word being, ‘Liberte’.

As I take in the sculpture, a man opens up with information on Khan, what she stood for, and how, as a woman of colour she is rare, particularly in art.  He also says there is a film to be made about her life.  I’m pleased someone is showing an interest.  As I walk away I notice he has a cat on a lead.  Now I don’t know what to believe anymore.

The bust was unveiled in 2012. 

Sculptor Karen Newman. http://www.karen-newman.com/

Virginia Woolf

1882-1941

Bust – Tavistock Square, London WC1H

Statue and bench – Richmond Riverside TW9

“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman”

Woolf is a writer best known for works such as Mrs Dalloway (1925), To The Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928) and A Room of One’s Own (1929). 

The sculpture sits on Richmond Riverside.  Woolf was troubled with mental illness for much of her life, leading to her suicide by drowning in the river Ouse, but the sculptor Laury Dizengremel has captured her in happier times and from accounts she enjoyed her time in Richmond where, with her husband, she founded the publishing house Hogarth Press.

The bust in Tavistock Square is cast from a 1931 sculpture by Stephen Tomlin (1901–1937). Unveiled in 2004 it sits in the square where Woolf lived (at number 52) between 1924 and 1939 continuing to write and run Hogarth Press.

Margaret MacDonald

Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2

“Took no rest from doing good”

I hovered around Margaret’s statue a while as there was a couple on the seat enjoying lunch (and possibly each other).  Their exit may have been quickened by my loitering, but it’s great to see folk interacting with history, art and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Margaret (1870-1911) was a social reformer.  She was involved in the suffragist movement and took part in voluntary social work supporting and highlighting the need for reform in women’s welfare. This led to her playing a key role in establishing the first trade schools for girls in 1904. A noticeboard in the park says she was devoted to her 6 children.  It seems she packed a lot in to her relatively short life. Do I feel a little envious of this? Sure I do.

At the front of the statue are the words, ‘This seat is placed here in memory of Margaret MacDonald who spent her life in helping others’.  The inscription at the rear reads, ‘She brought joy to those with whom and for whom she lived and worked. Her heart went out in fellowship to her fellow women & in love to the children of the people whom she served as a citizen and helped as a sister. She quickened faith and zeal in others by her life and took no rest from doing good.’

Margaret and her family lived on Lincoln’s Inn Fields, so it was fitting for her husband Ramsay Macdonald to design the statue and have it erected in the park after her death in 1914.  Margaret supported socialism and financed Ramsay’s early career in politics.  He went on to become Labour’s first Prime Minister. Sculptor: Richard R Goulden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reginald_Goulden