Located in Embankment Gardens not far from Charing Cross and Embankment stations,Wilfrid Lawson's statue is one of the many monuments on the Victoria Embankment. Like so many of the others commemorated by the Thames the seems to have slipped from public memory.
I've been meaning to look him up for some time. I've finally gotten around to it: Sir Wilfrid Lawson ((4 September 1829 – 1 July 1906) was a politician and temperance leader.
He was first elected to parliament in 1859 as the MP for Carlisle. Between 1859 and 1900 he represented Carlisle and then Cockermouth, losing his seat as a result of his violent opposition to the Boer War. In 1903 he was returned as the MP for Camborne in Cornwall then finally in the 1906 general election his old constituency of Cockermouth.
He was an enthusiastic supporter of the temperance movement, becoming president of the United Kingdom Alliance. A radical politician, he supported disestablishment of the Church of England, abolition of the House of Lords, and disarmament. He was apparently a very popular parliamentarian.
And now he is forgotten.
12 comments:
He should not be forgotten. Tonight I shall raise a glass to him...
I've been meaning to look him up for years, Steve. There are a lot of statues and plaques to people who have been utterly forgotten by history. Perhaps a drink to him tonight here!
I thought that once you were immortalized in statue form, your legacy would live on forever. You mean that's not so? Crap. I guess I won't have myself dipped in starch and mounted after I die after all.
Dipped in starch and mounted? that sounds kinky ewbl!
Only to a kinky mind, jams. You should try to be as pure in mind, thought, and deed as I am. :)
By pure, I mean 'pure crap.'
I shall ewbl but pure has a subsiduary meaning that will be the subject of my next post! Thanks!!!!
pure crap.. who right you are in terms of meaning!
how..
Hardly forgotten. I have just completed a Phd on his attitudes towards anti-imperialism.
terry carrick
Wow Terry, I'm pleased to hear that. Perhaps he deserves to be better known than he is. I passed his statue frequently and I really did wonder who on earth he was - I thought the same about Lady Henry Somerset, whose beautiful commemorative statue is by Temple Station.
Bazalgette, Plimsoll, Faraday (and perhaps W T Stead) who also have memorials in the general vicinity remain well known. It just seems that Lawson has faded from the public memory.
Wilfred was also a pioneer in cooperation and the promoter of Aspatria College- in 1874 the first to provide for typical farmers sons in the UK. He also was a key figure in the establishment of Aspatria Cooperative, probably the oldest surviving agricultural coop in Europe. A figure of principle and agitation.
Thanks for the info Andrew
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