When it was home to groups of protesters, Parliament Square was pretty much inaccessible, but in May the final groups left. It has now had its crossings reinstated (so you don’t have to dash across four lanes of traffic to reach it) and the grass is now a great spot for tourists to sit around and marvel at the Palace Of Westminster on the other side of the road.
The renewal of Parliament Square also allows people like me to cross over and examine it and its statues properly for the first time, which feature five British Prime Ministers, one foreign Prime Minister and two Presidents.
The most imposing of the effigies on the square is arguably that of Winston Churchill resting on a cane, which stands on the northeastern corner (you might remember that the statue waved to the Queen and James Bond as they passed overhead on their way to the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony). Anti-clockwise from that is the statue of a rather windswept Lloyd George, whose coat is flapping around in an imaginary wind. Both of these statues are fairly contemporary – Churchill’s was unveiled in 1973 and Lloyd George’s dates from 2007.
Next to these two is the first of Parliament Square’s three interlopers – a statue of Jan Smuts, the Prime Minister of South Africa, looking extremely stern. This statue by Jacob Epstein is an oddity in lots of ways, especially when you consider one of the square’s other residents – Smuts was a strong supporter of segregation and oversaw a brutal police regime during his time in office.
Along the western side of the square is a line-up of four great Prime Ministers, starting with Lord Palmerston who was one of the first people to ‘cross the floor of the house’ – he started off as a Conservative and ended his career as a Liberal, dying in office in 1865. To his left is the 14th Earl of Derby, dressed in the robes of the Chancellor of Oxford University, a post he served in after retiring from Parliament having served three stints as Prime Minister. Next in line is arguably the country’s most famous Prime Minister after Churchill and Thatcher, the Earl of Beaconsfield (or Benjamin Disraeli as he was known before being elevated to the Peerage). He’s an interesting character – born to Jewish parents he was the grandson of immigrants from Italy, and rumours about his sexuality continue to this day. He was also remarkably close to his monarch, Queen Victoria, who was greatly entertained by the letters he wrote to her describing the events in Parliament as if they were passages from novels. She was heard to say that she had “never had such letters in her life” whatever that might imply…
The statue immediately before Parliament Square’s second foreign dignitary is that of a rather portly Sir Robert Peel, another twice-serving Prime Minister who is probably best known for establishing London’s Metropolitan Police when he was serving as Home Secretary in 1829 – their nicknames of Bobbies and Peelers are both derived from his name. [Historical Note – they’re not the oldest police force in the world – that privilege belongs to the Met’s Marine Policing Unit who were established as the Thames River Police in 1799].
Refused a spot outside South Africa House on Trafalgar Square, the next statue is of the ex-President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. One wonders whether the decision to site this very artful statue here instead, across the grass from Jan Smuts, was deliberate given the impact that they both had on different periods of the country’s history…
On the outer edge of Parliament Square on its western side there are two more statues, one of which looks completely out of place because it is the imposing figure of Abraham Lincoln rising from a large throne-like chair behind him. Studded with stars around the base, this statue is a replica of a statue in Chicago, and was unveiled in 1920.
The final resident is George Canning, who only served for five months as Prime Minister in 1827. What’s notable about his statue is how he is dressed – while his contemporaries are seen wearing official costumes or their rather modest frock coats he is dressed in the ostentatious style of a Roman Senator – rather cheeky for someone who spent so little time running the country!