Following a campaign and petition by the activist Caroline Criado Perez, the statue's creation was endorsed by both the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

[1] The bronze statue portrays Dame Millicent at the age of 50, when she became president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).

[5] The initial design was modified following feedback from members of Westminster City Council, as they felt that the sign Fawcett was holding made her look as if she were hanging laundry out to dry.

[10][11] The campaign called for a statue of a suffragette to be placed in Parliament Square in time for the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918.

Following some research, Criado Perez discovered that only 2.7 percent of the statues in the United Kingdom were of individual women who were not members of the British royal family.

[12] On 10 May 2016, to launch the campaign, an open letter was written to the new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, signed by 42 prominent women, requesting a statue of a suffragette in Parliament Square by February 2018.

The Prime Minister, Theresa May, said following the announcement, "The example Millicent Fawcett set during the struggle for equality continues to inspire the battle against the burning injustices of today.

The Council turned down the application as it did not meet the 10-year rule (that a minimum of 10 years have to pass following the subject's death) and that the Thatcher family opposed the design.

The unveiling itself was performed by three generations of women and girls: Jennifer Loehnis (a descendant of Fawcett), Criado Perez, Justine Simons (Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries) and two schoolgirls from Millbank Academy in Westminster, and Platanos College, Lambeth.

[6] Criado Perez called the unveiling of the statue "one hell of a start" in increasing the representation of women across Britain in both cultural and political spheres.

Purvis also highlighted that the image of Emily Davison is on the rear of the statue, and that the campaign was launched with the intention of commemorating a suffragette, not a suffragist, in Parliament Square.