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Statue of Robert Raikes, London

1880 establishments in England1880 sculpturesGrade II listed statues in the City of WestminsterMonuments and memorials in LondonOutdoor sculptures in London
Sculptures of men in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom sculpture stubsVictoria Embankment
Robert Raikes Statue, Victoria Embankment Gardens London
Robert Raikes Statue, Victoria Embankment Gardens London

A statue of Robert Raikes, often regarded as being the founder of Sunday schools, executed by the sculptor Thomas Brock, stands in Victoria Embankment Gardens, London, United Kingdom. It was unveiled by the Earl of Shaftesbury on 3 July 1880 and marked the centenary of the opening of the first Sunday school. The critic Edmund Gosse considered the statue to be "as good as anything of the kind we possess in England". In 1958 it was designated a Grade II-listed building.The front of the plinth reads: ROBERT RAIKES/ FOUNDER OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS/ 1780/ THIS STATUE WAS ERECTED/ UNDER THE DIRECTION/ OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION/ BY CONTRIBUTIONS/ FROM TEACHERS AND SCHOLARS/ OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS IN GREAT BRITAIN/ JULY 1880. An inscription below the figure's right foot reads: THOS BROCK SCULPT/ LONDON. 1880.In 1929 replicas of the statue were cast for erection the following year in Gloucester and Toronto, for the 150th anniversary the following year of opening of the first Sunday school.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Statue of Robert Raikes, London (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Statue of Robert Raikes, London
Savoy Place, City of Westminster Covent Garden

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N 51.50934 ° E -0.12029 °
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Robert Raikes

Savoy Place
WC2N 6BJ City of Westminster, Covent Garden
England, United Kingdom
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Robert Raikes Statue, Victoria Embankment Gardens London
Robert Raikes Statue, Victoria Embankment Gardens London
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Savoy Hotel
Savoy Hotel

The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first luxury hotel in Britain, introducing electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous, and other entertainers (who were also often guests) included George Gershwin, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne and Noël Coward. Other famous guests have included Edward VII, Oscar Wilde, Enrico Caruso, Charlie Chaplin, Babe Ruth, Harry Truman, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, John Wayne, Laurence Olivier, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Bette Midler, The Beatles and many others. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel.The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has 267 guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.

Anglo-Belgian Memorial, London
Anglo-Belgian Memorial, London

The Anglo-Belgian Memorial, also known as the Belgian Gratitude Memorial or the Belgian Refugees Memorial, is a war memorial on Victoria Embankment in London, opposite Cleopatra's Needle. It was a gift from Belgium, as a mark of thanks for assistance given by the UK during the First World War, and in particular for sheltering thousands of Belgian refugees who fled from the war. It is a Grade II* listed building. Plans for a Belgian war memorial in London were proposed by a group of Belgians in 1916, to be funded by public subscription. The memorial was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield. Its main feature is a central bronze sculpture by Belgian sculptor Victor Rousseau, who himself spent time as a refugee in London during the war. The sculpture was cast by A.B. Burton at the Thames Ditton Foundry. It depicts a Belgian woman, accompanied by a boy and a girl carrying garlands of flowers. The bronze stands on a stone plinth which bears the inscription, "To the British nation from the grateful people of Belgium, 1914–1918". The central group is sheltered by a curved screen wall of Portland stone, which bears two further relief sculptures (now quite worn) representing "Justice" (left) and "Honour" (right). The wall also bears carved wreaths and nine heraldic shields, representing the provinces of Belgium: Brabant, Antwerp, Liège, Hainault, Namur, Limburg, Luxembourg, East Flanders and West Flanders. Vandals damaged the memorial in July 1920, while it was under construction, and for a time it was guarded by a nightwatchman. It was unveiled by Princess Clémentine of Belgium at a ceremony on 12 October 1920, the fifth anniversary of the execution of British nurse Edith Cavell in Brussels. The ceremony was attended by the Prime Minister of Belgium Leon Delacroix, and the gift was formally accepted on behalf of the British nation by Lord Curzon. In response, an Anglo-Belgian Memorial was erected in Brussels in 1923, designed by British sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger. The memorial became a Grade II listed building in 1970, and was upgraded to Grade II* in 2014.