IN recent weeks there has been much heated debate about statues of prominent figures and whether they should be removed in light of the Black Lives Matter campaign.

Blackburn with Darwen Council is currently undertaking a review of its public statues including the one of Gladstone in Northgate. Campaigners have claimed that due to the Gladstone family’s links with slavery statues of the former Prime Minister should be removed.

If that were to happen, it wouldn’t be the first time that Blackburn’s Gladstone statue had been moved as this picture shows.

Taken in 1955, it shows the 12-foot high statue being lifted from its plinth on Blackburn Boulevard where it had stood since 1899.

The figure of The Grand Old Man of British Politics was being removed not for political reasons but for planning reasons - it was in the way of a new improvement scheme proposed for the Boulevard.

The statue was lifted onto a lorry and taken to its new home outside Blackburn Technical College on Blakey Moor where it would remain until 1983. Then it would be on the move once more, to its current position in Northgate facing King George’s Hall.

Blackburn’s marble effigy of the four times prime minister was the first public memorial to him to be erected in the country - all the more remarkable given that Blackburn didn’t have a strong Liberal tradition.

The statue cost £3,000 and a crowd some 30,000 strong packed into Blackburn town centre for the unveiling by the Earl of Aberdeen.

Our photograph also shows the offices of the Northern Daily Telegraph - the site of the current Morrison’s store.