In 1927 The Vote newspaper reported on a wreath laying ceremony at the statue of John Stuart Mill in Victoria Embankment Gardens, honouring his contribution to the suffrage movement.
On Friday 20 May 1927 a wreath laying ceremony was held at the John Stuart Mill statue in the Victoria Embankment Gardens to mark the 121st anniversary of his birth. This was to celebrate and honour Mills’ contribution to the suffrage movement as he had received and presented the first women’s suffrage petition to Parliament in 1866.
The ceremony in the gardens beside Temple Station was reported in The Vote newspaper, the publication of the Women’s Freedom League:
Last Friday morning, in brilliant sunshine and in the full beauty of an early summer day, members of women’s organisations paid their tribute in Temple Gardens to the memory of John Stuart Mill, on the 121st anniversary of his birth.
Dame Millicent Fawcett spoke at the event saying:
We do well today to commemorate the great leader of our Cause, which is and always has been an extension of the vote to women on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men. It was a great thing for us when our movement started just 60 years ago to have as our leader a man of such universally acknowledged eminence as John Stuart Mill.
Along with Millicent Fawcett and Agnes Garrett, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence was also there representing the Women’s Freedom League. That same evening, the League held a public meeting at Westminster to discuss the continued fight for full equality in voting rights. This was achieved just one year later in 1928.