PROJECT Ben Boucher

Poet Ben Boucher statue

Ben Boucher was a poet. John McKenna modelled the sculpture in clay then the Boucher figure was cast into bronze, then seated upon a bench pointing to one of his poems. The design concept was by Dudley Borough Public Artist, Steve Field and commissioned into a bronze statue by Dudley Town MBC, this bronze statue sits upon a stone bench in Dudley market place.

Boucher was born in 1769 at Horseley Heath and was a miner by trade but in later life he made a name for himself in Dudley by frequenting the pubs in the town and reciting his own doggerel verse. He sold penny sheets of his rhymes, which were often humorous and topical and some of his odes were preserved in the 1881 book The Curiosities of Dudley and the Black Country by C.F.G. Clarke.

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