Myth busting + statues

The Hobart City Council’s plan to remove the William Crowther statue from its prominent location in Franklin Square has attracted plenty of emotionally-charged criticism.

For example, those opposed to this decision (and even some newspaper reports) refer to Council “tearing down” the statue. This deliberately emotive and inaccurate term is used to evoke an image of aggressive demolition, an act of illogical ‘woke’ anarchy.

In fact, Council has taken a careful and in-depth process to consider the removal of this statue that has been the opposite of “tearing down”.

So far the process has spanned three years, starting with a year-long community arts and engagement process to test ideas. It considered hundreds of public submissions and comments in online debates, and heard public representations to reach an in-principle decision.

This was followed by a year of in-depth study into the heritage and planning issues associated with the removal of the statue. Before any further steps are taken, there will also be a decision of the independent Tasmanian Heritage Council and another decision by the Council considering the matter from a planning law perspective.

Several myths have been peddled during this lengthy debate to which I’d like to respond:

Myth 1 – there is doubt around whether William Crowther stole William Lanne’s skull

In his letters to Sir William Flower (Conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, England) between 1864 and 1869, William Crowther writes about “obtaining a skeleton of one of the aboriginal human inhabitants” which Flower was seeking.

In his March 1869 letter, Crowther identifies the seaman who died of cholera and how he was competing for the remains with others in the Hobart medical profession. He laments how he, “with considerable difficulty obtained the head”.

He says that “I looked upon this skeleton, the skull in particular as most valuable in a physiological point of view” and he complains about the “narrow clique” who attacked him politically following his removal of the skull.

There are numerous other references to the Lanne skull in letters published in volumes 1 and 2 Letterbooks of the Royal College of Surgeons, researched by Cassandra Pybus for an upcoming book.

Myth 2 – by removing this statue from Franklin Square, Council is trying to erase or change history

Cities and their resident communities change over time, as do their public facilities, infrastructure, buildings, public art and places. They’re constantly changing in response to growth, different laws and the evolving priorities and values of the people who live there.

Deciding to relocate this statue doesn’t change history – the records, books, articles, dates and stories associated with the statue will all remain unchanged. The statue itself will be cared for, conserved and potentially reinterpreted in a new location.

Removing colonial statues is not an act of erasing history, but rather an opportunity to reassess our understanding of them. Statues erected during the colonial era often glorify individuals who played significant roles in oppression, racism, and injustice.

There’s also a certain randomness as to why some individuals have statues erected and not others. The statues a city ends up with aren’t always the best reflection of the most important events or people to the history of a place.

Informed by an in-depth public engagement process, Council decided to prioritise a more contemporary public artwork that will provide a more honest and accurate portrayal of our shared past and include a broader range of historical figures.

By removing this statue, we’re adding a new chapter to the history of Hobart and this statue, without ‘erasing’ any of the events that have occurred in the past.

Myth 3 – the removal of body parts helped to advance modern medicine

Phrenology was a pseudoscience popular in the 19th century that claimed to be able to determine a person's character and intelligence based on the shape and size of their skull.

This field of racial science was used to support discriminatory practices during colonial times and divided human beings into races, of which the ‘caucasian’ was the highest and the ‘primitives’ were doomed to extinction.

Colonial phrenology was not used for medical advancement but rather to support a fad that was misused to justify discrimination, violence, and persecution.

It was this racial science movement that Hobart ‘gentlemen’, including Crowther, Allport and dozens of others, were engaging with when they sent Aboriginal body parts back to institutions in ‘the mother land’.

Phrenology was used to support later eugenic theories which aimed to improve the genetic quality of the human population through forced sterilisations. In its most extreme expression, eugenics justified the murder of millions before it finally lost favour after the second world war.

Crowther was certainly not the only person making transactions in this discredited field of ‘racial science’. But Crowther is the only person with hands-on involvement that has a prominent celebratory statue in Hobart’s main civic square.

Any replacement artwork to the Crowther statue needs to educate people about this period when colonial powers disrupted and harmed indigenous societies based on an arrogant and flawed belief about racial superiority.

It could contrast this period with the science that’s practised in Hobart today – investigations that are evidence-based, inclusive and non-ideological, that aim to make our world a better and safer place.

The removal of colonial statues sparks controversy but also important conversations about historical events, their impact, and their legacy.

I hope the artwork that replaces this individual bronze creates an opportunity for people to engage in discussions that shed light on previously untold stories and perspectives and deepens our understanding of history.