Millicent Fawcett (1847-1929) was a British suffragist and women's rights activist who played an important role in securing the right to vote for women in the UK. She led the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) for over 20 years, advocating for peaceful and constitutional means to achieve women's suffrage. She lived to see women gain equal voting rights with men in 1928.
She lived at 2 Gower Street for many years, where she wrote several influential works on women's rights and political economy. This house is now owned by UCL, an institution that Fawcett campaigned to open its doors to women - indeed in 1878, thanks in part to her efforts, UCL became the first university in England to admit women on equal terms with men (except for in medicine).
Millicent Fawcett isn't the only famous person to have lived on Gower Street. The street is almost overflowing with blue plaques. Midway down the street is a blue plaque to lady Ottoline Morell, society hostess, noted pacifist, patrons of the arts, and friend of Virginia Woolf and others in the Bloomsbury Group.
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