On this day in vegan history · March 10, 1910
Battersea's Brown Dog Is Removed Before Dawn
A council that wanted the fight over one dead dog to end sent 120 police officers to make sure of it.
The facts
- Removed
- Before dawn on 10 March 1910, by four council workmen guarded by 120 police officers
- Original unveiling
- 15 September 1906, on the Latchmere Recreation Ground in Battersea
- The rally
- 3,000 anti-vivisectionists gathered in Trafalgar Square nine days later to demand its return
- What happened to it
- Hidden in the borough surveyor's bicycle shed, then reportedly melted down by the council's blacksmith
For nearly four years, a bronze statue of a small brown terrier stood in a Battersea park, its inscription accusing London medical students of torturing it to death for science. The students hated the statue enough to riot over it more than once. Before dawn on 10 March 1910, Battersea Council sent four workmen to take it down, and brought 120 police officers along in case anyone objected. Nine days later, 3,000 anti-vivisectionists filled Trafalgar Square to demand the dog back. It never came back; the council hid it in a bicycle shed and, by most accounts, had it melted down.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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The statue was quietly removed before dawn on 10 March 1910 by four council workmen, accompanied by 120 police officers.
Wikipedia, "Brown Dog affair"
Source: Wikipedia -
Nine days later, 3,000 anti-vivisectionists gathered in Trafalgar Square to demand its return, but it was clear by then that Battersea Council had turned its back on the affair.
Wikipedia, "Brown Dog affair"
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
The Brown Dog affair was Britain's first sustained public fight over animal experimentation, and the statue's quiet, heavily policed removal is a reminder of how easily a movement's monuments can be erased once the political will to defend them runs out.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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