Leaving the Frame

This statue of Joseph Brotherton, Salford’s first MP (from the passing of the Great Reform Act in 1832 to 1857), has had a chequered history.

Standing in Peel Park, which he helped create, it and other statues were sold off by the old Corporation in the 1960’s. A need to raise cash, combined with a general dislike of all things Victorian I suspect.

It somehow ended up on the Manchester bank of the Irwell, sitting forlorn in a littered area staring at the area he used to represent.

Then a few years back he returned to the other side of the Irwell, in a temporary position by a busy road.

And now he is back in the newly restored Peel Park, on an impressive pediment fitting to one of the great reformers of the 19th century. A radical, a leading non conformist and a pioneering vegetarian, also one of the founders of the Manchester Guardian (now the Guardian), he was way ahead of his time. We need more like him in the 21st century.