Statues show us what people have chosen to celebrate or memorialise. They are also a show of who has power in a community and how they want their society to be perceived, and who they consider has contributed to it. As such, they are often subject to criticism and debate. As was the The Brown Dog memorial, erected in Latchmere Recreation Ground, Battersea, as part of a drinking fountain, and was subject to controversy from the moment it was unveiled.
Battersea was chosen as its location due to its reputation as a place for alternative politics, as well as its affinity for dogs through the Battersea Dogs Home which had been founded more than 40 years previously. The socialist Council there agreed to give the memorial a home, and it was publicly funded by anti-vivisectionists. The unveiling occurred on 15 September 1906 to a large crowd that included several local campaigners. It became central to the anti-vivisection movement, and the campaigning of the National Anti-Vivisection Society. It also reflected local protests against the wider class and gender inequalities of Edwardian London, becoming a message of defiance against masculine, upper-class individuals and institutions.
For University College, the inscription accompanying (quote it?) the statue was considered libellous, particularly following Bayliss’ victory in his libel trial three years earlier. They explored legal action, though didn’t formally take any. The next year, several hundred medical and veterinary students across London, who had taken the inscription as an attack, joined forces. Between November 1907 and March 1908, they made multiple attempts at damaging or removing the statue, as well as infiltrating meetings of the anti-vivisectionist movement. The attacks led Battersea Council to introduce a police guard for the statue, at a cost of £700 a year. In December 1907, they were also presented with a petition signed by more than one thousand London University students, demanding the libellous inscription be erased