AN EXHIBITION exploring the life of one of the major figures in Oxford and Oxfordshire politics is currently being held.

Olive Gibbs was born in February 1918 and served as Lord Mayor of Oxford twice. She was also the first woman to chair Oxfordshire County Council.

She was instrumental in preventing an inner relief road being built across Christ Church Meadow and campaigned for the demolition of the Cutteslowe Walls.

Built in 1934, they were two metres high and topped with spikes. They were there to divide Oxford City Council's Cutteslowe estate from private housing to its west.

The builder of the private housing built the walls because he was worried that people would not want to live there if they had to live next to council housing.

The walls were eventually demolished – with Mrs Gibbs taking a hammer to them – in 1959.

She was a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and served as its chairwoman between 1964 and 1967.

She was an honorary freeman of Oxford and the City of London.

Gibbs Crescent in West Oxford is named after her.

The exhibition is currently being held at Cowley Library, in Temple Road, from now until June 22.

It will then move to the Templars Square Shopping Centre in Cowley from June 23 until July 1.

And it will then be moved into the West Oxford Community Centre in Botley Road from July 2 until July 27.