As it always happens when I visit London, I go walkabout as Muthiah would say, getting happily lost and finding some gem or the other. This visit has been no different. One rather warm afternoon I set off to Leadenhall Street just to see the site where the East India Company HQ once stood. That building was demolished a long while ago, in the 19th century to be precise, and the history-loving English have been careful enough not to have a commemorative plaque. The building standing there is a Lloyd’s Bank edifice, inaugurated sometime in the 1930s. Having seen it, I found myself near the Bank of England and looking up, saw an equestrian statue that took me back to the Island in Madras.
What I saw was the twin of our Thomas Munro statue, right down to the pedestal. From its base, even the rider looked similar. The inscription, however, said this was a statue of the Duke of Wellington, erected here in 1844. The sculptor was the same – Francis Chantrey – and this was one of three equestrian statues of his: Munro in Madras, the Duke in Threadneedle Street, and King George IV at Trafalgar Square, London. Interestingly, among all the statues that Chantrey sculpted, and he was a busy man, these were the only equestrian ones, as he was not comfortable doing animals.
