Photo: Jim Linwood Wikimedia Commons
Sculptor: Richard Reginald Goulden (1836-1932)
Materials: Figures in bronze, curved alcove in granite, seat in teak
Inscription: carved beneath statue: THIS SEAT IS PLACED HERE IN MEMORY OF MARGARET MACDONALD WHO SPENT HER LIFE IN HELPING OTHERS
Unveiled: 19 December 1914
Listed: Grade II (1379340) 14.5.1974
Margaret MacDonald
Margaret MacDonald (1870-1911) was a feminist, social reformer, and wife of the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald. They lived in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. MacDonald joined the Women’s Industrial Council in 1894. She helped establish trade schools for girls, was Chair of the National Union of Women Workers and founded the Women’s Labour League. She was a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Her memorial, which was the first portrait statue of a non-royal in London, takes the form of a curved Scottish granite alcove surmounted by a bronze sculptural group with Margaret Macdonald sitting in the centre her arms outstretched on either side over groups of children playing, beneath is a public seat made of ship’s teak.
Location: North side, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2.