Fight Hobart Council to Keep Our Heritage Statue

IMPORTANT UPDATE

The Tribunal hearing to save the statue lasted five days and our planning lawyer was brilliant, and our heritage expert witness who donated extensive time was compelling. Now, it is time to pay the bill for our legal representative for her time at the tribunal and extensive research and preparation before hand which has come in at $39,000.

This is David V Goliath. The Council has unlimited resources to fight to remove our heritage, but we rely on community donations.

The Tribunal decision is expected in mid June and we are hopeful of a positive outcome, but our legal bill is due now.

We would greatly appreciate any further donations and spreading the word of this valuable cause.

Remember, the community in 1885 paid for this statue, and the community again in 2024 will pay to SAVE THE STATUE.

A few powerful findings that were presented to the Tribunal by us included that the sculptor of the statue was the Italian born Mario Raggi (not Racci) who is a significant 19th century sculptor based in London, with a catalogue of important works including Benjamin Desrali and Queen Victoria.

We also presented the list of donors who paid for the memorial - which included artisans, merchants, ex-convicts - which had not been brought to light before, highlighting how popular Dr Crowther was and remains.

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The Hobart City Council are planning to tear down the statue of Dr William Crowther which has stood in Franklin Square in Hobart for over 134 years.

The people of Tasmania in 1885 arranged and paid for the statue which was sculpted in London by Signor Racci and shipped to Hobart for free as a sign of respect.

The statue belongs to the people. Not the Hobart Council!

If this statue is removed, what will be next? What monuments, buildings, collections, and place and street names?

The statue should remain with signage added to tell the fuller picture about life in the 1800s.

In 1889, a statue was erected to recognise Dr William Crowther for his "profound sympathy and kindness". The Hobart City Council are tearing it down. 134 years of heritage sent to gather dust, a legacy destroyed and descendants heartbroken.

The statue was paid for by tiny contributions from hundreds of ordinary people; artisans, ex-convicts, tradesman. They adored him partly because he gave them free medical care and made sure they were treated in hospital even though they could not pay. The sculpture was created in London and shipped for free to Hobart Town. His funeral was the biggest seen, with people flooding the streets.

Dr Crowther was one of dozens of figures who collected bones for scientific purposes. Bodies were regularly dissected to learn. The 1800's were brutal times. Times have changed.

The woke are determined to destroy our heritage and wash our history. To judge then, but today's standards. To place some people's offence before the wishes of most.

Dr Crowther's statue won't be the last to be banished. What statues, monuments, buildings, museums, collections, and place and street names will be destroyed next?

Who was William Crowther?

Dr Crowther provided free medical care to the poor and made large donations to charities and community projects. He was his renowned for his medical and surgical expertise and political and business success.

He advocated for increasing healthcare resources and the damaging impacts of alcohol, and had an important role in ending the public flogging of convicts. He also helped to launch one of the early resolutions in the struggle for cessation of convict transportation.

Dr Crowther made vast and highly valued contributions to our museums and was recognised with an honorary fellowship and a gold medal from the Royal College of Surgeons.

Dr Crowther's funeral was one of the largest ever seen in the State and that he’s on record as being remembered for his “profound sympathy and kindness”. Dr Crowther was elected to the Tasmanian Legislative Council as a representative of Hobart and held this seat until his death. Even on his death bed, Dr Crowther saw his patients when he could.

Dr Crowther treated hundreds of people without charge at his own home in the mornings before starting his shift at the hospital. The Reverend F H Cox was quoted in The Mercury as saying “he had met Dr. Crowther at the bedside of the poor, more than any other man in the colony.”

In 1869, his friends and supporters presented him with a purse of 240 sovereigns in gratitude for his “unremitting and disinterested services in attending without charge the suffering poor of Hobart Town”.

Dr Crowther wrote research papers that were published in the Lancet dealing with issues ranging from difficulties associated with Aged and Debilitated People to Hydrophobia. He was also the only fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in the colony, and they awarded him a ‘gold medal’ and made him an honorary fellow in 1874.

On his death, the following was published in the Launceston Examiner in 1885:

Having through a long and honourable career given his time, his talents, and often his money to the relief of suffering humanity, with the prospect of no other reward than the consciousness of having done a good deed. It was these traits in his character which have made Dr. Crowther so popular throughout the colony.

In The Mercury regarding his funeral:

One of the largest funeral processions that has ever been accorded to the remains of any Tasmanian citizen was that of the late Hon. Dr W. L. Crowther, M. L. C., at the Sandy Bay Cemetery yesterday afternoon. The Government offices has been closed out of respect for the deceased ex-Premier of the colony, and a number of the private business establishments and hotels followed suit, whilst in others the lowered blinds and raised shutters, and other marks of respect, showed the proprietors to be in harmony with the general feeling of sorrow which pervaded the community…

The procession to St David’s Cathedral passed through crowds of people, who thronged the pathways and roads, and filled every window on the line of route. To mention those who were unavoidably absent from the Cathedral would be an easier task than to enumerate those who were present, for nearly everyone was there.

Four years after his death on erection of the statue:

The Mercury: The statue erected in Franklin-square to perpetuate the memory of the late Hon. W. L. Crowther, was yesterday afternoon un-veiled by the Premier (Hon. P. O. Fysh). Sometime before the hour appointed for the ceremony, the whole of the available space around the statue was taken up : Macquarie-street, at that particular point, was almost impassable, and the windows of the Government offices facing the Square were lined with spectators…