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The statue was one of two presented to the people of England by Charles Phelps Taft, the son of William Howard Taft who had been President of the United States. Charles Taft was himself an official in the US government and mayor of the city of Cincinnati, Ohio. The gift was meant to be a symbol of Anglo-American unity as the two began fighting together as Allies during the First World War. It was commissioned in 1918 and erected in 1919.
The inscription on the plinth says: "the support that the working people of Manchester gave in their fight for the abolition of slavery during the American Civil War... By supporting the union under President Lincoln at a time when there was an economic blockade of the southern states the Lancashire cotton workers were denied access to raw cotton which caused considerable unemployment throughout the cotton industry." |
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