A statue of Robert Milligan was installed at the

West India Docks The West India Docks are a series of three docks, quaysides and warehouses built to import goods from and export goods and occasionally passengers to the British West Indies on the Isle of Dogs in London the first of which opened in 1802. Follow ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, in 1813. Milligan was a

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...

, and was largely responsible for the construction of the West India Docks. After being put in storage in 1943, it was re-erected by the

London Docklands Development Corporation The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was a quango agency set up by the UK Government in 1981 to regenerate the depressed Docklands area of east London. During its seventeen-year existence it was responsible for regenerating an a ...

in 1997. On 9 June 2020, the statue was removed, coinciding with a drive to review slaver statues launched by the

Mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the 1998 Greater London Authority referendum, Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first Directly elected may ...

Sadiq Khan Sadiq Aman Khan (; born 8 October 1970) is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting from 2005 until 2016. A member of the Labour Party, Khan is on the party's sof ...

History

Robert Milligan (1746–1809) was a prominent Scottish

, ship-owner and

slave-factor A factor is a type of trader who receives and sells goods on commission, called factorage. A factor is a mercantile fiduciary transacting business in his own name and not disclosing his principal. A factor differs from a commission merchant i ...

, who was the driving force behind the construction of the

. The statue was commissioned by the West India Dock Company from the sculptor

Richard Westmacott Sir Richard Westmacott (15 July 17751 September 1856) was a British sculptor. Life and career Westmacott studied with his father, also named Richard Westmacott (the elder), Richard Westmacott, at his studio in Mount Street, off Grosvenor ...

in May 1809, following Milligan's death.Robert Milligan statue
Museum of London From its installation in 1813 the statue stood by the Hibbert Gate, until 1875 when it was moved to the North Gate. It was put into storage in 1943, where it remained until 1997, when it was re-erected at its original location on the

West India Dock The West India Docks are a series of three docks, quaysides and warehouses built to import goods from and export goods and occasionally passengers to the British West Indies on the Isle of Dogs in London the first of which opened in 1802. Follow ...

by the

. The

Museum of London Docklands The Museum of London Docklands (formerly known as Museum in Docklands), based in West India Quay, explains the history of the River Thames, the growth of Port of London and the docks historical link to the Atlantic slave trade. The museum is par ...

opened in buildings directly behind the statue in 2003.

"Father of the Island" in 1998

In 1998 an article in ''The Islander'', a community newspaper sponsored by the Association of Island Communities on the local

Isle of Dogs The Isle of Dogs is a large peninsula bounded on three sides by a large meander in the River Thames in East London, England, which includes the Cubitt Town, Millwall and Canary Wharf districts. The area was historically part of the Manor, Ham ...

, published a photograph of the statue with another featuring

Max Hebditch Maxwell Graham Hebditch (born 22 August 1937) was Museum director, Director of the Museum of London in London, England. He was born on 22 August 1937 in the Yeovil area, the son of Harold and Lily (née Bartle) Hebditch. He was appointed the fi ...

, at the time director of the

, with Roger Squire, at that time the Joint Chief Executive of the London Docklands Development Corporation, who had made the arrangements to return the statue to its original place. The article argued that Milligan was a genius who had persuaded the city merchants to build the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs, rather than in

Wapping Wapping () is a district in East London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Wapping's position, on the north bank of the River Thames, has given it a strong maritime character, which it retains through its riverside public houses and steps, ...

. Dubbing Milligan "the father of the Isle of Dogs", the article called for Wednesday 12 July 2000 to be celebrated as the bicentenary of the laying of the docks' foundation stone in 1800.

Shrouding in 2007

In 2007, when the Museum of London Docklands opened the ''London, Sugar and Slavery'' gallery, the connection between the West India Dock, the sugar warehouses which now house the museum and the exploitation of enslaved Africans on West Indian sugar plantations was made explicit. The 1811 portrait of

George Hibbert George Hibbert (13 January 1757 – 8 October 1837) was an English merchant, politician, slave-owner, ship-owner, amateur botanist and book collector. With Robert Milligan, he was also one of the principals of the West India Dock Company which ...

Thomas Lawrence Sir Thomas Lawrence (13 April 1769 – 7 January 1830) was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at t ...

had been moved from a place where he had been revered as playing a heroic role in the creation of the dock to a position in the new gallery with a caption clarifying his role as a politician and slave owner who resisted the

abolition of slavery Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

. In November, at the time of the opening of the exhibition, the statue of Robert Milligan was shrouded in black cloth, tied up with rope – although this was removed after the event. The museum also elicited the thoughts of members of the public as regards the statue in relation to Milligan's involvement with the enslavement of Africans.

Removal in 2020

Following the vandalism and removal of Edward Colston's statue in Bristol by anti-racism protesters in response to the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's n ...

, a petition was launched to remove the statue of Milligan. Set up by

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

councillor Ehtasham Haque, it attracted 4,000 signatures in less than two days. He described the fact that the statue still existed in 2020 as "an insult to humanity". A series of evening protests was planned. The statue was covered with a shroud by protesters, and placards were attached to it. On 9 June 2020, the Museum of London Docklands issued a statement saying how this made the statue an "object of protest", and said that they believed it should remain so for as long as the statue remained. They added that they "advocate for the statue of Robert Milligan to be removed on the grounds of its historical links to colonial violence and exploitation." Later that day, the statue was removed by the

local authority Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

, and the landowners the

Canal & River Trust The Canal & River Trust (CRT), branded as in Wales, holds the guardianship of 2,000 miles of canals and rivers, together with reservoirs and a wide range of heritage buildings and structures, in England and Wales. Launched on 12 July 2012, the ...

, to "recognise the wishes of the community". The statue was removed on the same day that

announced plans to establish a Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm.

Museum ownership

In March 2022 the Canal & River Trust, which owned the statute, donated it to the

Museum of London The Museum of London is a museum in London, covering the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times. It was formed in 1976 by amalgamating collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall, London, Gui ...

. The intention is to display the statute at the

in due course.

History

"Father of the Island" in 1998

Shrouding in 2007

Removal in 2020

Museum ownership

See also

References

Further reading