13/05/2026
, May 13, 1911, a statue of 1st Baron Burton, Sir Michael Arthur Bass, was unveiled in King Edward Place, Burton upon Trent.
As well as huge crowds on the street, a row of trams lined up at the Wellington Street terminus with hundreds more people sitting on their top decks to get a grandstand view. Some 6,000 people from the town had paid for the statue.
Sir Michael's widow, the Dowager Lady Burton, was a steadfast supporter of Lily Thomas's fund for Burton men held prisoner oversease during World War One, as mentioned on this page recently.
Just over three years later, MP Keir Hardie, a founder of the Labour Party, stood near this statue to speak to a crowd of thousands in support of Burton man Vale Rawlings, then in prison in Derby for what Mr Hardie called ‘a gross miscarriage of justice’ arising out of the 'flycatcher girls' strike of Mosley Street in 1914.
Image courtesy of The Magic Attic, Swadlincote.
