Glasgow has FIVE 'Statues of Liberty': Can you guess where they are?

New York might be home to the “original” Statue of Liberty, but did you know that Glasgow contains no fewer than five versions of its own?

Perched atop the City Chambers stands one likeness of Lady Liberty, gazing down onto George Square. Her home, Glasgow’s municipal headquarters, was completed in 1888 – just two years after the Statue of Liberty in New York.

City Chambers (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

At her feet is the Chambers’ jubilee pediment. This was originally designed to represent the River Clyde transporting Glasgow’s wares all around the world, but it was revised by the architect William Young, who wanted to commemorate Queen Victoria’s jubilee in 1887. Instead, it shows the Queen on her throne surrounded by figures representing her subjects across the globe.

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Another prominent “Statue of Liberty” will be familiar to motorists on the Kingston Bridge. The golden figure of Light and Life looks out over the Clyde from the dome of the former Co-operative House on Morrison Street. She is the second such statue to occupy that spot.

Co-op building plans, 1993 (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

The first was designed by sculptor James Ewing for the building’s opening in 1897. Ewing designed the figure on the City Chambers a decade earlier and, in a letter to the Co-operative Society’s directors, set out his intention to create the representation of “Light and Life with torch made of copper”, supported below by, “nine figures representing Justice and Brotherhood as having brought commerce from the four quarters of the globe.”

She proudly stood on the cupola of the French Renaissance-style landmark for a century, before succumbing to environmental damage and being removed in 1995.

For two decades the building’s dome lay bare, but in 2016 a replacement statue based on the original was installed, made from fibreglass and covered in 23 carat gold leaf. Her torch is sometimes referred to as the Guiding Light of the West.

Further south, what is probably the city’s first figure of Miss Liberty can be found at the top of a tenement overlooking Queen’s Park.

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The building on the corner of Queen’s Drive and Langside Road (originally Balmoral Crescent) was designed by William Whyte in 1885. Prior to starting his architectural practice in Glasgow, Whyte travelled around North America and may have been inspired to include his tribute to the Statue of Liberty having seen the original first-hand.

Described by one architectural critic as “one of Glasgow’s most extravagant and eccentric tenement blocks”, Whyte’s building also includes several sculptures of individual faces that are believed to have been based on his real contemporaries. The architect also included his own face in the stonework.

One final building in question contains not just one but two likenesses of Lady Liberty, which are almost camouflaged on one of Glasgow’s busiest streets.

The late 19th century building - 520 Sauchiehall Street, at Charing Cross - has most recently been used as a nightclub. However, for much of the 20th century it was a cinema. Originally known as the Vitagraph, it seated more than 600 patrons and was renamed the King’s Cinema in 1914.

Sauchiehall Street Statue of Liberty... (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

For a short time in the 1950s it operated as a dedicated newsreel cinema (known as Newscine) but switched back to full features and was later known as the Curzon and the Classic. It ceased operation as a cinema in 1984 but not before a spell as Tatler Cinema Club when it showed films for a “mature” audience.

Interestingly, the back of this building featured another unusual piece of sculpture: a bust of Ludwig van Beethoven. The composer’s head adorned the rear entrance to a musical instrument shop owned by Thomas Ewing, brother of the aforementioned sculptor James, who felt it provided an appropriate welcome. The bust mysteriously disappeared in 2019 but was discovered two years later by workmen clearing a nearby gap site for a beer garden.

New York’s “Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World" was a gift of friendship from the people of France. Unveiled in 1886, she remains a symbol of freedom around the world, including here in Glasgow where these little slices of the Big Apple can be found.