Leicester Seamstress

[melodysparks]

Leicester Seamstress, a photo by Melodysparks (Chris Preedy) on Flickr.

The Seamstress is a much-loved statue in Leicester City Centre.

The Leicester Seamstress outside the City Rooms on Hotel Street, by James Walter Butler RA, represents a life-size seated eighteenth century hosiery worker sewing the seam of a stocking. The statue was commissioned by Leicester City Council's Planning Committee, along with Kevin Atherton's Conversation Piece, as part of the Council's City Centre Action Programme. It was unveiled on 29 June 1990 by the then chair of the council's Planning Committee.

In 2007, as part of a major refurbishment of the pedestrianised section of Hotel Street, the statue of the seamstress was reinstalled on a new granite plinth, with new lighting to illuminate her face at night.

The Seamstress is not meant to be a particular person, but represents the importance to Leicester of the hosiery industry. Socks and stockings have been made in abundance in Leicester. The Seamstress is shown putting a seam into a stocking.

James Butler, also created two other statues in Leicester.

One of these is Richard III, the tragic and much-maligned king who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth, near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire, and buried at the Grey Friars in Leicester.

The other is the Thomas Cook Statue, whose first ever trip was from Leicester to Loughborough to a Temperance meeting.