Celebrating Richard Cobden, Camden’s forgotten man of peace
Campaigners mark Richard Cobden’s birthday
Published: 10 June, 2010
by PETER GRUNER
VETERAN peace campaigner Bruce Kent held a celebration last week to mark the life of “forgotten” Victorian reformer Richard Cobden.
The event, which took place opposite Morning Crescent Tube station, marked the birthday of Cobden, who died in 1865.
Mr Kent, who was at one time a Monsignor of St Aloysius Church, Somers Town, visits the Cobden statue every year to acknowledge “one of the world’s great men of peace”.
Mr Kent also spoke out in support of a plan to renovate the statue and the litter-strewn traffic island, which is covered with years of encrusted dirt and subject to claims of “neglect”.
He said: “Cobden is often remembered as the man who repealed the Corn Laws which resulted in cheaper food. But he was also a great man of peace.
“He helped negotiate a trade agreement with France at a critical time in history when war was possible.
“His main argument was that more trade between countries made them less likely to fight each other.”
Architect Chris Roche, who attended the event with his children Bella and Che, has launched a plan to clean up the concrete space, renovate the statue and create a new memorial to Japanese prisoners of war.
Mr Roche’s scheme is among the finalists in a competition organised by the London branch of Royal Institution of Architects to improve London’s “Forgotten Spaces”. He wants to turn the site into a new visitor attraction.
Under Mr Roche’s scheme the site would become a place to meet, with trees and outlets for refreshments and a performance plinth for buskers, musicians and artists.
Cobden’s great, great- granddaughter, Hampstead resident Elizabeth Cobden-Boyd, supports the refurbishment plan and told the New Journal recently she thought it a great pity that her ancestor should be “all but forgotten”.