Dr Elaine Morgan OBE

Dr Elaine Morgan OBE (1920-2013) feminist, TV screenwriter and controversial evolutionary theorist. In her 30 year career, Morgan received a host of awards and scripted several dramatic adaptations of books, including Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley (1975), Vera Brittain’s memoir, Testament of Youth (1979) and The Life and Times of David Lloyd George (1981). Morgan won two Bafta awards for her screenwriting, two Writers’ Guild awards, and a Prix Italia.

Her first book on evolution was The Descent of Woman (1972), which was followed by several others including The Aquatic Ape (1982), The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (1997) and The Naked Darwinist (2008).

Morgan’s statue was erected following the Hidden Heroines campaign organised by the Monumental Welsh Women group. It shows the writer seated, pen in hand, covered in sheets of paper on which she has been writing her ideas. It is only the second ever statue of a named, non-fictionalised woman to be erected in an outdoor public space in Wales.

Location: Outside Meddygfa Glan Cynon Surgery, Mountain Ash, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales.