Brock's Monument

Statues Again

    In an attempt to ignore, and avoid commenting upon, the continuous contemporary kerfuffles over things like words and statues, I grabbed from the shelf a copy of Dicken’s American Notes for General Circulation. It is the “Cheap Edition” published in 1850 and it was withdrawn and discarded by the Library in which I used to work.  Even in a book originally published over 175 years ago, however, the subject of statues and the destruction of them could not be avoided. 

    After travelling through the States, Dickens detours to Canada on his way home. Upon reaching the Niagara Peninsula he sees the huge statue of General Brock, which had been partially destroyed for political reasons. Here is his description which includes his opinion of what should be done.

From American Notes:

   On the most conspicuous of these heights stood a monument erected by the Provincial legislature in memory of General Brock, who was slain in a battle with the American Forces, after having won the victory. Some vagabond, supposed to be a fellow of the name of Lett, who is now, or who lately was, in prison as a felon, blew up this monument two years ago, and it is now a melancholy ruin, with a long fragment of iron railing hanging dejectedly from its top, and waving to and fro like a wild ivy branch or broken vine stem. It is of much higher importance than it may seem, that this statue should be repaired at the public cost, as it ought to have been long ago. Firstly, because it is beneath the dignity of England to allow a memorial raised in honour of one of her defenders, to remain in this condition, on the very spot where he died. Secondly, because the sight of it in its present state, and the recollection of the unpunished outrage which brought it to this pass, is not very likely to soothe down border feelings among English subjects here, or compose their border quarrels and dislikes.

   General Brock died in the Battle of Queenston Heights during the War of 1812. The monument to him was blown apart in 1840, most likely by Benjamin Lett who hated the British and Brock was a British General. The monument was replaced in the 1850s.

    Generally, General Brock has been regarded as a hero and there are towns and streets named after him. There is another statue of him not far from Niagara on the campus of Brock University. Now, however, sentiments are shifting and his statue and the things named to honour him, may soon be scrutinized by those who wish to erase all the horrible things in history. 

Sources:

   There are Wikipedia entries for Isaac Brock, Brock's Monument and Benjamin Lett.

American Notes is available electronically over the Internet and is an enjoyable read. 

   The picture above is provided by Niagara Tourism and for now the monument is still standing.

The Bonus Stuff:

   The issue of potentially problematic university names was touched upon in my prescient, but unread year-end post back in 2017. I did not include Brock University, but I did mention some other Canadian ones and several in the U.S. In answer to the question I posed - "Do Larger Problems Loom?" I suggested that these universities might consider setting up a "New Name Committee".

The larger issue relates to the complete university not just the structures on the campus. What if the name applied to the entire university is tainted? I feel that it is my duty to alert you to some possible problems. In short, you would short the following colleges and universities if they were stocks or securities. The alphabetical list by institution includes the name of the person along with the alleged ‘crime’. 

Alcorn State (James L. He was a Confederate. Alcorn is largely black!)

Austin Peay  (Austin Peay. Like Jefferson, fathered a black child.)

Clemson ( Thomas Green. Married Calhoun’s daughter - see Yale above.)

Drake (Francis Marion. Killed a few Pawnees.)

Duke ( James Buchanan. Tobacco.)

Furman (Richard. The slave thing.)

George Mason (George Mason. The slave thing. See my related post - ASSOL)

Hofstra (William S. Lumber business - open to the charge of despoliation.)

Lamar ( Mirabeau Buonaparte. Slave trader AND Cherokee/Comanche killer.)

Marshall (John. His papers are online at the UVA. Find the problem yourself.)

Rice (William Marsh. Guy was a capitalist and died a rather messy death.)

Stanford (Leland Jr. The son of a robber baron.)

Tulane (Paul. Confederate donor.)

Vanderbilt (Cornelius. Rich - “unmannered brute.”)

Yale (Elihu. Corruption charges. Elis may become as rare as Jeffs.)

    Many colleges in the U.S. were founded by religious leaders and those named for such figures may be assumed to be safe from onomastic scrutiny (Wesleyan, for example) or maybe not (Oral Roberts). Otherwise if you are sending your sons or daughters off to college and you want them to have a ‘safe space’ , then perhaps you should consider a plainly-named land-grant university like the University of Iowa where the students are also likely to be less flighty. 

    As far as Canada goes, less work is required if you are trying to choose or avoid a university because of its name. Select one with a geographically-based name like ‘Toronto’, or  ‘Western’ which could exist anywhere and is surely not offensive. You could simply avoid any college that is named for a person unless she is Emily Carr. In the east, for example, I would not choose Dalhousie without thoroughly vetting the Earl. In the far west the choice is easy.  Go to UBC. It is clear that you should avoid Simon Fraser which will likely be attacked in the near future for reasons that are obvious. 

 

     I know I said I would keep this short, but I have failed and am still going. But, as an aside to the aside above I can’t help but wonder about what happened to Sir George Williams University in Montreal. Was it erased because Sir George was guilty of something? I recall a riot there and the takeover of the Henry F. Hall building. Was it because of the name of the building? I seem to remember that it had something to do with racism (see Ryerson above). I will leave it to you to sort this all out while I move on. 

The entire lengthy post is found here