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Queen Victoria Bronze Statue

A Monument from Kimberley’s Imperial Past

Standing outside the William Humphreys Art Gallery, opposite the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens, Kimberley’s bronze statue of Queen Victoria is one of the city’s most prominent surviving monuments from the British imperial era.

Queen Victoria is depicted seated on her State Chair, dressed in ceremonial robes and holding a sceptre in one hand and an orb in the other. The bronze figure stands approximately nine feet six inches high and was designed by Italian-born sculptor Mario Raggi, who worked in London during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The statue has stood in Kimberley for more than a century, although its present position outside WHAG is not its original home.

A Memorial to Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901 after more than 63 years on the throne. Like many cities across the British Empire, Kimberley soon began considering how to commemorate the Queen. At a public meeting held on 28 February 1902, it was decided to raise funds for a permanent statue.

A committee was formed that included several prominent Kimberley figures, including D.W. Greatbatch, Charles Nind, John Orr, William Pickering, J.D. Tyson, H.A. Oliver, Gustav Bonas, Colonel Sir David Harris, and Fergus Carstairs Rogers. The committee chose a site at the entrance to the Kimberley Public Gardens, near what is today Regiment Way. The entrance road was widened so that pedestrians could approach the proposed monument from either side.

Designed in London, Built for Kimberley

The statue was designed by Mario Raggi of Regent’s Park, London, and cast by Singer & Company of Frome, Somerset. Kimberley architect D.W. Greatbatch designed its pedestal, while local contractors Church and McLauchlin built it. De Beers supplied basalt stone for the pedestal, and Steenpan in the Free State supplied additional cut stone. 

Transporting such a substantial monument from Britain to Kimberley was itself a considerable undertaking. The Union-Castle Line carried the statue to Cape Town without charge, while the railway transported it onward to Kimberley on the same basis. The entire monument cost approximately £1,500, of which about £1,050 was raised locally through public subscription. 

Unveiled in 1906, Relocated in 1959

After more than four years of planning and fundraising, the statue was unveiled on 18 May 1906 by Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson, then Governor of the Cape Colony.  Its position at the entrance to the Public Gardens made it an important landmark in early 20th-century Kimberley and placed the monument within one of the city’s principal public spaces. For more than half a century, Queen Victoria remained there, watching over a city that had itself changed dramatically since the diamond rush of the 1870s.

In 1959, the statue was moved from its original position to its present site outside the William Humphreys Art Gallery. The relocation took place as the surrounding road network changed and Regiment Way was developed as part of the route toward Boshof.  Today, the statue stands on Sol Plaatje Drive beside WHAG and opposite the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens.

Its new location has given the monument a different context. Rather than standing at the entrance to the old Public Gardens, it now forms part of an increasingly important heritage, cultural and educational precinct centred on the William Humphreys Art Gallery, the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens and nearby Sol Plaatje University.

Why the Queen Victoria Statue Matters

The statue is more than a monument to a British monarch. It also reminds us of the political and social world in which Kimberley developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Kimberley was deeply connected to the British Empire through mining, finance, trade and migration. The decision to commemorate Queen Victoria through public subscription reflected the values and loyalties of an influential section of Kimberley society.

The imperial world represented by Queen Victoria’s monument also intersected directly with the careers of two of Kimberley’s most famous figures, Cecil Rhodes and Leander Starr Jameson. Rhodes was an enthusiastic British imperialist and, according to a frequently repeated anecdote, charmed Queen Victoria when she asked whether he disliked women by replying: “How could I dislike a sex to which Your Majesty belongs?” His standing was badly damaged, however, by the disastrous Jameson Raid of 1895–96. Rhodes had been closely involved in the plans and preparations behind the attempted uprising in the Transvaal, although Jameson ultimately launched the raid after Rhodes had decided it should be called off.

Jameson led an armed force into the Transvaal in the hope of supporting an uprising against President Paul Kruger’s government, but the raid collapsed within days. Jameson was captured, returned to Britain, tried and imprisoned, while Rhodes was forced to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. The episode provides a striking link between Kimberley’s diamond magnates, British imperial ambition and the wider political world of Queen Victoria’s reign.

Today, the monument offers an opportunity to consider how public monuments acquire new meanings as societies change. Queen Victoria’s statue has survived the Union of South Africa, two world wars, apartheid, the transition to democracy and the transformation of Kimberley’s civic landscape. Its continuing presence therefore tells us as much about the changing city around it as it does about the monarch it was originally intended to honour.