By Cara Waters
A statue of explorers Burke and Wills will not return to its prime location in Melbourne’s City Square and will instead move to La Trobe Street.
The statue, which pays tribute to the ill-fated expedition of Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills, was unveiled in 1865 and is Melbourne’s oldest piece of public art.
The statue of Burke and Wills is removed from city square in 2017. Credit: Jason South
It has been in storage for the past eight years while the city square next to Town Hall has been closed for the $15 billion Metro Tunnel works.
Lord Mayor Nick Reece said the move was “not at all” a demotion of Burke and Wills, even though other public art, including Loretta Quinn’s 1993 bronze sculpture Beyond the Ocean of Existence, is being returned to the square.
“The previous location … is no longer suitable, with thousands of extra commuters expected to move through the new Town Hall station each day,” he said. “So with the new City Square design confirmed, we will be relocating the Burke and Wills statue to the Royal Society of Victoria on La Trobe street.”
Reece said the Royal Society of Victoria was a fitting setting for the statue, as it was the society that commissioned the famous expedition from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
“Public artworks are often moved as the city grows and changes, and we’ve ensured the Burke and Wills monument will be displayed in a location that pays homage to these pioneering explorers,” he said.
“When their bodies were returned to Melbourne, they lay in state at the Royal Society building, and tens of thousands of Melburnians queued up to pay their respects.”
The redesigned City Square will feature a permanent smoking ceremony dish at its centre; the John Mockridge fountain wall, which previously ran along Collins Street, will be brought back in digital form; and the dog sculpture Larry LaTrobe has been relocated to the footpath on Swanston Street outside Melbourne Town Hall.
“He’s much smaller than Burke and Wills,” Reece said.
The Burke and Wills statue before it was relocated for the Metro Tunnel construction. Credit: Paul Jeffers
Before he was elected lord mayor, Reece said it was not acceptable that only a small number of Melbourne’s many statues, monuments and memorials commemorated people who are not “dead white men”.
However, Reece said the relocation of Burke and Wills was not part of any reappraisal of Melbourne’s statue population.
“Irrespective of the need for us to have more statues of women, the fact is, Burke and Wills are heroes of Melbourne, and it’s appropriate that their monument be reinstated,” he said.
The statue has been relocated several times since it was first raised – due to tram works, CityLink construction, and a disastrous move underneath a waterfall in City Square, where the chlorinated water reportedly caused the bronze to corrode.
The Royal Society of Victoria has been campaigning for years for the statue to be moved to its grounds, but previously the City of Melbourne said the location was not prominent enough.
Rob Gell, president of the society, said the organisation was still not sure where exactly it was going to put it.
“Have we got enough statues of old white men? The answer to that is yes, so we need to use it as an opportunity to engage in different ways with First Nations people, which the society, frankly, is very concerned to do,” he said.
Burke and Wills were the first European explorers to explore inland Australia and cross to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
They died on their return journey at Cooper’s Creek, at a camp that had been abandoned hours earlier.
Gell said that of the expedition of 19 people, one man, John King, made it back to Melbourne. He had been kept alive by the Yandruwandha Indigenous people, who looked after him for about three months.
“So the expedition did conclude, but only thanks to the Yandruwandha,” he said. “So we’ve been discussing with the city whether or not we should have a parallel statue or commemoration to those people for having concluded the expedition.”
Gell said there were some concerns for the safety of the statue after a recent spate of statue vandalism. A statue of Captain James Cook that was reinstated to Melbourne’s Fitzroy gardens in February was recently vandalised for a second time.
An artist’s render of the entrance to the Melbourne Metro Town Hall station in the City Square, which will no longer feature Burke and Wills.
“Jimmy Cook almost got his head knocked off last week, although he’s a navigator, not a colonist,” Gell said. “We need to be cautious about how we do this, but it’s a real opportunity to engage with not only the Yandruwandha mob but also with Wurundjeri people, whose land we’re going to be locating it on.”
Professor of history at La Trobe University, Clare Wright, said if Burke and Wills were coming out of storage, she would like to see the statue of Kylie Minogue come out of storage as well.
“Why do Burke and Wills get resurrected and Kylie doesn’t?” she said. “I don’t advocate taking down statues. I advocate for more statues, so this could be an opportunity to say, well, if we’re going to put Burke and Wills back, let’s put Kylie back.”
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