A STATUE to honour Glasgow's first female councillor has been given the go-ahead.
Glasgow City Council has "overwhelmingly" backed calls to erect a monument, potentially in George Square, celebrating "working class heroine" Mary Barbour.
Councillors passed a motion by Councillor Pauline McKeever urging the local authority to support the Remember Mary Barbour committee, led by former MP Maria Fyfe.
Mary Barbour campaigned against steep rent rises during the First World War, paving the way for a law restricting the power of private landlords.
She also pushed for major welfare changes including free milk for schoolchildren, pensions for mothers, municipal banks, wash houses, laundries and public baths and pioneered the city's first family-planning clinic.
Councillor McKeever said: "Mary Barbour campaigned successfully for improvements in the lives of her fellow citizens and spent her life helping others."
Campaign leader Ms Fyfe said the council's endorsement would help assist grant applications.
She said: "We are putting together a list of bodies, including the Lottery, who could potentially assist us with funding."
It is hoped the statue could be in place by 2015, the centenary of the rent strike.
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