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ABRAHAM LINCOLN STATUE
Parliament Square, SW1

Although President Abraham Lincoln himself never set foot on English soil, this bronze likeness of him. a gift from the people of the United States to the people of Great Britain, symbolizing Anglo-American unity, has stood sentinel over Parliament Square ever since July 28, 1920, when it was unveiled on a rainy Wednesday afternoon by the Duke of Connaught, after the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd-George, formally accepted it at a ceremony held earlier in the Central Hall of the Palace of Westminster. Former Secretary of State Elihu Root made the presentation of behalf of the United States.

Erected almost a year earlier than the statue of George Washington at Trafalgar Square, this statue of the 16th President of the United States, created by the famous sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, is a full-size replica of one that stands in Chicago's Lincoln Park. Interestingly, a replica of a different statue, created by sculptor George Barnard, which stands in Cincinnati, Ohio, was intended for this spot. Thanks largely to Robert Lincoln, the martyred President's only surviving son, who called Barnard's statue "simply horrible," this one was erected in London instead. The Barnard replica, derisively called the "stomach ache statue," because Lincoln's hands are placed over his abdomen, ended up in Manchester, England, where it was erected in September 1919 at Platt Fields Park, also with a great deal of ceremony. It was moved in 1986, three miles north, to a site in central Manchester now called Lincoln Square.

References: The Times (of London), July 29, 1920, p.13; The Daily Telegraph, September 16, 1919, p.7; The New York Times, January 1, 1918, p.17.