Statue of Robert Stephenson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Statue of Robert Stephenson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Carlo Marochetti |
| Medium | Bronze |
| Subject | Robert Stephenson |
| Location | Euston station, London |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
| Official name | Statue of Robert Stephenson in Euston Station Forecourt |
| Designated | 14 May 1974 |
| Reference no. | 1342041 |
A bronze statue of Robert Stephenson by Carlo Marochetti usually stands on a red granite plinth in the forecourt of Euston railway station in London, England. Erected in 1871, it is one of few surviving elements of the original station after it was redeveloped in the 1960s, and it became a Grade II listed building in 1974. It was temporarily removed in 2020 to allow the station to be remodelled to accommodate the new High Speed 2 (HS2) railway line, and was installed at Locomotion Museum in Shildon, County Durham, in 2025.
The 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in) high bronze statue portrays Stephenson standing casually, bareheaded, with his right leg slightly forward, in contemporary Victorian dress of frock coat and trousers. He has a partially unrolled document in his right hand, and the left hand rests on his hip. The red Aberdeen granite plinth bears the inscription ROBERT STEPHENSON/ BORN/ OCTOBER 16TH 1803/ DIED OCTOBER 12TH 1859.[1]
Background
A memorial committee of the Institute of Civil Engineers commissioned the statue after Stephenson's death on 12 October 1859. It was completed before Marochetti's death in 1867, but remained in storage while protracted discussions continued about an appropriate site to erect it and other statues.[2]
The Institute of Civil Engineers had also commissioned Marochetti to make a similar statue of Stephenson's rival engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, after Brunel's death a few weeks before Stephenson on 14 September 1859,[3] and then a third statue for the railway engineer Joseph Locke who died a year later, on 18 September 1860. The intention was to erect the three statues together in a prominent position in Parliament Square, then known as the churchyard of St Margaret's, Westminster, near the statue of George Canning beside the offices of the Institute of Civil Engineers at One Great George Street. After initially granting permission, the Office of Works decided against in 1868, reserving the space for statues of politicians.[4]
Ultimately the three statues were erected separately. Marochetti's statue of Joseph Locke was installed in Locke Park, Barnsley, in 1866.[5] The statue and its enclosure were listed at Grade II in 1986.[6] A copy is displayed in Barentin, France, where Locke designed a railway viaduct. The statue of Brunel was erected in 1874 on the Victoria Embankment, at the west end of Temple Place, on a Portland stone pedestal with novel flanking screen walls and benches by the architect Richard Norman Shaw. It became a grade II listed building in 1958.[7]
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
