Edith S. Kerrison

Edith S. Kerrison (1850-1934) was a nurse and then hospital matron. A member of the Executive of the Women’s Labour League, Kerrison was the first woman to serve on West Ham Council. She was later offered the mayoralty but refused the role because of her age. She championed women and children. This memorial, dated 1936, was erected in the same year and this was also somewhat bizarrely, since she was dead, the year in which she was made a honorary freeman of the borough of West Ham. The memorial comprises a bronze bas relief with her portrait medallion in the centre and young children playing on either side. The relief is mounted on a stone plinth inscribed on the front ‘ERECTED BY MANY FRIENDS IN MEMORY OF A LIFE OF SERVICE TO OTHERS’. A further inscription on the back is badly eroded.

Location: Outside the Public Library, The Grove, Stratford, West Ham, E.15