Setting progress in stone, or bronze . . .

It was a joyous occasion in London’s Parliament Square on Tuesday (UK time) when Gillian Wearing’s sculpture of Millicent Garrett Fawcett was unveiled, marking the latter’s contribution not just to the extension of the franchise, but to other causes for which she energetically worked: women’s education, rights for sex workers, and challenging the brutal conditions in Britain’s concentration camps in the Boer war, among others.

The position of the new statue is important. Flanked by the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Whitehall, and with Buckingham Palace a stone’s throw away, Parliament Square represents the heart of British power and the establishment. The square is also the home of 11 – now 12 – sculptures of notable people. Until this week, they were all of men: Disraeli, Churchill, Palmerston, Gandhi, Canning, Derby, Smuts, Lincoln, Mandela, Peel and Lloyd George. As London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, noted in his speech at the unveiling, statues do provide a barometer of the values of a time and a place. Putting them up – and taking them down – can become acts freighted with significance. The sculptures that adorn our public spaces matter. It is time for women – and not just the semi-naked women who are sculpted as allegories for Justice or Peace – to become part of the grammar of our streets. Wearing’s accomplished bronze makes a good start.