Millicent Fawcett

(1847-1929)

English suffragist (one who campaigned for women to have the vote) and an early feminist

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Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett GBE (11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was a prominent English politician, writer and feminist icon. Known for campaigning for women's suffrage through legislative change, she led Britain's largest women's rights association, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) from 1897 to 1919. She wrote of herself: "I cannot say I became a suffragist. I always was one, from the time I was old enough to think at all about the principles of Representative Government." Fawcett tried to improve women's chances of higher education, serving as a governor of Bedford College, London (now Royal Holloway), and co-founder of Newnham College, Cambridge in 1875. In 2018, 100 years after the passing of the Representation of the People Act, Fawcett became the first woman commemorated by a statue in Parliament Square.