Margaret MacDonald Memorial

About

The Margaret MacDonald Memorial is a sculpture by Richard Reginald Goulden, beside the path at the north edge of the public park at Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. It became a grade II listed structure in 1974. Margaret Ethel MacDonald (1870–1911) was a British feminist and social reformer, and the wife of the Labour politician Ramsay MacDonald.

The couple lived at 3 Lincoln's Inn Fields, and had six children. She died from blood poisoning in 1911, many years before he became the Labour Party's first prime minister in 1924. The memorial comprises a public seat within an alcove created by a granite surround, on which is mounted a bronze sculptural group portraying MacDonald kneeling with her arms outstretched protectively around a group of nine cherubic infant children who are laughing and playing.

An inscription carved below the top edge of the stone surround reads: THIS SEAT IS IN MEMORY OF MARGARET MACDONALD WHO SPENT HER LIFE IN HELPING OTHERS. A bronze plaque mounted on the back of the seat list biographical details of her birth, marriage, and life: SHE WAS THE DAUGHTER OF JOHN & MARGARET GLADSTONE / SHE WAS BORN IN KENSINGTON IN 1870 · WAS MARRIED TO / RAMSAY MACDONALD IN 1896 AND...