Mary Anning campaigner plans statue of notable Dorset woman

Anya Pearson co-ordinated the campaign which saw Anning's statue unveiled in Lyme Regis, Dorset, in 2022.

She is now launching a similar campaign to celebrate another woman - whose identity is yet to be decided - with links to the county town of Dorchester.

Ms Pearson says women are under-represented in public art.

Her Dorchester "Sheroes" campaign has already drawn up a shortlist of seven potential candidates, including 20th-Century novelist and LGBTQ+ pioneer Sylvia Townsend Warner and 19th-Century art writer Lucy Baxter.

Prof Alice Roberts backed a crowdfunding appeal for the statue

Ms Pearson, who lives in Dorchester, is asking the public to submit their suggestions before residents vote for who they want immortalised in bronze.

She said: "I told myself 'never again' after the five-year-long campaign to get Mary Anning her statue in Lyme Regis, but I have one last statue in me."

She says the statues in Dorchester currently depict "six men, one dog, a queen and a horse" and there are no "non-royal depictions of any remarkable Dorset women".

The project is being supported by Mark Chutter, chairman and academic director of The Thomas Hardy Society.