Daniel Owen's statue
Last updated: 25 January 2006
Local history enthusiast Philip Lloyd talks about Welsh novelist
Daniel Owen, his ties with Mold and the statue built to honour him...
Then & Now
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Transcript:
I'm Philip Lloyd. I'm from Mold and I've lived in Mold for about 25 years. Daniel Owen, Mold's famous novelist died in 1895. A committee which had been set up to honour him then became a memorial committee and very soon they had collected in a national appeal as much as £400 which clearly, at that time, was enough to commission Wales' foremost sculptor W Goscombe John to produce a full-size bronze statue of the novelist.
Some local people viewed the unveiling with some trepidation. How life-like would the statue be or would it be a sort of artistic representation with some licence? But they were quite pleased to see it was very life-like but there was some disagreement about the angle of the hat on his head. Apparently, Daniel Owen would walk around the town with his hat at an angle in what was described a rakish fashion. But Goscombe John had been given a photograph of Daniel Owen with hat fairly square on his forehead and that was what was used and people became used to it anyway.
In the late 60s, developments in Mold meant that the old Shire Hall was too small for the county council and a vast new building was built on the outskirts of the town. At the same time, the town centre was being developed with a shopping centre so those two events meant that Daniel Owen statue was moved from its original place at the outskirts of town on its huge plinth into what is now called the Daniel Owen Square. 