87927

 

II  

Designated  

29/11/2023  

 

Statue of Robert Owen in Robert Owen Memorial Garden  

 

Powys  

Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn  

Newtown  

 

310960  

291572  

SE  

In the small garden at the junction of Gas Street and Shortbridge Street.  

Commemorative  

Modern  

The statue was erected in 1956, the work of Gilbert Bayes, though completed after his death by William Charles Holland King. Cast in the Morris Singer Art Foundry Ltd. Robert Owen (1771-1858) was born and died in Newtown. Owen’s supporters sought a memorial soon after his death, and a fund was set up at the time. However, the town fathers of Newtown opposed the erection of a statue in the town on account of Owen’s atheism, and it was not until 1950 that a committee was established to consider the erection of a statue. Funds were provided by the Cooperative Union, and Gilbert Bayes was commissioned in 1951, but he died in 1953, and the work was completed by William Charles Holland King. The plaque on the rear boundary wall of the garden (q.v.) forms part of the same commission. Robert Owen was an instigator of the co-operative movement, a founder of British socialism and a campaigner for education and improved conditions for working people and the reduction of child labour. He said in 1817 his aim was to benefit “my fellow men of every rank and description, of every country and colour”. Born in Newtown, Owen became a manager of cotton mills including New Lanark in Scotland, which became well-known as a model industrial community after Owen established free schools and an Institute for the Formation of Character there. Owen’s mills relied on slave labour in Britain’s colonies and the United States for their raw material. In principle Owen disapproved of slavery which he said would “die a natural death” within a generation if his plans to transform society and the economy were put into practice, and he praised the Republic of Mexico for abolishing slavery. He argued against immediate abolition in the British Empire though and suggested that British slaves would be worse off if they were emancipated from their “humane masters” and “urged forward beyond the present happy ignorant state in which they are”. In A New View of Society and later books Owen argued that people’s character was shaped by their environment and advocated for planned co-operative villages of workers without money or private property. In 1825 he left New Lanark and attempted to put his ideas into practice, purchasing the town of New Harmony, Indiana in the USA. Owen then moved to London where he continued to argue for social change and fairer rewards for the working class, returning to Wales near the end of his life. Gilbert Bayes (1872-53) was a well-known and prolific sculptor, whose varied output included many public commissions. He was President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors between1939-44. William Charles Holland King (1884-1973) won the gold medal of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1954, and was president of the society 1949-54. He specialised in portrait sculpture, but also undertook significant commissions for architectural sculpture. The garden was created on previous open space in 1936, originally dedicated to the memory of George V, who died that year. It acquired its new name following the erection of the Robert Owen statue in 1956, and was refurbished in 2016.  

A romantic life-size statue of Robert Owen, with a child sheltering under his cloak at his feet. Cast in bronze on a low granite plinth.  

 

Listed for its special architectural interest as a fine piece of twentieth century commemorative sculpture by noted sculptors, and for its historical association with Robert Owen.