The statue of Captain Cook in the Fitzroy Gardens was cut down, in an act of vandalism, on February 26, 2024. This follows the destruction of the Captain Cook statue in the Catani Gardens in St Kilda, just before Australia Day the same year and and the toppling of a Captain Cook commemorative plinth in the Edinburgh Gardens, North Fitzroy. Police have still made no arrests
The statue before the vandalism
Photographer: Bloomberg/Getty Images
The Age of February 27, 2024, published the following report -
A bronze statue of Captain James Cook has been hacked off its plinth in a Melbourne park, prompting a police investigation. The sculpture of the British explorer at Cooks' Cottage in East Melbourne's Fitzroy Gardens was cut off between 5pm on Sunday and 7am on Monday. A video posted to an anonymous social media account shows masked vandals using an angle grinder to saw the statue off at its ankles, before pushing it over. The words '' the colony will fall'' were painted beside the fallen statue, according to the account.
'' Yet another monument to the imperialist James Cook has been felled in so-called Melbourne. Rumour has it that this was the last remaining Cook statue in the city,'' the post on Instagram says. '' Monuments such as this only serve to prop up the narrative that enables so-called Australia's continuing theft and desecration of land and life, and to legitimise its ongoing violence. '' This narrative is as hollow as a monument to a long dead coloniser who met his just fate, being speared by first nations warriors in Hawaii.''
According to the Captain Cook Society, the statue was sculpted by Marc Clark in 1973, and was owned privately before it was gifted to the City of Melbourne in 1996. The sculpture was moved into the garden at Cooks' Cottage the following year. Built in 1755, Cooks' Cottage was the Yorkshire home of Captain Cook's parents, with the two-storey brick house and its adjoining stable taken apart and shipped from England to be rebuilt in Melbourne. The attraction opened in 1934.
'' Yet another monument to the imperialist James Cook has been felled in so-called Melbourne. Rumour has it that this was the last remaining Cook statue in the city,'' the post on Instagram says. '' Monuments such as this only serve to prop up the narrative that enables so-called Australia's continuing theft and desecration of land and life, and to legitimise its ongoing violence. '' This narrative is as hollow as a monument to a long dead coloniser who met his just fate, being speared by first nations warriors in Hawaii.''
According to the Captain Cook Society, the statue was sculpted by Marc Clark in 1973, and was owned privately before it was gifted to the City of Melbourne in 1996. The sculpture was moved into the garden at Cooks' Cottage the following year. Built in 1755, Cooks' Cottage was the Yorkshire home of Captain Cook's parents, with the two-storey brick house and its adjoining stable taken apart and shipped from England to be rebuilt in Melbourne. The attraction opened in 1934.
Sources:
Crowe, Alex Cooks’ Cottage statue toppled in latest attack on Melbourne monuments
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/captain-cook-statue-toppled-in-latest-attack-on-melbourne-monuments-20240227-p5f81r.html
(may be behind a paywall)
Captain Cook statue outside Melbourne’s Cook’s Cottage toppled amid spate of attacks
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/27/captain-cook-statue-toppled-melbourne-cooks-cottage-fitzroy-gardens
The Fitzroy Gardens statue was initially installed in Endeavour Hills. You can read a history of the statue here - https://victoriaspast.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-endeavour-hills-captain-cook-statue.html
Information about the vandalism of the Cook statue in St Kilda and the Cook monument in North Fitzroy
http://www.vanishedvictoria.org.au/2024/01/the-vandalism-of-captain-cook-statue-st.html
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