The Hobart City Council in Australia’s island state of Tasmania is proposing the statue of its first premier, William Crowther, in the city’s Franklin Square be removed—a move estimated to cost the council tens of thousands of dollars.
Crowther was a surgeon, naturalist, and the first medical practitioner to serve as Tasmania’s state leader.
He was suspended from his role as an honorary medical officer in March 1869 after he removed the skull of Aboriginal Tasmanian man William Lanne and sent it to the Royal College of Surgeons in London.
According to a new council report, to be voted on Thursday, the council will spend $20,000 (US$14,000) to remove the statue and place it in storage, as well as another $50,000 (US$35,000) on changing “interpretive elements onsite.”…