There’s a problem with London’s statues — but what’s the solution?

Amid a snarl of East End traffic, Prime Minister Gladstone eternally declaims from his tall granite pillar, arm outstretched. A backdrop of dripping plane trees hides Bow Church except for the chime of its bells. For decades now, the Gladstone statue has seen its hands —  its right hand especially — painted bloody red (shades of Nick Cave). Who does this is unclear. If the paint is ever removed, guerrilla activists repaint the blood in secret overnight. 

In these Black Lives Matter-conscious days, the assumption is made that the now faded paint is commentary on the Gladstone family’s links to plantation slavery. However, the longer-standing tradition is that the blood is a reference to the match-girl workers at the nearby Bryant & May factory. The statue was indeed financed by the factory’s owners in gratitude for Gladstone’s U-turn on a proposed match tax (matches were an essential part of society for rich and poor but thousands of poorer families depended on its manufacture to make a living) and erected with great ceremony in 1882 in his lifetime.