Historical Statues and Memorials

Viscount Falkland Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Viscount Falkland (CB)]

My Lords, I have been looking at statues in various countries and cities for many years. I apologise for using a French word, but I am what is known in France as a flâneur; in other words, I wander around with no particular aim looking at things, and statues are among my favourites. The theme of my speech in the brief time I have at my disposal will not exactly follow that of the noble Lord, Lord Oates, but I thank him for the opportunity to talk about statues. I will talk uniquely, because of the time, about London and the House of Lords.

As a flâneur, one realises that those who commission statues and monuments and those who create them put great thought into them. Generally, they have to be attractive; they have to be historically relevant, which they are normally are—they are mostly historical in London. I doubt whether any of your Lordships would be able to guess how many people in one normal day stop and look at a statue at all. Statues are quite inappropriate now to the way in which people conduct themselves in streets and public places. Most young people are now connected with some electronic device. They pass by; traffic moves very quickly—it was not intended when a lot of statues went up.

However, there are some marvellous statues. Before I move on to the House of Lords, I urge everybody to become a flâneur for a moment and cross the road to look at the statue of Churchill. It is a remarkable and exceptional statue, because not only does it remind us of that great man but it has energy and it is about art as well as anything else.

As you come into the House of Lords, you will pass the statue by Marochetti—it is a bravura statue—of Richard the Lionheart. Why it should be Richard the Lionheart I do not know. I think Marochetti rather preferred the Black Prince, but that never happened—although I think a model was made of the Black Prince and I think the Queen has one of the several copies that remain. As you come into the House of Lords, you will see numerous statues—just under 300. Some of them are outside; some of them are inside. Most demand attention and indeed they get it. You might say that in the House of Lords the statues that we have are working statues, because every day we have people going down the route allotted to them, so the statues are examined on a day-to-day basis, quite unlike anything outside.

I think I have probably reached the end of my three minutes and that is really all I have to say. I hope the noble Lord will again put down this subject for debate when we might have a little more time for it, allowing for something relatively flippant compared with the noble Lord’s speech and we can all indulge ourselves on our particular line. It has been refreshing to have an opportunity to speak on the subject.