The King of Queen's Park

How did an old statue from the other side of the world ended up in the middle of downtown Toronto? It's a bloody story of royalty, revolution, and two cities with very different experiences of what it meant to be members of the British Empire.

A Toronto Star Article about Queen's Park's various statues and the contradictory nature of historical figures—featuring our host Adam Bunch

A Torontoist article that goes further into the history of the King Edward VII statue and its relationship to Toronto

The two massacres we refer to are the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (1919) and the Qissa Khwani Bazaar Massacre (1930):

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919 when troops of the British Indian Army under the command of Colonel Reginald Dyer fired rifles into a crowd of Indians, who had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, Punjab. The civilians had assembled to condemn the arrest and deportation of two national leaders, Satya Pal and Saifuddin Kitchlew. There has been much debate over whether the crowd knew of the proclamation Dyer had made banning meetings, in its supposed inefficacy, however, Raja Ram has argued that the crowd formed in deliberate defiance, being the beginning of Indian nationalism.

The massacre at the Qissa Khwani Bazaar in Peshawar, British India (modern day Pakistan) on 23 April 1930 was one of the defining moments of the independence movement in British India. It was the first major confrontation between British troops and demonstrators in the city. Estimates at the time put the death toll from the shooting at between the official count at 20, and the figure of 400 dead put forth by Pakistani and Indian sources. The gunning down of unarmed people triggered protests across British India and catapulted the newly formed Khudai Khidmatgar movement into prominence.

Extra trivia:

• Altogether there are ten monuments of historical figures in Queen's Park.

• King Edward VII laid the symbolic foundation stone for his own mother's statue (Queen Victoria). At the time he was still a Prince.

• Every year, during the University of Toronto's Frosh Week, Engineering students paint Kildare's testicles red. The tradition definitely goes back to the 1980s, and might go further. You can see it in some of the footage in this episode. (We don't know where the sticker on King Eddy's head came from or what its purpose is.)

Episode Transcript:

This is Queen's Park in Toronto and we're on our way to visit King Edward VII. Hundreds of Torontonians pass by him every day without giving him a second thought. Just one more statue of a dead white dude in a park that's full of them. But this particular dead white dude traveled 11,000 kilometers to be here, making a narrow escape from a graveyard of colonialism, half a world away.

This is Canadiana.

1877, Coronation Park, Delhi. The site of the Imperial Durbar. A huge party where Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, tightening the Britain's grip on the country. It was a lavish affair, even though Queen Victoria herself didn't bother to show up and the Durbars that followed were even bigger. In 1911, the British monarch finally decided to attend his own party.

That year they went all out. King George V and his queen sat on golden thrones under golden umbrellas. 80,000 Indian troops paraded before them. There were seas of horses, camels, and cannons and George declared Delhi the new capital of India.

But of course the festivities were a facade. All the glitz and glamor of the Durbars couldn't hide the truth about colonialism. Like in 1919 when the British ordered troops to open fire on a trapped crowd of unarmed protesters for 10 to 15 straight minutes, until their ammunition ran out. They killed hundreds of people.

Or the Qissa Khwani Bazaar massacre in 1930 when they drove armored cars through a crowd of protesters and then used machine guns on those who refused to leave the dead and injured behind. Soldiers who wouldn't open fire on civilians were arrested and imprisoned.

But in the end, the resilience of the Indian people won out. They declared independence shortly after the Second World War. By then, Delhi was filled with British monuments to kings, queens, and aristocrats, now an ugly reminder of a bloody past. They were uprooted and torn down, carried away to an obscure corner of Coronation Park. Men and women who once ruled half the world were left to rot and rust in what the BBC once called the final graveyard of the British Empire. They included King Eddie here.

He used to stand outside the ancient Red Fort in Delhi, but he was rounded up with all the rest. And he would still be in India now if it weren't for a guy named Harry Jackman, a rich Canadian entrepreneur, philanthropist, and politician.

Jackman had a thing for statues and for the British. He got a statue of Winston Churchill planted outside Toronto City Hall, just a few blocks over there. And he thought Queen's Park could use a new addition too. So strings were pulled. The statue was cut into four pieces and shipped halfway around the world. And landed here right where the real King Edward VII came to open this park almost exactly 100 years earlier.

Despite that connection, plenty wondered why 1960s Toronto suddenly needed a monument to a long dead monarch who ruled over a bloody empire. You might be wondering the same thing. But as it turns out, for Harry Jackman, the guy who dragged Edward here all the way from Delhi, it was never about the monarch. He couldn't care less who it was.

- [Harry] I was really not after Edward VII.

He told the Globe and Mail.

- [Harry] I was after a great horse.

And he got it.

This is Kildare, King Edward VII's favourite horse, who even got a place of honour in his funeral procession. So if you're ever walking through Queen's Park, past this statue of a dead white dude, there is at least one thing you can enjoy about it. This really is a great horse.

King Edward is far from the only statue in Queen's Park that has a uhh complicated history, and I'll tell you more about some of the others in just a moment.

But first, I want to thank you so much for watching. If you'd like to see more episodes about incredible stories in Canadian history, all you have to do is click subscribe. And you can follow us on social media too: @thisiscanadiana. We have many more stories to tell, but to tell them we'll need your help. You can become a champion of Canadiana by becoming patron on Patreon or by giving us a one time donation on Paypal. Every little bit helps us tell more stories like this one.

Now back to those other statues.

Outside the legislature, in a place of honour there stands a statue of Sir John A Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada. To some he's a visionary who united the country through confederation and a brand new railroad but to others he's the architect of genocidal policies against First Nations people and exclusionary laws passed against Chinese Canadians. He once claimed that Chinese Canadian culture was abhorrent to the Aryan race and Aryan principles.

Then there's George Brown, another Father of Confederation and founder of the Globe and Mail. He fought hard against slavery and hard against Irish Catholics. He once compared them to locusts.

Then there's James Whitney, a premier of Ontario who established public ownership of power utilities like hydro, and also tried to crush francophone culture in the province.

There's Queen Victoria too, the queen the Queen's Park is named after. To many Canadians, she's a benign, grandmotherly figure, but to many other people around the world and at home, she's a symbol of the imperialism and colonialism that we've been talking about in this episode. In South Africa, her statue is regularly vandalized. And she was no fan either of what she called the wicked folly of women's rights.

You can learn more about these statues and many others in Queen's Park by following the links that we'll post in the descriptions below.

I'm Adam Bunch and we'll see you soon on Canadiana.