KITTY WILKINSON is to become the first woman honoured with a statue at St George’s Hall.
The Victorian public health pioneer will be immortalised in a new £150,000 Italian marble artwork at the Grade I listed landmark.
She will join a dozen other marble statues surrounding the Great Hall depicting Victorian and Edwardian men including William Roscoe, George Stephenson and William Gladstone.
A number of niches, where the statues stand, have remained empty since the last one was completed in 1911.
Kitty Wilkinson was born in Derry in 1785 and moved to Liverpool as a child.
She opened the first public washhouse in the country, and had a pivotal role in teaching people that cholera was linked to dirty water, being dubbed the “Saint of the Slums”.
Campaigners have long argued that women, who have played an important role in the city’s history, should have statues in their honour.
It is the first of three famous Liverpool women who will be commemorated with statues at the hall.Š
The others are social reformers Josephine Butler and Eleanor Rathbone.
