Activists in Australia have toppled the statue of a colonial governor who exhumed the body of an Aboriginal man for scientific study.

The bronze statue of William Crowther, which has stood in a square in the centre of Hobart, Tasmania since 1889, was sawn off at the ankles.

After years of discussion, Hobart council had in fact already voted to have the statue taken down – the activists beat them to it.

The words “what goes around” were sprayed on the plinth in apparent reference to Crowther’s role in exhuming and mutilating the body of William Lanne, the last “full-blooded” Aboriginal to live in Tasmania.

Nicknamed “King Billy”, he was born on the west coast of the island and became a successful whaler before dying in 1869 at the age of 34 from dysentery and cholera.

Crowther, a surgeon and politician who was premier of Tasmania from 1878 to 1879, has been a controversial figure for decades, with Aboriginal groups calling for the removal of the statue.

After Lanne’s death, he broke into a Hobart mortuary, decapitated his corpse and replaced the skull with one from another corpse to conceal the deed.

Lanne’s skull was then sent to the Royal College of Surgeons in London to support now discredited notions of white superiority.

The skull was returned by Britain and given a proper burial in 1991, more than 120 years after it was removed.

Officials acknowledged that Crowther was a contentious historical figure but condemned the act of vandalism.

Michael Stretton, the chief executive of Hobart council, said CCTV footage would be checked as part of an investigation into the attack.

“It’s disappointing when you see an act like this where [vandals have] taken the future of the statue into their own hands,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Michael Ferguson, the deputy premier of Tasmania, said: “Horrible things happened in our history, but you don’t resolve history [through] vandalism. Regardless of anybody’s sentiment or feeling, good intentions or otherwise, that’s not how we run a civil society.”

Aboriginal activists have been campaigning for years to have the statue removed.

Nala Mansell, campaign manager for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, said that while she did not endorse the vandalism of the statue she was glad to see it gone.

“I think it goes to show that the people of Tasmania are people who understand right from wrong [and are] saying ‘enough is enough.’ We’ve been fighting for decades for it to be gone. Good on them for taking that action and doing what needed to be done a long time ago.”

‘Vandalism doesn’t build bridges’

The decision to remove the statue was first made in 2022 and had then been subject to an unsuccessful appeal in a Tasmanian tribunal. 

The activists took down the statue before the tribunal announced it had dismissed the appeal on Wednesday morning.

Hobart would have been “the first city in Australia to decide to remove a colonial statue,” the council said in a statement.

The damaged statue will now be repaired and put into storage.

It will be replaced by a temporary sign which “will offer deeper insights into the historical context of the time, specifically the actions and impacts of William Crowther and his treatment of Aboriginal people’s remains,” the council said on Wednesday.

Anna Reynolds, the lord mayor of Hobart, said she was deeply disappointed that the statue was attacked before it could be removed in an orderly way. “We strongly condemn this vandalism. Vandalism doesn’t build bridges, it doesn’t build good will, it is unlawful.”