One of the most celebrated tourist sights of the Palace of Westminster is the statue of Viscount Falkland in St Stephen’s Hall. One hundred years ago this very day, a suffragette, Margery Humes, chained herself to the statue and had to be released with bolt cutters; the damage to the statue’s spur and sword can still be seen.
This afternoon, on my way to the select committee, I was diverted by one of the House attendants, who told me that a demonstration was taking place in St Stephen’s. I later discovered that a group of climate change protestors had superglued themselves to Falkland’s statue, in emulation of the feisty Margery a century ago.
Given the fame of the 1909 incident in Parliamentary history, one might have thought that the House authorities would be prepared for something of the sort.
The protestors, after the application of copious quantities of solvent, were ultimately released and then promptly arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.
One must hope that no lasting further injury was occasioned to poor Viscount Falkland.
How interesting! I did Google Viscount Falkland and a quick glance at Wikepaedia suggests that maybe the statue would be better placed in Holyrood than Westminster, though whether this would lead to greater or lesser tribulations than suffered to date is a moot point. Mind you if wandering around London today, the Viscount would surely quickly find himself in the dock on an offensive weapons charge, with accompanying headlines in the Mail on the evils of knife crime.
Am I wrong in thinking that somewhere in the Westminster entrance lobby can still be seen the ricochets of a bullet that killed a PM? Funny that I can remember the ricochets but not the PM. Also that we can all remember the suffragettes, but Viscount Falkland would not today, I fear, ring a bell for many.
Perhaps there’s a case for putting a simple slab of concrete somewhere, Protesters to Chain or Superglue etc Themselves To For the Use Of, thus reducing the pressure on the existing statuary and perhaps creating an important landmark and tourist attraction whereby future protests can be remembered by succeeding generations?
Couldn’t you have just left the b***ers there for a few hours? No point wasting money on solvents.