Welcome to the this week’s free instalment of Londonist: Time Machine.
Peter Pan tarred and feathered! Queen Anne attacked with an axe! The goddess Demeter smeared in jam (raspberry!). It sounds like some kind of off-kilter apocalypse, but each incident really happened. In today’s Londonist: Time Machine, I’m going to look at the many historic affronts to our city’s statues and sculptures.
When Statues get Mobbed: the Many Ways Londoners Have Trashed Their Sculptures
Sometimes it’s political. Sometimes it’s the thrill of iconoclasm. Sometimes it’s sheer drunken folly. Whatever the motivation, Londoners have a long history of attacking their statuary. Recent years have seen intense debate over what to do with statues of former slave owners, and other contemptible figures. But we’re by no means the first generation to say “eff-off” to our effigies.
For this week’s newsletter, I’ve trawled through the news archives to pull out a few examples that go a bit beyond the old “traffic cone on the head” routine.
1882: The Queen Anne axe attack
Anne has stood patiently outside St Paul’s since 1713, when the cathedral was still new, and while Anne still occupied the throne. For such a relatively unmemorable monarch, her likeness has attracted a fair bit of ire and vandalism over the years. The most seroius occurred on 6 February 1882 when a man “taking an axe from beneath his coat, commenced to hack away at the features of the royal presentment, chopping off what remained of Her Majesty’s nose and smiting off the right ear”.
The culprit, a painter called George Weston, claimed that “the stars told him to do it”. He was committed to the asylum, while her mutilated majesty went off to the wrecker’s yard. The statue we see today is a replica, carved soon after the incident.
1888 (?): Gladstone’s red right hand
Beside Bow church — the one near Stratford, not the one in the Square Mile — stands the simulacrum of four-time Prime Minister William Gladstone. His right, outstretched hand has presented crimson for at least two decades, possibly much longer, though I can find no earlier account.
The paint job recalls the actions of the ‘matchgirls’, women who went on strike from the Bryant and May match factory in 1888 over their atrocious working conditions. According to an account by activist Annie Besant, who assisted the strikers, the statue was deeply unpopular among the factory workers. Gladstone’s likeness had been commissioned by Mr Bryant using money docked from the matchgirls’ wages, or so the rumours had it. As an act of rebellion, Besant tells us, some women cut their hands and and let their blood drip onto Gladstone’s outstretched palm.
The tradition is kept alive by the mysterious person or people who replenish the paint on the statue’s red hand, whenever it needs a fresh coat.
1907: The Brown Dog Riots
How many animal statues have sparked riots? In 1907, a simple memorial to an unnamed dog caused fierce clashes. The sculpture of a brown terrier had been erected in Battersea by anti-vivisectionists in 1906. It represented one particular dog, who’d been cut open in front of a large audience at University College, but was also symbolic of the many other animals mistreated during medical research.
The statue provoked anger in the medical community, who accused the anti-vivisectionists of gross exaggeration. The dog became a focus for the argument, and was repeatedly vandalised. One occasion in 1907 saw hundreds of protestors and police officers clash violently. Thereafter, a permanent guard was stationed around the memorial, at taxpayer expense. By 1910, the situation had become untenable. The statue was removed under cover of darkness, accompanied by 120 police officers. The curious incident of the (metal) dog in the night-time.
The replacement statue shown above now stands in a quiet corner of Battersea Park. To my knowledge, it’s lived a quiet life without vandalism.
1923: George III trashed
King “The Madness of” George III was one of our longest-reigning monarchs, but it didn’t stop the populace mocking his statue on Cockspur Street. The metal mister’s tied-back hair and his steed’s flamboyant tail earned it the nickname “The pig-tail and pump-handle”. It was also the target of a student prank, as related in this news item:
“Three lorryloads of London Polytechnic students, dressed in all kinds of garb, and making all manner of weird noises, halted by the statue of King George III in Cockspur-street, yesterday afternoon. Two of them mounted the pedestal, placed a comic jockey cap on the head of His Majesty, tied a carrot in front of the horse's nose, fixed paper streamers to his tail, and labelled it "Town Guard." All but one of the relics — the jockey's cap — were shortly afterwards removed by the police.”
Sunday Illustrated, 10 June 1923
The statue remains on the corner of Cockspur Street to this day. Far from mockery, it today attracts no attention whatsoever. Even I’ve never bothered to take a photo of it.
1928: Peter Pan tarred and feathered
“Children, with their lips pouting sadly and with tears in their eyes,” began one report of a troubling incident in Kensington Gardens. George Frampton’s much-loved statue of Peter Pan had been tarred and feathered by assailants unknown. The malefactors had seemingly loitered in the park until the gates had been locked for the night, before turning the Boy Who Never Grew Up into the Boy Who Feather-Gooed Up. The beplumed statue took two days to clean. Park officials had to throw a tarpaulin over the statue, so as not to upset children.
It didn’t quite work. The press delighted in extracting mawkish quotes from little visitors. “Poor Peter,” lamented one fair-haired child, “all in the dark, where he can’t see the birds, and the water, and everything.”
“Where are my bunny rabbits and my mice?”, asked a girl, referring to the animals at the base of the statue. “May I make sure they are still there? I want to tell them I’ll be back tomorrow.” Finally, a little boy in a sailor suit, clutching his toy yacht, offered a dire warning to the perpetrators: “If I knew who had done it I would smack them.”
The case, so far as I’ve been able to determine, was never solved. However, it seems to have been part of a wider campaign. Jacob Epstein’s1 nearby modernist sculpture of Rima was, on separate occasions, daubed in green paint, and then tarred-and-feathered just like Peter Pan. Some commentators put the vandalism down to two rival factions of art students: one group who hated traditional statuary like Peter Pan, and another which despised Epstein’s avant garde. I blame Captain Hook.
1931: Eros’s bow is plucked
The statue popularly known as Eros has often been the target of vandals, or at least merry-makers taking things a bit far. One such incident occurred on New Year’s Eve 1931, when 22-year-old clerk Hugh William M’Kenzie climbed onto the iconic statue. The following description is eyewitness testimony from the later court case:
“M’Kenzie was on the wings of the figure, shouting and singing, and his only answer to a policeman was that he would come down at 12. At five minutes to 12, he twanged the wire of the bow. He finally broke it and wore two of the pieces he had broken off round his head… The statue was rocking violently in its socket.”
M’Kenzie was charged £105 for the damage. His representative in court conveyed his client’s deep remorse at the incident, describing it as “the most expensive evening’s entertainment a man could possibly have undertaken”. This is why Eros is often covered up at times of national celebration.
1943: Lenin defiled
Our city once had a public bust of Lenin. The communist leader was himself a Londoner for a couple of years in the early 20th century, when he worked out of the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell. In 1942, with the Soviet Union as a war ally, it was decided to mark Lenin’s former home in Holford Square (now the site of Bevin Court near King’s Cross). The curious form of commemoration was a reinforced concrete bust.
It soon proved controversial. In 1943, Lenin’s likeness was tarred, and emblazoned with fascist antisemitic symbols. Vandals returned in late 1945 to chip away at Vlad’s ears and nose. As with the brown dog of Battersea, a police guard was put on the bust to prevent further vandalism.
Let’s just pause to think about that. Even as Winston Churchill was giving his famous Iron Curtain speech, warning of the dangers of communism, the Metropolitan Police were keenly protecting a concrete effigy of Vladimir Lenin at taxpayer expense. In the House of Commons, William Shepherd MP asked the Home Secretary: “Is it not a waste of three policemen’s time, especially as Lenin lived in [the commemorated] house for only a fortnight, and I believe left without paying his rent?”
The bust was eventually taken out of public display and stored at the town hall for many years (where, again, it was vandalised with red paint). It’s been on trouble-free display at Islington Museum since 1996.
1958: Amputated Victoria
Queen Victoria has more statues than anybody else in London, as you’d probably guess. One of the more interesting can be found outside Kensington Palace. This one’s particularly noteworthy because it was sculpted by the Queen’s own daughter, Princess Louise (yes, the famous pub in Holborn is named after her). In 1958, the marble statue was discovered to have lost its right arm and sceptre, parts of which were soon found nearby. The police had less success tracking down the culprits. “Probably hooligans,” opined the Kensington News and West London Express.
And a few others
1922: At the British Museum, the recently restored nose of the goddess Demeter was smeared with jam. Officials were able to deduce the flavour as raspberry, but a search for the culprit proved fruitless. A serial prankster named WAH Bernard Smith later admitted to the sticky intervention.
1941: The now largely-ignored statue of Francis, 5th Duke of Bedford in Russell Square became a target of vandals during the second world war. “Grandfather of the Quisling” was painted onto its plinth, an allusion to the recently installed 12th Duke, who had far-right leanings and was chummy with Oswald Mosley. The more genealogically accurate graffito of “Great-great grandfather of the Quisling” presumably would not fit.
1949: A painter called Plumber scaled Eros and once again snapped the bow string. He told the judge he’d left his previous job because of a fear of heights.
1955: The plinth of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s statue in Grosvenor Square was daubed with the words “Traitor of Yalta” in red paint.
2000: Ex-soldier James Matthews decorated the statue of Winston Churchill with a green mohawk fashioned from a strip of turf. The striking image went viral, as they didn’t quite say back then. Churchill has been targeted several times since. His upcoming 150th anniversary in November 2024 is sure to keep the police on their toes.
2002: A statue of Margaret Thatcher was decapitated at Guildhall Art Gallery. 37-year-old Paul Kelleher used a cricket bat followed by a crowd-control barrier to shorten the Marble Lady. The statue was repaired and still stands in the gallery.
2020: Protestors called for the removal of the Robert Milligan statue in West India Quay. The statue’s head was covered with a blanket, while a Black Lives Matter placard was placed in his hand. Milligan had been a prominent slave owner. His statue was quickly removed, and has since been acquired by the Museum of London.
2022: Eric Gill’s sculpture of Prospero and Ariel on Broadcasting House was defaced by a man with a hammer and chisel. Gill confessed in his diaries to acts of sexual abuse and bestiality, and many believe his art work should no longer be on public display.
2094: A statue of ChatGPT-14, the first artificial general superintelligence to achieve corporeality, is destroyed by the last remnants of humanity in a futile gesture of defiance against the Earth’s new masters.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a comment below, or email me any time on matt@londonist.com with any feedback or suggestions.
Jacob Epstein’s public sculptures — provocative, often nude, always brilliant — were frequently subjected to attack, both verbal and physical. His Night sculpture on 55 Broadway was partially tarred and feathered a week after the affront on Rima, presumably by the same foe. I love his stuff, and will save his additions to the London streetscape for a future newsletter.
On 18 June 1822 the ’countrywomen of England’ had an embarrassing surprise having contributed to a 18ft tall figure of Achilles as a way of honouring the Duke of Wellington living close by in Apsley House. Said to be in the Duke’s likeness, it was the first nude public statue in London. Standing an impressive 36ft on its plinth his manhood was equally notable. The women had a touch of the vapours and a fig leaf was attached. The organic codpiece has twice had attempts at its removal.
Very Bertie Woosterish!
Lenin left without paying the rent! Ha ha ha.