Suffrage icon Henrietta Franklin to be honoured in parliament

An education reformer and leader of the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage is to be honoured by having her name and image etched into a statue in Parliament Square.

Henrietta Franklin, who died in 1964, aged 97, will be one of 59 women and men who fought for women’s suffrage to feature on the plinth of the Millicent Fawcett statue, to be unveiled this spring.

The announcement marks 100 years since the first women secured the right to vote in the UK on the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act.

In 1912, Franklin helped establish the JLWS, which was then the only Jewish women’s organisation in the world devoted exclusively to obtaining both national and Jewish suffrage for women.

It was described as “linking feminist goals with Jewish loyalties” and “combining secular suffragist rhetoric with Jewish terminology”. Members equated their campaigns with Anglo-Jewry’s efforts to obtain political emancipation, seeking to overcome discrimination and repression against Jews around the world.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “This is an important step in ensuring we highlight the contribution to gender equality made by these 59 women and men.”