Clive is shown standing in eighteenth century garments and wig, his left foot advanced beyond the edge of the statue's self-base, one hand on hip, a sword at his side and a tricorn hat held in his left hand. Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive of Plassey (1725-1774) was the son of a Shropshire lawyer and MP, who, after an unruly and delinquent boyhood, entered the service of the East India Company , distinguishing himself as a military leader in campaigns against the French and their native allies in India during the 1850s. Returning to England in 1760, he was elected MP for Shrewsbury, but was appointed Governor of Bengal in 1765. After retiring in 1767, Clive underwent cross-examination by a Parliamentary Committee, over accusations that he had exploited his position in India for personal gain. By 1773 he had succeeded in clearing his name, but shortly after either killed himself or died in a fit brought on by opium. On 19 September 1856, the Shrewsbury Chronicle published a letter from William Litt, a local veterinary surgeon, alluding to the reception in Shrewsbury of Col. the Hon. Percy Herbert M.P. on his return from the Crimea. He suggested that the surplus from the funds raised for Col. Herbert's homecoming celebrations should be used as the basis for a fund to raise a monument to Clive in some prominent part of Shrewsbury. Referring to the town's columnar memorial to Rowland, 1st Viscount Hill, he wrote: "To Hill we have erected a monument in every way worthy of the man, but of Clive - in all the attributes of true greatness immeasurably the superior of Hill - we are without the faintest memorial... How often have I been asked by intelligent strangers whether or not Salop possessed any monument to the conqueror of India. the answer is one which does us little credit".
On 23 June 1857, the one hundredth anniversary of the battle of Plassey, a public meeting was held in Willis's Rooms in London, presided over by Viscount Hill, the Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire. Earl Stanhope, a historian who had written extensively about Clive's exploits in India, moved the first resolution, which was to erect a statue of Clive in Shrewsbury. He argued that "by placing all such monuments of our great men in London you may ornament the capital, but you tend to nullify that feeling of local pride, and those sentiments of self-respect, which it is most desirable , both on public and private grounds, to foster and promote". A subscription fund was set up and a prestigious committee appointed (Shrewsbury Chronicle, 24 June 1857, and Illustrated London News, vol.XXX, No.866, 27 June 1857, p.628).
Some very generous donations came in at an early stage, the East India Company giving £500, the Earl of Powis (a descendant of Clive) £200 and some other gentlemen £100 each, but the Indian Mutiny, which had broken out in May 1857, caused contributions to dry up. This did not prevent the committee from discussing the site, and on 25 September it chose Shrewsbury's Market Square (Clive Memorial Committee Papers, 1857-61, Shropshire Archives, QA 14). The Shrewsbury Chronicle, in its report the following day (26 Sept.1857) pressed for an equestrian statue on the grounds that Clive "was kingly in all his aspirations - regal in the realms he wrenched from mighty kings". He should therefore be represented "like a king". No reference in the committee papers exists to Marochetti. Furthermore, in its editorial of the 26th September, the Shrewsbury Chronicle urged that there should be an open competition, citing Marochetti's Richard Coeur de Lion as an unfortunate example of what you got when statues were confided to sculptors on the basis of their reputation alone.
It is not known how Marochetti was chosen to execute the Clive statue, though Earl Stanhope was a member of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, and in this capacity had been consulted about the siting of the Richard Coeur de Lion. The artist's name appears not to have been mentioned in connection with the Clive statue until the work was completed. In the summer of 1859 it was placed temporarily in the Privy Gardens in Whitehall. The Builder (vol.XVII, 2 July 1859, p.438) reported on its presence there, saying that it was "not distinguished by marked character, nor is the likeness thought to be happy". This likeness, according to Henry Pidgeon (An Illustrated and Historical Handbook for the Town of Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury, 1878) , was based by Marochetti on the contemporary portrait of Clive by Nathaniel Dance.
The unveiling in Shrewsbury took place on the 18 January 1860. At the event, Earl Stanhope addressed the crowds, telling them that Marochetti had made a comprehensive study of original portraits and claiming that the artist had "succeeded in preserving the features and attitude with wondrous felicity" (Shrewsbury Chronicle, 20 January 1860). He particularly emphasized, as he had at the start of the project, the power of such an image to inspire emulation in the young. The Art Journal was more negative in its report of the statue ( Vol.IV, 1860, p.63), complaining that "all we can say of Marochetti's work is that we are well pleased it is not in London". In one of his Essays, published in 1866, the truculent art critic, Francis Turner Palgrave, referred mockingly to Marochetti's Clive as being "in the attitude of a gentleman performing an eternal pas seul before all the market women of the city". Such a remark reflects probably a general prejudice in early and mid-Victorian England against sculpted portraits involving eighteenth century costume, or any hint of the baroque.
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