Statue of William Huskisson in Pimlico Gardens, City of Westminster, London

Summary

Commemorative marble statue of William Huskisson commissioned from John Gibson by Eliza Huskisson, and dated 1836.

Description

Memorial statue, 1836, by John Gibson for Mrs Eliza Huskisson. The statue is the second version of one made by Gibson in 1833.

MATERIAL: Carrara marble.

DESCRIPTION: Huskisson is depicted as a standing figure looking downward in reflection. He is wearing a Roman toga with his right shoulder and part of his chest exposed; his feet are sandaled. His left hand is raised across his chest, and in his right hand he holds a scroll. Behind him on his left-hand side is a broken column, on which is the worn inscription: ‘OPUS IOANNIS GIBSON’

The plinth is also of marble; on the front (west) face is the inscription: ‘WILLIAM HUSKISSON / STATESMAN / BORN 1770 DIED 1830’. Below is a base of four steps.

History

William Huskisson (1770-1830) was born at Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire, received an unorthodox education in Paris, and from 1790-2 was private secretary to the British ambassador, Earl Gower, seeing the early events of the French Revolution at close hand; the experience exerted a lifelong influence on his political views. Huskisson served twice as joint secretary to the Treasury, under William Pitt, and the Duke of Portland, earning a reputation as ‘the first financier of the age’; he rose to President of the Board of Trade (1823-24) in Lord Liverpool’s cabinet. A keen advocate of free trade, working for reform of the Corn Laws, Huskisson was also a champion of Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform. First elected as MP for Morpeth in 1796, Huskisson represented a number of constituencies, before succeeding his friend George Canning as MP for Liverpool in 1823. It was on 15 September 1830, at the opening ceremony of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, a project he had done much to promote, that Huskisson met his end, falling into the path of Stevenson’s oncoming ‘Rocket’ engine during a stop at Parkside. Generally held to be the first fatality of the railway age, an earlier death on the Stockton and Darlington railway, in 1827, has been recorded. A memorial was placed on the site of Huskisson’s accident in 1831 (now listed at Grade II).

A public subscription for Huskisson’s memorial raised about £3,000, and the Memorial Committee commissioned the prominent sculptor John Gibson, who had grown up in Liverpool, and retained strong connections there, to produce a statue, without the competition which had originally been intended. Gibson, then living in Rome, where he had trained under Antonio Canova, persuaded the Committee to go against the prevailing fashion by allowing him to represent Huskisson in classical drapery, rather than contemporary dress. ‘'My intentions are… to avoid altogether everything like English portrait statues. I shall represent him simple, grave, and reflecting’', wrote the sculptor. Concerns about the figure’s bare arm and shoulder were challenged by Huskisson’s widow, Eliza, who travelled to Rome to see the model, and wrote to the Committee in support of the existing design. By 1834 the marble statue was in place in the mausoleum specially designed by John Foster Jnr in St James’s Cemetery (the mausoleum is listed at Grade II). Following complaints from subscribers that the statue could not be seen satisfactorily, Gibson suggested it be moved to the Liverpool Customs House. Mrs Huskisson, liking the idea of commemoration at the Customs House, with which her husband had strong connections, offered to pay for a second version to be placed there.

In the second version, dated 1836, Gibson altered a number of details, including, at Mrs Huskisson’s suggestion, some aspects of the face, in order to create a closer likeness. However, having made a journey to England in 1844 to supervise the installation of the statue within the Customs House, Gibson was not satisfied with its intended location. The statue was presented by Mrs Huskisson to Lloyds of London, and was placed in their offices at the new Royal Exchange, London, in 1848. Mrs Huskisson's offer of a third version, in bronze, to be placed outside the Liverpool Customs House, was accepted. The bronze statue, taken from the second marble version, was erected on the north side of the Liverpool Customs House, and unveiled in 1847.

The first marble statue, vandalised in 1968, was taken from the mausoleum and given to the National Museums Liverpool collections. The Liverpool Customs House was demolished after the Second World War due to bomb damage, and the bronze statue (listed at Grade II) now stands at Duke’s Terrace, Liverpool. In 1915 Lloyd's gave the second marble version to the London County Council, which erected it in Pimlico Gardens.

Reasons for Listing

The commemorative marble statue of William Huskisson commissioned from John Gibson by Eliza Huskisson, and dated 1836, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Historical interest: an eminent politician and economist, earning a reputation as ‘the first financier of the age’, Huskisson is also remembered for his dramatic death as a result of being struck by Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’, making him a very early, if not the first, casualty of the railway age;
* Artistic: John Gibson, one of the most admired sculptors of his day, created three versions of his statue of Huskisson, insisting on Roman rather than contemporary dress as fitting the dignity of both subject and sculptor; encouraged by Huskisson’s widow, Gibson made this second version a closer likeness than the first;
* Historical interest (the commission): commissioned for the Liverpool Customs House, this version was instead placed in the Royal Exchange London in 1848, and has stood in Pimlico Gardens since 1915.

External Links

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