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King George V Memorial
George V (r. 1910-1936) was a figure of British unity during World War I, visiting troops, hospitals, factories and military bases. In 1917, he changed the royal family's name from “Saxe-Coburg and Gotha: to “Windsor” due to anti-German sentiment from the war. He managed to maintain the monarchy while several European nations abolished theirs. His reign also saw several constitutional changes, including voting rights for women, the end of veto powers for the House of Lords, and the granting of greater autonomy to British dominions.
The statue is part of the King George V Memorial in Melbourne, Australia. Designed by Australian artist William Leslie Bowles, it was commissioned following his death in 1936, but World War II delayed its completion until 1952. The memorial has one statue on either side. On the opposite side of George is Maternal Britannia, guarding two children representing the Dominions and the Colonies. George is depicted in Order of the Garter robes, wearing the imperial crown and carrying a sceptre and orb. In 2024, a group of anti-monarchists beheaded the statue with a mechanical saw and spray-painted its body with "the colony will fall." The severed head has been recorded on video at various locations, including at a music concert, being barbecued and in a toilet, but is yet to be found.
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Based on Wikipedia content that has been reviewed, edited, and republished.
Original image by Shkuru Afshar. Uploaded by Michael McComb, published on 16 April 2025. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
