Byron in Bronze – Commemorating Byron in Victorian London

Byron Society Lecture, 24th April

6.30-8.00pm, at the Art Workers Guild, London

Victorian London was seized by ‘statuemania’, as more and more statues of famous people appeared in the rapidly expanding metropolis.  But these statues produced a set of difficult questions about who deserved a statue, where they should be commemorated, and how statues related to one another.  Over time, the city – and then the country – became a distributed pantheon of monuments, in which individual statues took on new significance in relation to their neighbours.  The statue of Byron by Richard Belt, now in Hyde Park, was an important addition to the new pantheon.  In this talk, Professor Mole will examine the statue’s history and evaluate its significance both for Byron’s Victorian reputation and for Victorian Londoners’ understanding of their city.

DETAILS

Please let us know if you would like to attend, email contact@thebyronsociety.com.

Imagery provided by kind permission of Professor Tom Mole.