Call to honour Lady Hamilton with £100,000 statue in the Bullring
Jan 4 2011 by Neil Elkes, Birmingham Mail
BIRMINGHAM has the chance to right a historic wrong to one of England’s greatest heroes when a new statue is designed for the Bullring, it is claimed.
With £100,000 being given for a new piece of public art in St Martin’s Square, a campaign is growing to build a statue of Lady Emma Hamilton to stand facing in the direction of the statue of her famous lover Horatio Nelson.
Lord Nelson and Hamilton were arguably the Posh and Becks of their day with their every move and Lady Hamilton’s fashion, commented on in the society press during the height of their fame.
On his deathbed at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Nelson asked that the people of Great Britain look after his mistress.
But unable to inherit from him, she ended up in the debtor’s prison at Newgate before fleeing to France where she died in 1815.
Coun Peter Douglas Osborn, history buff and chairman of the council’s planning committee, said: “It is to this country’s shame that we did not look after Lady Hamilton.
