Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the birthday of suffragette Millicent Garrett who campaigned for women’s right to vote in the UK during the early 20th century.
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She was born on 11 June 1847 and went on to become a leading women’s rights activist, leading the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies for over 20 years.
In 1918 many British women over the age of 30 were given the opportunity to vote for the first time, something that Millicent had worked hard to achieve,
She remains a key figure for the suffragettes and a symbol of the fight for women’s rights across the UK.
Suffragette Millicent Garrett Fawcett (Photo by Michael Nicholson/Corbis via Getty Images)
What is the Fawcett Society?
The Fawcett Society is a charity that campaigns for gender equality and women’s rights in the UK, carrying on the work of Millicent Fawcett.
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The London Society for Women’s Suffrage was renamed The Fawcett Society in 1953 to honour her legacy and show appreciation for her impact on gender equality.
Some of the current campaigns include closing the gender pay gap, securing equal power and defending women’s rights post-Brexit.
The charity produces various reports and briefings, as well carrying out research and special projects focusing on equality in all areas of life.
The statue of women’s suffrage leader Millicent Fawcett is the first monument of a woman and the first designed by a woman, Turner Prize-winning artist Gillian Wearing OBE, to take a place in parliament Square. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Where is the Millicent Fawcett statue?
Millicent was given her own statue in Parliament Square in April 2018 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of voting rights being given to some women over 30 years-old.
The decision was made after a campaign that saw over 80,000 people sign an online petition.
It features her displaying one of her most famous quotes that she said during a speech in 1913 – ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere’.
It is the first statue of a woman to be erected in Parliament Square and it was designed by artist Gillian Wearing.
A march of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage, 1908. From left to right, Lady Frances Balfour (1858 – 1931), Millicent Fawcett (1847 – 1929), Ethel Snowden (1880 – 1951), Emily Davies (1830 – 1921) and Sophie Bryant (1850 – 1922). (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Millicent Fawcett quotes
Millicent Fawcett made many famous quotes during her time campaigning and as president of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.
Here are some of her best known quotes –
‘However benevolent men may be in their intentions, they cannot know what women want and what suits the necessities of women’s lives as well as women know these things themselves.’
‘What draws men and women together is stronger than the brutality and tyranny which drive them apart.’
‘The evil state of the law, the evil state of the general tone of public opinion in regard to morals, is an outcome of the subjection of women, of the notion that women are possessions or chattels, with whom men are freely justified in dealing as they please.’
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‘The real protection women needed was the power to protect themselves.’
‘The women brought under [the influence of female emancipation] will have a wider intellectual horizon…they will have more dignity and more happiness in their lives…in a word, we shall see “the utmost expansion of which the female nature is capable”.’
‘I feel that no one, man or woman, ought to be forced into marriage by fear of social or legal penalties. That is one main reason why I should like to see honourable and honoured careers, other than marriage, open to women.’
‘Those who write and speak against the extension of liberty of action and conscience to men and women have always said that the change they deprecate will undermine or decompose the foundations of society. A few years pass by, the change is accomplished, and it turns out that society is not undermined or decomposed at all, but is all the healthier and more vigorous, through being possessed of a larger proportion of free citizens.’
‘We would greatly prefer an imperfect scheme that can pass to the most perfect scheme in the world that could not pass.’– on campaigning tactics, in 1917
‘My husband took care that I should hear important debates in the House of Commons, and the Speaker and Serjeant-At-Arms were very kind in frequently offering me a seat in that portion of the ladies’ galleries which they controlled.’
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To celebrate Millicent Fawcett's 171st birthday, Google have honoured the suffragist with a Google Doodle.
Dame Millicent Fawcett made it her life's work to secure women the right to vote. Millicent was a suffragist, meaning she employed more peaceful tactics than her suffragette sisters.
The colours of her suffragist movement were green, white and red which stood for Give Women Rights - and have been represented in the Doodle below.
Millicent Fawcett, the leading British suffragist who campaigned for the women’s right to vote, has been honoured in the Google Doodle for June 11, 2018.
On what would have been her 171st birthday, Millicent Fawcett has been remembered as one of the most influential women of the past 100 years.
She was marked with a statue in London's Parliament Square earlier this year, becoming the first woman to have a statue erected across from the Houses of Parliament, but who was Millicent Fawcett?
Millicent Fawcett, British suffragist, has been honoured in the Google Doodle for June 11, 2018
Who is Millicent Fawcett?
Born on June 11, 1847, in Aldeburgh in Suffolk, Millicent is primarily known for her work as a women’s suffrage campaigner.
The sister of Britain’s first female doctor Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who first introduced her to feminist Emily Davies, Millicent had been encouraged to get involved with politics from a young age.
After hearing John Stuart Mill’s speech on universal women’s rights, she became active in his campaign from the age of 19.
With other women, Millicent formed a discussion group called the Kensington Society and after collecting signatures for the first petition for women’s suffrage, she became the secretary of the London Society for Women’s Suffrage.
She was then introduced to Liberal MP Henry Fawcett, who had at first intended to marry her sister Elizabeth but because she decided to embark on a medical career, Henry and Millicent were wedded on April 23 1867.
Phillipa Fawcett, daughter of suffragist Millicent Fawcett and professor at Cambridge pictured
They had one child, a daughter named Philippa who was born in 1868 and soon after, Millicent joined the London Suffrage Committee, beginning her speaking tours around the UK for the suffragist movement, different to the suffragettes.
After her husband’s death and a subsequent hiatus from public life, she forged ahead in her campaign for women’s rights and became the leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.
Millicent was in this role a year after the first women had been given the vote in the Representation of the People Act 1918.
She also played a significant role in the founding of Newham College, the second Cambridge university college to admit women.
As well as this, Millicent led an all-female troop into the British concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War.
Before her death in 1929, a year after women were granted the vote on equal terms to men, she was appointed a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE).
Processions 2018
Women all over the UK led mass marches to create a living artwork of green, white and violet to commemorate 100 years since the first British women won the vote.
In order to mark women who were over 30 and who owned property being given the vote, 14-18 Now, the First World War art programme and charity Artichoke, processions were held in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London.
A group of girls pose for photographs for their mothers next to a statue of Millicent Fawcett
Millicent Fawcett statue
2018 has seen a number of events celebrating the centenary of women winning the vote and earlier this year, Millicent Fawcett was honoured with a statue of the suffragist in Parliament Square.
The bronze casting by Gillian Wearing is the first statue of a woman to be erected in Westminster and features her holding a banner reading ‘courage calls to courage everywhere’.
A statue in honour of the first female Suffragette Millicent Fawcett is unveiled in London
After it was unveiled, UK Prime Minister Theresa May said: ‘I would not be standing here today as prime minister, no female MPs would have taken their seats in Parliament, none of us would have had the rights and protections we now enjoy, were it not for one truly great woman - Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett.
The 11 other statues in Parliament Square are of Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Jan Smuts, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Robert Peel, David Lloyd George, Viscount Palmerston, Earl of Derby Edward Stanley, Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli and George Canning.
What is a Google Doodle?
Millicent Fawcett has been honoured in the Google Doodle for June 11, 2018, on what would have been her 171st birthday with illustrations by Pearl Law.
Millicent Fawcett has been honoured by Peark Law on what would have been her 171st birthday
Google Doodles mark important events around the world with creative illustrations on the search engine’s homepage and is incorporated into the Google logo.
The first Google Doodle marked Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s visit to the 1998 Burning Man Festival and was a stick-man standing behind the second ‘o’ in the Google logo.
Today, a team of illustrators, graphic designers, animators and artists work on the Google Doodles and the logos are hyperlinked to a page that provides more information about the cultural event celebrated.
A team of illustrators, graphic designers, animators and artists work on the Google Doodles
Recent Google Doodles have celebrated Virginia Apgar, Tom Longboat and Heinz Sielmann.
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Today's Google Doodle marks the 171st anniversary of the birth of British feminist trailblazer Millicent Fawcett.
Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett GBE was a leading suffragist and instrumental in securing votes for women in 1918.
Born in the seaside town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, on June 11, 1847, she was sent to a London boarding school and took an interest in women's suffrage aged 19 after hearing a speech by radical MP John Stuart Mill.
Her sister, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, faced an almighty struggle to become the first female doctor in the UK and this fight spurred on Fawcett in her campaign for female equality.
(Image: Hulton Archive)
She married Henry Fawcett, a politician and professor of political economy at Cambridge, in 1867 and made her first speech on women's suffrage in 1868.
(Image: Collect Unknown)
(Image: Collect Unknown)
She became a well-known activist and speaker before becoming president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in 1897. This group joined together lots of suffrage factions, including Emmeline Pankhurst's suffragette movement.
Fawcett was an advocate for peaceful protest, using non-violent demonstrations and petitions to MPs. She believed that by demonstrating that women were intelligent, law-abiding citizens then they would be seen to be responsible enough to participate fully in politics.
(Image: PA)
(Image: Getty)
In 1913, Emily Davison threw herself under King George V's horse at Epsom in a bid to draw attention to the plight of women in the UK. Shortly afterwards, Fawcett made a speech in which the line "courage calls to courage everywhere" was said.
The phrase is on the banner which Fawcett is holding on the bronze statue in Parliament Square.
(Image: AFP)
In 1918, the Representation of the People act was passed, granting voting rights to some women in the UK. To qualify, you had to be over 30 years old and hold £5 of property, or have a husband who did.
In 1928, voting rights were extended to all women over 21, in line with men, and an 81-year-old Fawcett watched on in the public gallery in the House of Commons as the bill was passed.
She died one year later.
Today, the Fawcett Society, named in her honour, continues to fight for gender equality and in February this year Fawcett won a BBC Radio 4 poll for the most influential women of the past 100 years.
