The Orwell Statue

The Orwell Society owns the statue of Orwell (sculpted by Martin Jennings) outside Broadcasting House the headquarters of the  BBC in London.

Listen to Damien Lewis giving voice to the statue by swiping your smartphone on the tag on the statue or type speak2.co/orwell in your smartphone browser address field.

The wall behind the statue is inscribed with an Orwell quote: If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The quote is from an unused preface for Animal Farm called The Freedom of the Press. 

The statue was funded by a trust established by the Labour MP Ben Whitaker, with all funds coming from private donors. Notable donors to the trust included Ian McEwan, Andrew Marr, Ken Follett, Rowan Atkinson, Neil and Glenys Kinnock, Tom Stoppard, David Hare and Michael Frayn. Ben Whitaker died in 2014 and the project was continued by his wife, Janet Whitaker, Baroness Whitaker.

Martin Jennings was chosen as the sculptor because Ben Whitaker admired his sculptures of John Betjeman at St Pancras station and Philip Larkin in Hull. Jennings said that Orwell was “…an ideal subject for a sculptor: loomingly tall, skinny as a rake, forever [with] fag in hand, body leaning in to make a point. He wore the kind of clothes that might have spent their off-duty hours hanging from a nail in the potting shed”.

The statue was unveiled on 7th November 2017 by Lord Hall, BBC Director General; Robert Seatter, Head of BBC History; Sculptor Martin Jennings; Baroness Whitaker and Richard Blair, son of  Orwell and Patron of the Orwell Society.

Photo: Jeff Overs/BBC) From left to right: Lord Hall; Robert Seatter; Martin Jennings; Baroness Janet Whitaker; Richard Blair

In 2018 the statue won Jennings the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association’s Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture.

Ownership of the statue was transferred from the trust which funded to it (the George Orwell Memorial Trust) to The Orwell Society on 15 June 2020.

If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear

See also the Wikipedia entry on the statue and the BBC Blog – Orwell Statue unveiled.