Buxton Memorial Fountain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This apparently location-related article appears to lack geographic coordinates You can help by adding them. Please don't be overly precise. This article has been tagged since April 2007. This template was added by a bot. |
The Buxton Memorial Fountain is a memorial in London, the United Kingdom, that commemorates the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834.
It was commissioned by Charles Buxton MP, dedicated to his father Thomas Fowell Buxton and also William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Henry Brougham and Stephen Lushington, all involved in the abolition. It was designed by Gothic architect Samuel Sanders Teulon (1812-1873) in 1865.
It was originally constructed in Parliament Square, removed in 1940 and moved to its present position in Victoria Tower Gardens in 1957.
There were eight decorative figures of British rulers on it, but four were stolen in 1960 and four in 1971. They were replaced by fibreglass figures in 1980. As of 2005 these are missing, and the fountain is no longer working. In autumn 2006 restoration works were started, and finished in February 2007. The restored fountain was unveiled on 27 March 2007 as part of the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the act to abolish the slave trade [1].
A memorial plaque commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Anti-Slavery Society was added in 1989.
[edit] References
Margaret Baker, London Statues and Monuments. ISBN 0-7478-0162-2.
