By Alex Crowe
A bronze statue of Captain James Cook has been hacked off its plinth in a Melbourne park, prompting a police investigation.
The sculpture of the British explorer at Cooks’ Cottage in East Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens was cut off between 5pm on Sunday and 7am on Monday, causing it to fall to the ground.
A video posted to an anonymous social media account shows masked vandals using an angle grinder to saw the statue off at its ankles, before pushing it over.
The words “the colony will fall” were painted beside the fallen statue, according to the account.
“Yet another monument to the imperialist James Cook has been felled in so-called Melbourne. Rumour has it that this was the last remaining Cook statue in the city,” the post on Instagram says.
“Monuments such as this only serve to prop up the narrative that enables so-called Australia’s continuing theft and desecration of land and life, and to legitimise its ongoing violence.
“This narrative is as hollow as a monument to a long dead coloniser who met his just fate, being speared by first nations warriors in Hawaii.”
According to the Captain Cook Society, the statue was sculpted by Marc Clark in 1973, and was owned privately before it was gifted to the City of Melbourne in 1996. The sculpture was moved into the garden at Cooks’ Cottage the following year.
Built in 1755, Cooks’ Cottage was the Yorkshire home of Captain Cook’s parents, with the two-storey brick house and its adjoining stable taken apart and shipped from England to be rebuilt in Melbourne. The attraction was publicly opened in 1934.
The targeting of Cook’s statues follows similar incidents in Melbourne on the eve of Australia Day.
Cook’s statue in St Kilda’s Catani Gardens and Queen Victoria’s memorial on St Kilda Road were both vandalised, with vandals scrawling the same message in red paint.
St Kilda’s foreshore statue is being repaired and will likely be returned to Catani Gardens, after Port Phillip councillors voted earlier this month to reinstate the statue.
Port Phillip councillor Robbie Nyaguy moved a motion in February requesting a public estimate of the cost of reinstating the statue.
The council rejected Nyaguy’s motion to engage with the community on where the statue should go and what historical context should be provided alongside it.
Meanwhile, the City of Yarra is considering permanently removing a memorial to Captain Cook from Edinburgh Gardens and scrapping it from its collection after the memorial was repeatedly vandalised.
The granite monument at the entrance to Edinburgh Gardens in North Fitzroy was most recently broken from its base and spray-painted in red with the words “cook the colony” on January 29.
Anyone with any information about the incidents is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report online at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au