"With the recent refurbishment of the Union’s Phineas Third Floor Bar, the Phineas statue has been removed from the bar over the past few months to keep it safe during the building works.
The reopening of the bar has led the Union’s sabbatical officers to find out more about the history of Phineas and review whether the current name of the bar should be retained or updated, and if, where and how the statue should be displayed in future.
The bar has been called Phineas since 1993 when it was named after the Union’s mascot Phineas Maclino.
Phineas has been the Students' Union at UCL’s mascot since March, 1900, when as part of a celebration to mark the relief of the siege of Ladysmith during the Boer War, students stole Phineas - a wooden Phineas highlander statue - from outside Catesby’s a local department store on Tottenham Court Road. This was the first of many occasions when the Phineas statue was stolen by UCL students. Its presence became more frequent as generations of students adopted Phineas as their mascot. Eventually the statue moved permanently to the Union after Catesby’s ordered a replica and donated Phineas to the Union.
From 1922 Phineas became the focus of friendly rivalry with students at King’s with regular attempts by students at each university to steal each other’s mascots, including the infamous 1927 battle of Gower Street when students from both colleges hurled flour and rotten vegetables at each other. Phineas became an important part of student life and in the 1930s was held in such esteem that a ritual became established where all students were expected to raise their hats to the statue."
Original announcement about the removal of Phineas - https://www7.studentsunionucl.org/mascotconsultation
Comments