Hobart poised to remove Franklin Square sculpture of former premier William Crowther

Hobart is poised to tear down the statue of a former premier, while flagging a broader purge, after a report found the city had too many monuments to “Caucasian males”.

Hobart is poised to tear down the statue of a former premier, while flagging a broader purge, after a report found the city had too many monuments to “Caucasian males”.

The city council has been considering the removal of the large Franklin Square sculpture of William Crowther, a naturalist, surgeon and premier who, in 1869, was accused of severing and stealing the skull from an Aboriginal corpse.

A new council report, to be voted on this week, recommends spending $20,000 to remove the statute to storage, pending finding it another home, and $50,000 on “interpretive elements onsite”.

The report complains there are too many white men memorialised across the city and recommends a new policy be adopted to guide further statue “additions and removals”.

Aboriginal groups welcomed the moves, but some historians expressed concern the council was “opening the floodgates” to revision or erasure of colonial history.

Michael Mansell says there is a pressing need to acknowledge Aboriginal figures in the city’s history.

Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania chairman Michael Mansell said removing the Crowther statue was long overdue, but that countenancing later placing it elsewhere was illogical.

“If the reason you’re taking a statue down is because what the person did was so offensive, you couldn’t put it up in any other context because people will remember what that guy stood for,” Mr Mansell said.

He was unaware of any other Hobart statues the Aboriginal community would want removed, but believed further decisions should be based on “balance” and “scale”.

“Cutting up dead bodies just because they are Aboriginal and treating them as fair game, (as) animals, it wouldn’t matter what good that person did, the scale of the atrocity stands out,” Mr Mansell said.

“So if there are other statues around like that, with similar horrible histories, they should be removed.”

However, in less serious cases, he believed an historical figure’s good work might sufficiently off-set the bad to allow their statue to remain.

More pressing was the need to acknowledge Aboriginal figures in the city’s history, he said.

Some historians are preparing submissions to persuade Thursday’s meeting of the council’s “Community, Culture and Events Committee” to reject the report recommendations.

The report – by the council’s chiefs of “City Futures”, Cultural Programs and the Public Art – cites as one reason for removing the Crowther statue: “The City of Hobart has only seven named statues, all of Caucasian male figures.”

John Franklin statue, another ‘Caucasian male figure’ at Franklin Square, Hobart. Picture Chris Kidd

It describes its recommended removal of the Crowther bronze with retention of the plinth on which it stands as a “partial removal”.

Scott Seymour, an amateur historian who has researched the Crowther case, said this was “bizarre” and the promise of a new “permanent home” meant it would be permanently housed in a crate.

Mr Seymour said removal of the statue and adoption of the new policy would “open the floodgates” to further purges of Hobart’s colonial monuments.

“It won’t be too long before we’re reading about the next colonial personality’s statue up for removal,” Mr Seymour said.

He challenged the council to provide proof that Crowther, Tasmania’s 15th premier, was guilty of severing and removing the skull of prominent Aboriginal man William Lanne.

While Crowther was accused of the crime, and lost his hospital position, the claim was never proven, Mr Seymour said.

He believed a more balanced approach would be to retain statues, with new interpretative material. “Rather than removal, I think we need some explanations beside these statues telling an alternative story,” he said.