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South Frieze Block III.8-9 pre-crowbar |
Two
hundred years ago this week the British House of Commons voted to buy the
exquisite sculptures, which Lord Elgin’s workmen had in 1803 crowbarred from the Parthenon,
for the sum of £35,000 (£2.4 million in today’s money). I personally prefer to call them 'sculptures': 'marbles' does not convey the phenomenal amount of work which went into their production.
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The Same Block post-crowbar |
The parliamentary debate on June 7th 1816 was tempestuous. A famine meant starvation for many British poor. But Lord Castlereagh, Tory Leader of the House of Commons, in triumphalist mood after Waterloo, was determined to use the incalculable symbolic value of the sculptures (despite the damage which the crowbarring had inflicted) in the cause of British national pride. He wanted to spend as much again on a British Museum in which to house them.
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Peter Moore |
A
forgotten hero of the debate was Peter Moore, vicar’s son and radical Whig M.P.
for Coventry. He announced that he was making a counter-claim for this apparently
available cash on behalf of his hungry constituents.
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Cruikshank Satirises Purchase when many Britons were starving |
In this cartoon, Castlereagh
says to John Bull, ‘Here's a Bargain for you Johnny! Only £35.000!! I have
bought them on purpose for you! Never think of Bread when you can have Stones
so wonderous Cheap!!’ John Bull’s emaciated children retort, ‘Don't buy them Daddy!
we don't want Stones. Give us Bread! Give us Bread! Give us Bread!’
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Eddie O'Hara: RIP |
Last
week Eddie O’Hara died. He was the inspiring Chairman of the British Committee for the
Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, of which I am a member. It is heartbreaking
for his family. It is awful that he was deprived of the opportunity this
week offers for public debate about the issue so close to his heart. His death
is a cruel blow to the cause.
Eddie O’Hara was a working-class boy from Bootle. He got to Magdalen College, Oxford,
to study Classics, in the days when such upward mobility was still made possible
by Direct and Student Maintenance Grants. He served for twenty years as Labour MP for
Knowsley South. He was passionate, principled, energetic, and will be difficult to replace.


A blatant case of clear-cut looting. The BM should be ashamed of itself for its continual trumped-up excuses. These belong to Greece and the Acropolis!
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