Our monument manoeuvre correspondent Angus Young tries to stay on the track of a tribute to a transient city dignitary.
By their very nature, statues are generally meant to stay put once they’ve been installed. But that’s not the case with a couple of landmarks in Hull.
William Wilberforce and his column’s shuffle across the city centre from Monument Bridge to overlook Queens Gardens during the 1930s is well-documented. Perhaps less known is the wanderlust associated with the statue of Andrew Marvell. In fact, if the 17th century poet, politician and possible spy were alive today and appearing on a TV reality show, he might well say: “I’ve been on a journey.”
Those travels began in 1867 when Councillor John Whinship presented his newly-commissioned sculpture to the Hull Corporation as a gift. Carved in white marble by Hull sculptor William Day Keyworth who would later commit suicide by shooting himself in the head, the statue originally stood inside the old Town Hall. However, shortly before Hull architect Cuthbert Brodrick’s beautiful Renaissance-style building was demolished to make way for the Guildhall we know today, it was decided to relocate the Marvell statue outdoors.
In 1902 the statue was moved from the shelter of the Town Hall to the centre of the junction of George Street and Savile Street in the city centre. Making it more accessible to the public probably seemed like a good idea at the time. What the city’s great and good didn’t foresee was the growth of the motor car.
Initially, the statue’s central berth allowed trams to pass by on either rise with room to spare. But when less predictable motor vehicles started to clog up the roads, it soon became a traffic hazard. As a result, in 1922 Marvell together with the square pedestal he was standing on was shifted around 50ft to one side of the road, safely out of the way of any wayward driver. For an unknown reason, the statue was also positioned facing a completely different direction. Instead of facing Jameson Street, Marvell was now looking directly at the Hull Savings Bank on the corner of George Street.
There he remained until 1963 when he was off once again with the proposed construction of a new dual carriageway which would eventually become Bond Street being the trigger. Once again, one of Hull’s most famous sons was getting in the way of traffic. This time Marvell put another three and a half miles on his clock before coming to rest near Bricknell Avenue at the site of Hull Grammar School which had moved there a decade earlier. As a former Grammar School pupil when it was based in Hull’s Old Town, the presence of a marble Marvell outside the main entrance was deemed to be a fitting nod to its past even the school building itself was relatively modern.
His stay in West Hull lasted until 1999 when he returned to the city centre to stand in the middle of Trinity Square as part of a facelift scheme for the public space. Even then, he wasn’t quite finished gadding about. Another revamp of the Square saw a cleaned-up Marvell later re-positioned once again, this time ending up closer to the original Grammar School building.
At the moment, he’s still there in what is his sixth location. Will he be moved again? Only time will tell.