Statues and stately houses: Who do we want to remember and how?

A statement issued last February by a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex declared, “We can all live a life of service. Service is universal.” Yes, but whose service and what kinds of service do we want as a country to commemorate and how best to do so? Some of the public figures our forebearers had apparently wanted to remember in statue-form have fallen (or been pulled) from their plinths; but deciding who and how to memorialise in today’s more cynical age of “celebrity” can be tricky, too.

It used to be easier or at least seemed so at the time. More often than not it was decided for the country rather than by it. Politicians were especially prone to make such choices and, surprise, surprise, often chose former Prime Ministers and other prominent men of affairs (and occasionally women) to hold up for collective view and approval. Monarchs and their families almost always chose themselves. A military and imperial country most readily commemorated heroes of battles on land and at sea and a few of those who supported them as nurses and carers such as Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell. 

For some years, I walked almost daily through Waterloo Place in central London. It is an elegant space with a large memorial to the Crimean War erected at its centre in 1859 (a statue of Florence Nightingale was added in 1915). Nearby, memorials for Lords Lawrence and Clive and all look southwards to a column topped by the Duke of York. Until last year I had – doubtless to my shame – not given any of these memorials much attention or even knew much about some of the individuals when I did. Of course, since 2020 statues have taken on new resonances and are getting noticed.

In past centuries our national “heroes” were celebrated on a scale not often approached since. There were some truly magnificent national “thanksgiving” presents. The Duke of Marlborough, after his military campaigns in the first half of the 18th century, was rewarded with a unique palace at Blenheim in Oxfordshire, named after the town in Bavaria where he had won a signal victory against Louis XIV and his allies. In the early 19th century, the Duke of Wellington did even better when, as a reward for his part in Napoleon’s defeat, he was given extensive land and cash equivalent in today’s money to £35 million.

Leaving aside those like Clive of India who organised and collected their own financial rewards (though he still got a statue on steps adjacent to the Foreign Office), by the mid-19th century the pattern of public recognition had started to morph into something more modest and a little more widely spread. Municipal grandees in the prosperous new urban centres in the Midlands, North of England and Scotland were recognised through statues, as were some reformers such as Shaftesbury and writers of the stature of Dickens and Walter Scott. Of course, monarchs and politicians and generals continued to gain their plinths as by then did “explorers” and imperial administrators; but as the country evolved and changed so to some extent did who and what was celebrated. A new chapter came after the Second World War when The National Trust began to allow people to visit the preserved homes not just of formerly wealthy landowners but of artists and writers and many other new-style notables.

In more recent decades, public recognition has reached into society more generally. Unlike so many of our forebearers, public figures of all kinds are just that – public – because they have been seen in photographs and on television and now on social media. Celebrity has been devalued but is, therefore, more readily attainable and accessible. Such social media-induced “celebrity” is perhaps its own reward. What this dilution of the meaning of true celebrity and status has done, however, is make it harder to know what we as a country, a community, most truly value and how we want to commemorate it and those who reflect it.  

Celebrity and genuine service sometimes overlap. Diana, Princess of Wales, was a public figure who gave service to her country but in the process became a much-photographed celebrity. She was also a mother, not least of a future King, and it seems appropriate that the statue unveiled in her memory last week was sponsored by her sons. Some celebrities such as the footballer Marcus Rashford use their position to make a public contribution, as he did over school meals, and become public figures in a different sense. Some others who were neither public figures nor celebrities have given service in ways that have drawn them to public attention and given them a kind of unsought celebrity. “Captain Tom’ became an astonishingly prominent example of such service and he is in the process of getting a statue in his memory.

By public subscription and following an extraordinary national impact during the pandemic lockdowns last year, Captain Tom, later Sir Thomas Moore, is being honoured with a statue that its sponsors hope to see placed in his home town. Captain Tom was about as far removed from the world of celebrity as possible. His stature rests in his authenticity as well as his money-raising achievement. Unlike so many “celebrities” he wasn’t in it for himself. His statue will capture and reflect a sense of profound national appreciation and applause. 

Captain Tom was in some ways a throwback to an older sense of service. What the public reaction to his Zimmer-framed walk in support of the pandemic-plagued NHS tells us is that as a country and a community we do still know what constitutes service in a time of crisis, whether or not we think a statue the best way to show appreciation.

It is striking how many contemporary public sculptures are often more emblematic than personal, and perhaps ironically the anonymity can make for wider acceptance and enjoyment in a social media age than statues of individuals. Take but a few instances: Anthony Gormley’s spread-eagled “Angel of the North” has proven to be enormously popular, as have his singular figures emplaced on the beach at Morecombe and elsewhere. Henry Moore’s earlier depictions of an anonymous mother and child cast in bronze also touched a sympathetic public chord. Sculptures have the capacity to generate wide and positive public feeling and a sense of community. 

Unlike in the 19th century when so many, possibly most, public sculptures were of public figures, perhaps in the age of social media statues may become less common and be used in more emblematic or anonymous ways? And of course, there are many ways other than in stone or bronze to applaud public service, as the recent award of the George Cross to the NHS has illustrated.