I was walking down the embankment on the opposite side of the river to the Palace of Westminster when my eye was caught by a fine statue in a pretty run-down part of St. Thomas’s Hospital.  It turns out that it is a statue by Grinling Gibbons of Robert Clayton, the land agent, banker, MP and philanthropist who spent the latter phase of his life devoting himself to the construction of a new building for St. Thomas’s Hospital as its President.  It also turns out that it is due for removal owing to the fact that like most city people at the time, including Robert Geffrye, he invested in the Royal African Company which, under the auspices of the Duke of York, before he was King, transported slaves from Africa to America. 

The statue is Grade 1 listed:-