Original Location of Brown Dog Memorial (Latchmere Recreational Ground) (London)

 education, animals, interesting place, historical layer / disappeared object

Inside a circular iron fence here, one hundred years ago, sat perhaps the most controversial statue of turn-of-the-century England -- the Brown Dog Memorial -- which caused riots over several years, involving hundreds of medical students clashing with police. On this spot was erected in 1906, atop a water fountain, a statue of a nameless brown dog, killed after vivisection during a medical lecture in front of medical students. One of the students, a Swedish woman anti-vivisectionist, wrote a book describing the vivisection, which resulted in a well-publicized libel trial, followed by the erection of the memorial for the dog. The statue and its provocative plaque incited fierce riots by medical students and other protesters over several years, clashing with police and local residents protecting "the brown dog," resulting eventually in the demolition of the statue. Seventy years later, a new statue for the brown dog was erected in nearby Battersea Park. wikimapia.org/#lat=51.480659&lon=-0.162288&z=21&l=0&m=...

The inscription on the plaque read: "In Memory of the Brown Terrier Dog done to Death in the Laboratories of University College in February 1903, after having endured Vivisection extending over more than two months and having been handed from one Vivisector to another till Death came to his Release. Also in Memory of the 232 dogs vivisected at the same place during the year 1902. Men and Women of England, how long shall these things be?"