The following is written on the pedestal: ‘This Enclosure was Purchased Laid Out and Decorated as a garden by Albert Grant Esquire MP and Conveyed by him on the 2nd July 1874 to the Metropolitan Board of Works to be Preserved for ever for the Free Use and Enjoyment of the Public.’ These lines are followed by this brief quote, on a scroll: ‘There s no darkness but ignorance’.

The statue design is based on the monument in Poet’s Corner. To add a brief critical commentary, the statue ‘stands rather lumpenly in the middle of an (often not working) fountain’.

The statue was commissioned by Baron Albert Grant.

Read more at the London memorials website.

Statue