Repairing Salisbury’s memorial to a suffragist
sir – The unveiling of the muchpraised statue of Dame Millicent Fawcett (report, April 25) means that a husband and wife have now been publicly commemorated in the same way for the first time outside the Royal family.
Henry Fawcett, Liberal MP from 1865 until his early death in 1884, was excluded from the Cabinet solely on account of his blindness, as Gladstone told him apologetically.
There are statues of him in Victoria Embankment Gardens (a short distance from his wife’s in Parliament Square) and in the centre of Salisbury, his birthplace, where he spoke powerfully in support of women’s suffrage in the company of his devoted spouse.
The Salisbury statue is badly in need of cleaning and repair. In view of the couple’s unique statuary achievement, should not restoration work be set in hand in Salisbury, where tourism needs a boost in the aftermath of the nerve poison attack?
Lord Lexden
London SW1