May 17, 2022 10.22 am This story is over 22 months old

Margaret Thatcher egg thrower condemned by university employers

His LinkedIn says he also used to work for the county council
The memorial has divided opinion. | Photo: Daniel Jaines
By Local Democracy Reporter

The employers of the now notorious Margaret Thatcher statue egg-thrower have condemned his actions after he hurled missiles at the Iron Lady’s monument in her home town of Grantham.

The controversial £300,000 statue of Britain’s first female Prime Minister was erected in her birth town of Grantham, Lincolnshire on Sunday, May 15 – but it didn’t take long for proceedings to be disrupted.

Details of the installation were kept coy by South Kesteven District Council in a bid to avoid threats of damage or hostility in the community, given the divisive nature of Baroness Thatcher’s reign in Downing Street.

Read: ‘If you don’t like it, just walk past’: Grantham reacts as new 20ft Iron Lady statue looms over town

Within hours of it being installed, the statue was targeted with eggs by a man who has now been identified and revealed as 59-year-old Jeremy Webster, the deputy director of the Attenborough Arts Centre at the University of Leicester.

His appearance was fleeting, as he arrived with a newspaper under his arm and a box of eggs. He threw four eggs at the statue – one of which hit the target – and then left.

The moment was caught on film. | Image: Twitter @DesignsBarnes

Mr Webster’s employers at the University of Leicester said they are taking the incident “extremely seriously”, though it is not clear if it will cost him his job.

His LinkedIn profile also says that he spent just over a decade working in various roles at Lincolnshire County Council, as well as previously being Head of Exhibitions at the National Centre for Craft and Design, otherwise known as the Hub, in Sleaford.

The statue of Margaret Thatcher has been installed on its plinth. | Image: RSM Photography for The Lincolnite

Kerry Law, Chief Marketing and Engagement Officer at the University of Leicester, said:  “The University of Leicester has a long-standing history of supporting art, fostering creativity and protecting creative freedom.

“It does not condone any form of defacement and takes any act of defacement extremely seriously. This matter will be addressed in line with the University’s own procedures.”

The statue looms over the High Street. | Photo: Daniel Jaines

The decision to put a statue of Margaret Thatcher in Grantham has been heavily discussed for a number of years, with many suggestions that something like this would inevitably happen.

Last year, a local artist created an ‘alternative’ statue and placed it on the plinth at St. Peter’s Hill. His sculpture depicted the Iron Lady’s had stuck on a spike made from office chairs.

Mark’s own Thatcher statue depicts the Iron Lady with her head cut off and placed on a spike. | Photo: MarkRobla