The plaque has the inscription:
From children of
the Loyal Temperance
Legion
in memory of
work done for the temperance cause by
Lady Henry
Somerset
the President
National British Womens Temperance
Assoc
incorporated June 1896
I was thirsty and ye gave me
drink
The statue is of a young girl holding a bowl in front of
her. The statue is life-size and made from bronze. There is also a drinking bowl
carved into the base of the plinth for use by dogs and other pets and
animals.
The Victorian Web [visit link] tells
us about the memorial:
"Figure on a Drinking Fountain
George Edward Wade (1853-1933)
1897
Bronze, on a high rocky base including water pipes and a
low-level basin
Victoria Embankment Gardens, London SW1
The sculpture crowns a drinking fountain, while,
touchingly, the girl is offering a bowl of her own, sometimes described as a
birdbath. It is charming piece. The child's neatly pulled back hair, her lowered
gaze and her serious facial expression, and her neatly fastened bodice are all
beautifully executed, and there is a fluidity in her stance and hands that
chimes with the New Sculpture of the time. The statue has had to be replaced
since vandals sawed it off at the feet in 1970; its replacement is surely a
tribute to the sculptor as well as to Lady Somerset herself."
The Essortment website [visit
link] gives a biography of Lady Somerset:
"Lady Henry Somerset was a nineteenth century English
philanthropist and temperance leader. A guide to her life and her part in the
movement.
Lady Henry Somerset was born as Isabel Cocks in 1851,
the first child of John Somers Cocks, third Earl of Somer. Her father was a
nobleman in every way. For some years he was Lord-in-waiting to the Queen,
spending the time at Windsor, Osborne, and Balmoral. Being a man of artistic and
literary tastes, he resigned his position to devote himself to his studies, yet
his intimate acquaintance with the Queen gave his daughter many
advantages.
As a young woman Isabel was very beautiful. She was
presented at court at nineteen and married at the age of twenty-two to Lord
Henry Somerset, second son of the Duke of Beaufort. The marriage was arranged
and while Isabel was an heiress to estates, manor houses, and London property,
Somerset, as the second son, was penniless. The marriage was not a success and
Isabel became a very independent woman. She was separated from her husband, who
allegedly abused her. She left the Church of England and attached herself to the
Methodists.
Lady Somerset owned a vast estate at Eastnor, fifteen
miles in length, containing twenty-five thousand acres. Her house, which was a
castle, was three miles from the lodge gate in Eastnor Park. In London she owned
property where one hundred and twenty-five thousand people lived. She devoted
much of her time and income to the welfare of the people of England. She began
by studying the causes of poverty and crime, and found the liquor traffic at the
bottom of it all. Being a woman of deeds as well as words, she took the total
abstinence pledge, induced some of her tenants to do the same, and so started a
temperance society. She visited the homes of her tenants, gave Bible readings in
the kitchens, and gathered the mothers at her castle to discuss with them the
training of their children.
Her philanthropic work soon spread beyond her own
estates and call came for her to speak and work in behalf of temperance far and
near. She went among the miners of South Wales and held meetings for days on end
in tents, halls, and in the pits during the dinner hours. Hers seemed to the
poor miners as the form and voice of an angel.
She became president of the British Woman's Temperance
Association in 1890, and many attributed her sympathy with the outcasts of
society due to her ostracism from society after her marriage failed. By 1891
Isabel had found acceptance in British reform circles.
Isabel visited America to attend the World's Woman's
Christian Temperance Union. At that time she met Frances Willard, with whom she
became fast friends and associates in the temperance movement. Lady Somerset
took Frances Willard back with her to England for a much needed
rest.
Lady Henry Somerset gave her life in service for her
fellow man. Hers might have been a life of ease and selfish idleness, yet she
chose to give herself untiringly to the betterment of her fellow
beings."