City’s first female Lord Mayor celebrated
ONE of Swansea’s historic Guildhall’s major meeting rooms has been named for one of the city’s most distinguished councillors, Lilian Hopkin.
Councillors last month agreed to re-name the Guildhall’s Gloucester Room for the city’s first female Lord Mayor and last week unveiled a plaque there to commemorate the change.
The newly-named Lilian Hopkin MBE Room hosts many of the council’s main committee meetings, including Cabinet, and councillors gathered there again to witness the change.
The late Mrs Hopkin served as a ward member in Fforestfach and then Cockett for over 30 years and was also a committed and tireless trade union official in the Garment Workers Union - a predominantly women’s union, which
later became part of the GMB.
Rob Stewart, leader of the council, said: “Lilian was a well-known figure in Swansea for many decades and a real trail-blazer in so many different ways. That’s why it’s fitting she should be the first to have a space at the Guildhall named after her as a way of celebrating her achievements on behalf of the people of Swansea.
“Important debates and decisions about the life and future of our city are taken in this room and the fact that it is now named for Lilian Hopkin should encourage us to aspire to maintain the high standards she did.
“I was fortunate to know Lilian and she was very helpful and encouraging to me when I was first elected as a councillor and I learned a lot from her.”
Lilian Hopkin’s service to the people of Swansea is among the first to be commemorated at a naming ceremony after Swansea Council agreed a new Naming Policy which sets out the circumstances in which council buildings, facilities and public internal and external spaces can be named to celebrate or commemorate local people for their outstanding achievements and to reflect significant events in the history and heritage of Swansea.