Chains

Detail from sculpture in Exchange Flags Square. It caught my eye because the suffering seemed to emanate out of him. When I first saw this I thought it was a monument about slavery, but then did some googling and found that it's 'the Nelson Monument', 'Liverpool’s first major public sculpture which commemorates Nelson as a great English hero. It was designed by Matthew Coates Wyatt (1777-1862) and sculpted by (Sir) Richard Westmacott (1775-1856).

To Liverpool merchants the defeat of the French meant that they could once again trade internationally in peace.

About 4000 French prisoners of war were held in Liverpool during the Napoleonic Wars.

The sculpture was funded by public subscription. William Roscoe (1753-1831) donated a large amount of money to the fund and influenced the choice of designer. As Roscoe was an anti-slavery campaigner, there are debates around the sculpture having a dual role in symbolising both prisoners of war and the suffering produced by slavery.'

So the slavery link is there - sort of. And an interesting story, I don't really know that much about Nelson or Napoleon... but having 4000 prisoners means an awful lot of people suffered, however as William Roscoe (a good egg) supported the monument, it does make me see it differently.

Interestingly I also discovered that the bronze monument was unveiled at Exchange Flags Square, (behind Liverpool Town Hall) in October 1813.

200 years later, a detail from the sculpture gets blipped... (But I wasn't quite tall enough to get his feet in!)