Louisa Lawson’s Statue
Louisa Lawson’s statue, in the main street of Mudgee, NSW, is an absolute ripper. And I’m happy to confirm that it’s even better in real life than in the photos.
It’s a statue that manages to convey a great deal, in a very accessible way.
Kudos to Mudgee sculptor Margot Stephens, whose work it is. And kudos to the local council for locating it front and centre on one of Mudgee’s main streets, beside the historic library building (it’s the former town hall).
The statue’s face is of a woman at the peak of her powers.
And the spines of the books she’s sitting on outline her advocacy initiatives:
- equality in marriage;
- female prison warders and hospital doctors;
- facilitating women’s access to higher education;
- books for children in the outback;
- public speaking for women;
- financial support for “ragged children’s” schools;
- wage equity;
- childcare for working families;
- unionism for women;
- life insurance for families;
- refuges for women and children;
- bicycle mobility for women;
- fairer divorce and property laws;
- women’s employment for financial independence.
In her hand Louisa holds a paper with one of her poems on it, seemingly caught in the act of writing it down.
The very fact that the statue was brought into existence (it was unveiled in 2023) has something important to say about who gets a statue – and who does not.
The numbers are hard to pin down, but apparently fewer than 15% of Australian statues in capital cities depict women.
If you want to confine the figures to Australian women, and therefore don’t count all the statues of Queen Victoria, the number falls even further.
Some examples? Until the bronze depiction of army nurse Vivian Bullwinkle was installed in August 2023, the only two women in the sculpture garden of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra were “Patriotism” and “War”. (The money for the Bullwinkle sculpture, some $500,000, was raised by The Australian College of Nursing.)
The University of Adelaide boasts seventeen statues, but none of them are women. Similarly in Darwin, 100% of the statues in that city depict men – and, perhaps even worse, none of them are Indigenous.
In fact some claim, with justification, that there are more statues of animals in Australia than there are statues of women. Dog on the Tuckerbox, anyone?
A not-for-profit group called A Monument of One’s Own is working hard to change the landscape. The group has already facilitated the creation of one statue (Zelda D’Aprano, outside Trades Hall in Melbourne, a woman who in 1969 chained herself to the doors of the Commonwealth Office Building in Melbourne to protest the lack of wage equality for women) and is working hard to raise funds for others.
The group is also working hard to raise awareness, with the result that several other statues of women have recently been unveiled in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.
But why bother?
We need to bother because statues depicting real-life people play an important role in driving conversations and in memorialising the subjects’ actions, achievements and contributions to civic culture.
Because a statue says something about who we, as a community, think is important.
Louisa Lawson’s statue is therefore an important step forward in ensuring women occupy space – literally – in the public domain.
It was a privilege to visit it.
My sister in law a few years ago had a similar project with regards to statues of women in Perth WA. I’m not sure how wide the campaign was but there was a connection to a memorial for Fanny Balbuk Yooreel.
The whole statues issue is really gathering steam, in all sorts of interesting ways. I just looked up Fanny Balbuk Yooreel – she absolutely should have a statue!
I was at the unveiling of Louisa’s statue. The only relation of Louisa in attendance. It is a fabulous statue.
How fabulous! It looks like it was a wonderful event. And I’m so pleased to know at least one member of her family was there. Are you a direct descendant of Louisa?