Sculpture by John Tweed
A Grade II-listed bronze
statue of
Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive
, by
John Tweed
, stands in King Charles Street,
Whitehall
,
London
.
[2]
The work was unveiled in 1912 outside
Gwydyr House
, also in Whitehall, and was moved to its current location in 1916.
[3]
[2]
[1]
Description
[
edit
]
On the west face of the plinth are Clive's surname and the year of his birth and death (1725?1774).
[4]
The remaining three sides have bronze reliefs depicting events in his life: the
Siege of Arcot
in 1751, the eve of the
Battle of Plassey
in 1757 and the
Treaty of Allahabad
in 1765.
[4]
History
[
edit
]
On 8 February 1907,
Sir William Forwood
wrote to
The Times
noting that there were no monuments to Clive in London or India, and that even his grave, in the church at
Moreton Say
,
Shropshire
, was unmarked.
[5]
Lord Curzon
, a
Conservative
politician and the former
Viceroy of India
, wrote in support of Forwood's complaint, though he noted that in 1860 Clive had been "tardily commemorated by a statue at
Shrewsbury
".
[6]
A Clive Memorial Fund committee was established, with Curzon publicising the fundraising efforts and progress with further letters to the editor of the
Times
.
[7]
An 18th-century statue of Clive by
Peter Scheemakers
inside the
India Office
was then brought to Curzon's attention, but Curzon considered neither its portrayal of Clive nor its location to be adequate.
The fund raised between £5,000 and £6,000 to erect memorials to Clive in London and
India
.
[5]
Curzon's proposal did not meet the favour of his successor as viceroy,
Lord Minto
, who considered a commemoration of Clive "needlessly provocative" in India at a time of agitation and unrest in
Bengal
, where Clive had been the first British governor.
[9]
[10]
John Tweed was commissioned to start work on the London statue and exhibited a sketch model at the
Royal Academy
in 1910.
[11]
The statue was unveiled in a temporary location in Gwydyr Street in 1912.
[12]
It was moved to its permanent location in 1916.
The statue is placed on a high plinth, inlaid with bronze bas-relief on three sides, depicting three historic scenes associated with Clive's career in India. The scenes are: the siege of Arcot, the Battle of Plassey 1757 and the Grant of Diwani by the Mughal emperor to the British East India Company, represented by Clive, in 1765.
A smaller version of the finished statue, also cast in bronze, is now part of the collection of the
Tate
in London.
[11]
Other works by Tweed portraying Clive include a memorial tablet in the south choir aisle of
Westminster Abbey
, erected by public subscription in 1919,
[13]
and a marble statue at the
Victoria Memorial
in
Kolkata
,
India
.
[14]
21st century
[
edit
]
At the beginning of the 21st century, the statue was singled out for criticism by Nick Robins in his history of the East India Company,
The Corporation that Changed the World.
In the book, he argued that "the fact that one of Britain's greatest corporate rogues continues to have pride of place at the heart of government suggests that the British elite has not yet confronted its corporate and imperial past." The book concluded by calling for the statue to be removed to a museum.
[15]
In June 2020, calls were made for the statue's removal after a
wave of anti-racism protests
in which a
statue of the slave trader Edward Colston
in
Bristol
was pulled down. The
Labour
politician
Lord Adonis
asked the Government to begin a public consultation on the statue.
[16]
Clive's statue will be considered in a review of London's public monuments ordered by
Sadiq Khan
, the
Mayor of London
.
[17]
With Andrew Simms, Nick Robins repeated his call for the statue to be removed and replaced with a monument celebrating a new generation of diverse global heroes.
[18]
The historian
William Dalrymple
compared the statue's 20th-century memorialisation of Clive to the
Confederate monuments
erected in the
Southern United States
well into the
civil rights era
.
[9]
The writer
Afua Hirsch
similarly said that the statue was "not a piece of history but an attempt ? when it was erected centuries after Clive's death ? to rewrite it" and called Clive "a symbol of the most morally bankrupt excesses of Empire".
[16]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Historic England
.
"Statue of Clive on steps at west end (1221431)"
.
National Heritage List for England
. Retrieved
26 September
2014
.
- ^
a
b
"Statue: Lord Clive"
.
London Remembers
. Retrieved
26 September
2014
.
- ^
"Statue of Lord Clive"
.
Discovery
.
The National Archives (United Kingdom)
. Retrieved
26 September
2014
.
- ^
a
b
"Robert Clive ? London, UK ? Statues of Historic Figures"
.
Waymarking
. Retrieved
26 September
2014
.
- ^
a
b
"The campaign to remember Clive of India"
.
Shropshire Star
. 27 May 2011
. Retrieved
26 September
2014
.
- ^
Ward-Jackson, Philip (2011),
Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster: Volume 1
, Public Sculpture of Britain, vol. 14, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, p. 109,
ISBN
978-1-84631-691-3
- ^
Curzon. (13 August 1907). "Clive Memorial Fund".
The Times
.
- ^
a
b
Dalrymple, William
(11 June 2020),
"Robert Clive was a vicious asset-stripper. His statue has no place on Whitehall"
,
The Guardian
, retrieved
11 June
2020
- ^
Gilmour, David (2019).
Curzon: Imperial Statesman
. Penguin. p. 371.
ISBN
978-0141990866
.
- ^
a
b
"John Tweed Lord Clive c.1910?12"
.
Tate
. Retrieved
26 September
2014
.
- ^
"Robert Clive (1725?74) | Statue by John Tweed, 1912"
.
English Heritage
. Retrieved
4 February
2024
.
- ^
"Robert Clive"
.
Westminster Abbey
. Dean and Chapter of Westminster
. Retrieved
26 September
2014
.
- ^
"Sculptures and Statues"
.
Victoria Memorial (India)
. Retrieved
26 September
2014
.
- ^
Robins, Nick. (2012).
The corporation that changed the world: how the East India Company shaped the modern multinational
(2nd ed.). London: Pluto Press.
ISBN
978-1-84964-691-8
.
OCLC
820849779
.
- ^
a
b
"The Londoner: Now Clive of India is a monumental problem"
,
Evening Standard
, 9 June 2020
, retrieved
11 June
2020
- ^
Bland, Archie
(10 June 2020),
"After Colston, figures such as Drake and Peel could be next"
,
The Guardian
, retrieved
11 June
2020
- ^
Andrew Simms (10 June 2020).
"Reckoning with Britain's imperial legacy: time to search for new heroes"
.
New Weather Institute
. Retrieved
20 June
2020
.
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0°07′45″W
/
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