The Jubilee Pediment on Glasgow City Chambers

George Square in the centre of Glasgow is the site of many important public events and political rallies. Around the square are several statues, a monarch and two prime ministers, but also soldiers, scientists, poets and politicians, some of them with strong local connections, others with a reputation that Glaswegians, at one point, thought worth commemorating in stone, or bronze.

While some of those figures are still remembered, even revered today, others have a more questionable reputation, but there is another category of sculpture in Glasgow, that goes largely unnoticed. In many parts of the city, high above street level, are a pantheon of immortals, gods and goddesses, mythological figures, angels and saints, who have presided over the city for well over a century and witnessed its changing fortunes.  

In George Square, on the main façade of the City Chambers, where Glasgow City Council have been based since 1889, a few earth-bound mortals have been granted a place in this divine congregation; artists, scientists, and tradesmen. Most of those figures are generic representations of their trade but one can be clearly identified, Queen Victoria, who sits high above the main entrance, in the centre of what is known as the Jubilee Pediment.

The Jubilee Pediment on Glasgow City Chambers. (Photograph by the author)

Commissioned in 1887, one year before the building was formally opened, the pediment was designed to be a celebration and a permanent memorial to Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, her fiftieth year on the throne. At the time, she had reigned longer than any other British monarch. She is seated, surrounded by her loyal subjects, from all the territories of the British Empire.

Back in 1883, when building started, the plan was for the pediment to feature a symbolic figure of Glasgow at the centre, the Goddess Clutha, ‘with the River Clyde at her feet, sending her manufactures and arts to all the world.’ In late 1886, the architect William Young, realised the opportunity existed to celebrate the Jubilee, so he petitioned the Council to sanction a new theme.

Corporations and councils around the country were falling over themselves to erect monuments venerating the Queen and celebrating the Jubilee.  Young wanted to record in stone, what he considered to be ‘the greatest event of the epoch.’ He went on to say, ‘I consider that no other city has the same chance for a memorial to the Queen’s Jubilee, the like of which may never happen again.’

Approval for the new pediment was not achieved easily, the proposed new theme would prove to be controversial. One of the most divisive issues of the day was Home Rule for Ireland. Prime Minister William Gladstone had recently proposed giving Ireland its own Parliament. The bill was defeated, Gladstone’s government fell, and the Conservatives came into power. In Scotland, the issue of Home Rule was seen by many as one that threatened the harmony and unity of the Empire. One commentator went as far as to say that Gladstone’s defeat had ‘saved the Empire.’

Young argued that ‘In these days of Home Rule, it was very important that such a memorial be erected on the municipal buildings of one of the greatest corporations of the Empire.’ In addition, he offered to present a clay model of the proposed design for the council’s approval and to send a sketch or a photograph to the queen for her consideration. Without committing to the proposed design, the council approved the production of a clay model, which was presented to them in January 1887. 

William Young and his sculptor George Lawson, had spent time in the British Museum in London, studying the size and scale of the Elgin Marbles and Young promised the Council that the figures on the pediment in Glasgow would be ‘rather larger than those which adorned the famous Greek temple.’  Young believed that the pediment could be designed and constructed for around £1500, perhaps as little as £1000. He acknowledged that extra funds would be required to realise his vision but suggested that a special grant could be sought to celebrate the occasion.

A proposal which would allow Young to proceed was presented to the building committee, but one councillor opposed the idea and so a motion was forced. That motion was opposed by several more councillors who expressed concern about the additional cost and about the poor visibility of the pediment, high above George Square. Privately, those councillors were part of the Gladstonian leaning branch of the Liberal Party, who supported Home Rule, and were almost certainly, slightly uncomfortable with the idea of a such an explicitly imperial theme. The Conservatives and the Liberal Unionist councillors, keen to demonstrate their patriotism, voted in favour of the new pediment. The motion passed in Young’s favour, supported by twenty-two councillors, and opposed by thirteen. The final cost of the pediment was £1500.

Victoria is portrayed, seated on a throne, and like the mythical figure of Britannia, with a lion at her feet. Immediately surrounding her are figures representing England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

Queen Victoria, surrounded by figures representing England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Also a lion. (Photograph by the author)

The first standing figure on the left-hand side of the pediment is a Canadian, dressed as a hunter. The territory of Canada was renowned for its hunting in this period. Behind the hunter is an Indigenous tribesman, being guided towards the queen. Then (probably) two Australian miners, one holding a pickaxe and the other, dragging a rock by a rope attached to his wrist. The Australian Gold Rush, although past its peak, was still an active, ongoing event at this time. On the far-left side of the pediment, the two recumbent figures are believed to be from the islands of New Zealand, one holding an agricultural implement, probably a plough. 

On Victoria’s right hand side, the colonies to the west of the British Empire (Photograph by the author)

On the right-hand side of the pediment, to Victoria’s left, are the various colonies of Asia and Africa. There are two men in turbans, from India, the first is a merchant chief, bringing a gift. Underneath the chief, on his right-hand side, is the head of an animal, with feline qualities, possibly a tiger. Behind the merchant is another Indian, this one armed, probably a warrior.

The next two figures represent Africa, the first is a white man with his arm around an African, who like the native American on the opposite side, is being ushered into Victoria’s presence. This strange, slightly patronising configuration was no doubt typical of Imperial attitudes towards native people at the time.

The final two figures are clearly of Asian origin, so may represent colonies like Burma, Malayasia or Singapore. One contemporary journalist strangely, perhaps erroneously described those figures as Mongolian. Mongolia was never a part of the British Empire, nor are the figures dressed as typical Mongolians, but this may have been a catch-all term for inhabitants of the many countries of eastern Asia, whose ancestors would once have been part of the Mongolian Empire.

On Victoria’s left-hand side, the colonies to the east of the Empire (Photograph by the author)

As far as the political and business classes in the city were concerned, Glasgow owed its prosperity to its place in the Union and the Empire. The Jubilee Pediment is just one part of a larger sculptural scheme on the main façade of the City Chambers which, taken as a whole, reinforces in the political and civic imagination, a harmonious community at the heart of the British Empire. In 1883, when the Prince of Wales laid the foundation stone, the ceremony that day, included 30,000 members of the Trades Council who participated in and endorsed the occasion.

Long before that day, and long before the Chambers opened, Glasgow’s reputation for radicalism was already emerging. By the 1880s, the labour movement was beginning to challenge Liberal dominance of city politics; and the rising power of trade unions undermined the idealised vision of Glasgow as the second city. The new municipal headquarters would become for many, an uncomfortable symbol of the political establishment and often, the scene of protests.

In 1888, when Queen Victoria formally opened the Chambers, crowds jeered the cavalry soldiers, the part-time ‘fireside sodjers’ who were escorting her through Glasgow. A counterdemonstration was held on Glasgow Green that day, in support of Home Rule, led by Ulster-born activist John Ferguson, figurehead for the Irish community in Glasgow and supporter of the Scottish Labour Party, and the key speaker was Robert Cunninghame Graham, the UK’s first Socialist MP, who represented the nearby constituency of Northwest Lanarkshire.

In 1908, an army of unemployed workers marched into the Chambers, singing The Red Flag and very nearly occupied the council’s meeting room. In 1914, when George V and Queen Mary laid the foundation stone of the extension to the Chambers, Labour councillors refused to attend the event. The radical newspaper Forward ridiculed ‘The Royal Hypnotist and the Amateur Bricklayer.’

Most famously, in 1919, during the ‘Battle of George Square’, at least 30,000 workers demonstrated in support of a shorter working week, and this gathering so alarmed the authorities that the police baton charged the crowds, and the military were on the streets the next day to prevent any recurrence of the protests.

Glasgow special status within the Empire was changing, now it was better known as Red Clydeside, a mark of pride for some, for others it was a victim of socialism which some commentators called ‘the cancer of the empire.’

Glasgow’s history, particularly its municipal and industrial history would not be what it is today, without the liberal and left-wing politicians, trade unions and activists who came to the fore in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, who would see Glasgow embrace what became known as municipal socialism.

Practically, the Jubilee Pediment sits high above George Square and rarely receives attention or scrutiny. The dissenting councillors in 1887, certainly had a valid point about visibility. Despite its remote placement, it crowns one of the most extravagant Victorian municipal buildings anywhere in the country.

The original idea, to feature the Goddess Clutha, may have been more authentically Glaswegian but for many, pride in Glasgow’s achievements, came because of a more significant national and imperial affiliation. If Glasgow was indebted to the Empire, then a prominent display of loyalty to the Empire, in Glasgow, was entirely justifiable.

For others, more concerned with local issues, poverty and hunger, workers rights, extending the franchise, even regional autonomy, the Jubilee Pediment would have been seen as just another symbol of a failing system, that no longer served the people of the city.

Glaswegians today are rightly proud of the City Chambers; it is the most recognisable building in the city and a magnificent tourist attraction, which symbolises Victorian Glasgow’s confidence and exuberance. The Jubilee Pediment was the jewel in that crown, the story that those in power wanted to tell.  

It is also a visible reminder, for anyone who cares to consider the issue critically, of how much Glasgow’s early prosperity was founded on colonialism and exploitation.