Who to immortalise as a sculpture? The centenary of suffrage in Britain and competing narratives of women’s emancipation

2018 marked 100 years since the British Parliament passed a law which allowed some women, and all men, to vote for the first time, the 1918 Representation of the People Act. In November 1919, Nancy Astor won a by-election in Plymouth and was therefore the first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons. Julie Gottlieb, Professor of Modern British History at the University of Sheffield, who acted as a historical consultant artist Gillian Wearing as she designed the statue of Millicent Fawcett is interviewed by Prof. Clarisse Berthezène, as is Jacqui Turner, Associate Professor of British Political History at the University of Reading, who directed the Astor 100 project in 2019, marking 100 years of women in Parliament. Astor 100 is a multivalent set of events which includes a new statue of Astor outside her former home in Plymouth