The Brown Dog Drinking Fountain, Battersea (removed)

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The Brown Dog Drinking Fountain

Joseph Whitehead (1868-1951)

Unveiled 15 September 1906

Bronze on a granite drinking fountain base

7' 6" (2.29 m)>/p>

Inscribed to the memory of a little brown terrier "Done to Death in the Laboratories of University College ... after having endured Vivisection extending over more than Two Months ... Till Death came to his Release" — as well as of a further 232 dogs who suffered a similar fate there during 1902 (qtd. in Lansbury 14). [Commentary continues below. Mouse over the text for links.]

Formerly, Latchmere Park Recreation Ground, Battersea, south London

Photograph from the Wellcome Collection, on the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, and text by Jacqueline Banerjee.

On a site well away from University College's medical school, close to Battersea's famous animal shelter, and in a newly developed area which also housed the small, recently established National Anti-Vivisection Medical Hospital of 1903, this ought to have been an ideal location for such a memorial fountain (see Cain 4). But such was the controversy over vivisection that medical students still objected actively to what was, in effect, a monument to the animals subjected to it. The cost of guarding the feature against their protests proved prohibitive: "The council ... discreetly removed it one night in 1910 and subsequently had it melted down" ("Joseph Whitehead").

Links to Related Material

Bibliography

Cain, Joe. The Brown Dog in Battersea Park. London: Euston Grove Press, 2013.

"Joseph Whitehead (1868–1951)."Public Sculpture of Britain biographies - W. PSSA (Public Statues and Sculpture Association). Web. 8 November 2023.

Lansbury, Coral. The Old Brown Dog: Women, and Vivisection in Edwardian England. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.

Created 10 November 2023