The seatedStatue of Queen Victoria, currently inSydney,New South Wales, Australia, was made byJohn Hughes in 1908 and was originally located in Dublin. Made ofbronze, it is situated on the corner ofDruitt andGeorge Street in front of theQueen Victoria Building. It was the last royal statue to have been erected in Ireland.[1]
A standing bronze statue of Queen Victoria is located nearby, onQueen's Square.
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The Queen touredIreland in April 1900, prompting theRoyal Dublin Society to propose a national monument to her. Her death nine months later spurred a second burst of enthusiasm.[1] John Hughes, instructor in Modelling at theDublin Metropolitan School of Art, was commissioned to create the statue and moved his studio to Paris tocast the work. It was his most important commission to date.[1] Almost a decade later, it was unveiled inDublin, Ireland, in the enclosed courtyard ofLeinster House on 17 February 1908. At a ceremony with 1000 troops on parade, theLord Lieutenant declared "we are assembled here to dedicate this noble work of art to the perpetual commemoration of a great personality and a great life."[2]
The statue shows an effort to portray Victoria Regina as the 'Irish Queen' rather than the 'British Sovereign'. She is seated in a low chair rather than an elaborate throne, allowing the artist to contain the figure within a sphere rather than as a towering pillar. (Other seated examples place her on a high throne.) And she wears a simple coronet rather than the royal or imperial crown...Moreover, the statue portrayed her as the Sovereign Head of theMost Illustrious Order of St Patrick, Ireland's order of chivalry dating from 1783. The star on her left breast, and the pendant badge, featureshamrocks, crowned harps, andSt Patrick's Cross. The St Patrick reference probably backfired. It confirmed Ireland's colonial subordination. Round her neck the chain alternates thered andwhite roses of England.[1]
The statue sat atop aportland stone column, also designed by Hughes, with three sculptural groups to be placed below – "Fame", "Hibernia at Peace" and "Hibernia at War".[2] This last group was also known as "Erin and the Dying Soldier" and referred to the loyalty demonstrated by Irish soldiers in theBoer War.[1]
In 1922, 14 years after the statue's installation, Leinster House had become the seat of the Irish parliament, theOireachtas, and nationalistic sentiment disapproved of having a British queen celebrated in such a location. The statue had by now been given the nickname "The auld bitch" by Irish writerJames Joyce.[3][4][5] In August 1929The Irish Times reported that discussions were under way to remove the statue “on the basis that its continued presence there is repugnant to national feeling, and that, from an artistic point of view, it disfigures the architectural beauty of the parliamentary buildings.”[2]
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 "Queen Turns Green At Royal Hospital" – report forNewsbeat byCathal O’Shannon,RTÉ Television (13 January 1967). |
It was removed from its original location in July 1948 and replaced with a carpark.[1] It was transported bylorry to theRoyal Hospital Kilmainham[6][7] and, along with the associated three sculptural groups, was placed in a courtyard and left, developing apatina. The hospital had also been a proposed site for the parliament, and was used as a storage location for property belonging to theNational Museum of Ireland. It is now theIrish Museum of Modern Art. Attempts to send the sculpture toLondon, Ontario did not succeed as neither the Canadian nor Irish governments wished to pay the cost of transport.[2] In February 1980 the statue was transferred to a yard behind a disused children'sreformatory atDaingean, County Offaly.
The associated sculptures from the base of the statue are currently in the collection ofDublin Castle.[6]
In the mid-1980s, the iconicQueen Victoria Building in central Sydney was undergoing major renovations after decades of disuse, and appropriatepublic art was being sought for the entrance. Neil Glasser, Director of Promotions for the company undertaking the renovations (Singapore's Ipoh Gardens Ltd), travelled to several former British colonies in the hope of finding a statue.[8] After a "considerable amount of sleuthing", the statue, sitting in long grass behind the reformatory, was rediscovered and proposed to be moved to Australia.[2] In order to obtain approval, Glasser contactedJohn Teahan, the Director of theNational Museum of Ireland, andSydney's Lord Mayor contacted the Irish Ambassador in Canberra. In August 1986Fine GaelTaoiseach,Garret FitzGerald, authorised that the statue be given to Australia "on loan until recalled".[1] Subsequently, declassifiedcabinet papers showed that the plan was opposed by the then finance ministerJohn Bruton (later to be Taoiseach), as well as Teahan, on the basis that it represented the work of an Irish artist and "...representative of one of the many traditions of Irish history".[9]
The statue was transported by sea to Australia that year, restored in Sydney, and installed at its present location 43 years after it had last been on display. Despite heavy rain an unveiling ceremony took place on Sunday 20 December 1987 overseen byEric Neal,Chief Commissioner of Sydney, and Dermot Brangan, first secretary at the Irish embassy to Australia.[8][10] The irony of the British Queen being "transported" to Australia by ship was not lost on the Irish media.[11] In the days before the unveiling the embassy and theDaily Telegraph newspaper received anonymous threats of violence and protest about "the propriety of an Irish government giving a statue of Victoria as a gift."[10]
A second statue nearby is of the Queen's favourite pet, aSkye Terrier named "Islay", begging above awishing well on behalf of theRoyal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children. At a cost of $10,000, Sydney sculptor Justin Robson modelled the bronze work from an 1843 sketch by the Queen. The location of the statue is actually to disguise theventilation shaft for the new carpark underneath the renovated building. The wishing well also includes "a poem telling the story of Islay which will be specially translated intoBraille, four proverbs highlighting the morality of giving in six different languages, and a piece of stone fromBlarney Castle, Ireland."[8] Since 1998, a recorded request for donations, supposedly being "spoken" by Islay, has been played at regular intervals from hiddenloudspeakers. The recording says, "Because of the many good deeds I've done for deaf and blind children, I have been given the power of speech", and then expresses thanks for donations. It is voiced by local radio personalityJohn Laws and concludes with twobarks, also by Laws.[12]
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