Memorial to Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst

Memorial to Emmeline Pankhurst, unveiled 1930, by A G Walker and Sir Herbert Baker with later additions of 1959 by Peter Hills commemorating Christabel Pankhurst and the Women's Social and Political Union.

MATERIALS: bronze sculpture and relief medallions with Portland stone plinth and side screens.

POSITION: the memorial is approximately 10 metres within the north-west entrance of Victoria Tower Gardens, facing Abingdon Street. The gardens are situated to the south of the Palace of Westminster.

DESCRIPTION: the memorial comprises a cast bronze statue of Emmeline Pankhurst, just over two metres high, on a stone plinth. To either side are low, curved, exedra-like screens terminating in square piers.

Pankhurst is depicted in a long dress and coat with fur collar. Her right arm and hand is held low but outstretched, a pose she often adopted during her speeches, and left arm is bent at right angles, held against her body and in her left hand she holds an eyeglass. Walker’s signature is at the base of the sculpture and at the rear is the maker’s mark: ‘A. B. Burton/ Founder’. In the late C20 the sculpture was covered in a black coating in a bid to protect the bronze.

The square stone plinth has inset pilasters at the four corners and on the front face bears the inscription: EMMELINE PANKHURST: 1858-1928. Set into the paving at the base of the plinth is a tablet with the following inscription: THIS STATUE OF / EMMELINE PANKHURST / WAS ERECTED / AS A TRIBUTE TO / HER COURAGEOUS / LEADERSHIP OF THE / MOVEMENT FOR THE / ENFRANCHISEMENT / OF WOMEN

The right-hand pier bears a bronze roundel with a cast relief head portrait of Christabel Pankhurst, with the carved inscription below: DAME / CHRISTABEL / PANKHURST / [illegible, possibly post-nominal letters] / 1881-1958. On the outer face of the pier is the following inscription: THESE WALLS AND PIERS HAVE / BEEN ERECTED IN MEMORY / OF DAME CHRISTABEL PANKHURST / WHO JOINTLY WITH HER MOTHER / MRS EMMELINE PANKHURST / INSPIRED AND LED THE / MILITANT SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN

On the left-hand pier is a second bronze roundel depicting a WSPU prisoners’ badge with the following inscription below: W.S.P.U PRISONERS’ BADGE 1905-1914. On the outer face of the pier is the following inscription: REPLICA OF BADGE, A BROAD / ARROW ON THE WESTMINSTER / ARMS, GIVEN BY THE WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION / TO OVER 1000 WOMEN WHO / SUFFERED IMPRISONMENT FOR / WOMEN’S ENFRANCHISEMENT.