It was a prominent attraction at the North East Coast Exhibition, a world's fair-type event in Newcastle intended to showcase the manufacturing-centric capabilities of a region which was in the midst of a post-war recession.

[1] Writing at the outset of the Exhibition that the statue "impressed all who gazed on it",[2] the paper nonetheless came to term it "a monstrosity",[3] and published many critical letters to the editor.

The attack was widely reported and criticised, with observers noting the outrage that would have ensued had "ordinary working lads" been responsible rather than privileged university students.

[5][6] The brainchild of the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, the Exhibition was intended to spur economic development in the region; a post-war recession had led to an unemployment rate of 61% in 1926, including 50,000 skilled engineers and shipbuilders.

[8] The Exhibition was situated in a corner of the Town Moor, a mile from the railway station and 300 yards from Armstrong College, then part of Durham University.

[21] The dimensions of Maryon's studio entrance necessitated the statue's composition; it was made in sections, none more than 4+1⁄2 feet long, and shaped with tools including axes and chisels.

[21][22][note 1] It was installed in sections; there to witness it, a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post wrote of seeing a "decapitated three-ton lady" suspended in mid-air, with "her head and shoulders" resting on the ground.

[1][25] Writers declared it a "hideous monstrosity" ("for the sake of us all, either remove the eyesore or keep it permanently covered");[26] "a credit to neither art nor womanhood" ("Why not re-christen it the Spectre of Unemployment?

[30] At a local Rotary Club meeting, one member called it "repulsive—an ugly woman holding in her hands microscopic representations of shipbuilding and engineering.

[32] In the paper's next issue, a reader had a rebuttal: "I can hardly think that the designer of the Statue would deliberately set out to demonstrate to the world that the chief characteristic of local industry is 'wooden solidity.

[36][37] In 1925, Jacob Epstein's sculpture Rima was splattered with green paint,[37] and in 1928, George Frampton's statue of Peter Pan was tarred and feathered.

The Evening Chronicle called it a rag "without a purpose",[53] and termed the perpetrators "a band of students whose high spirits outran their intelligence and their manners".

"[3] One reader wrote in to "express my disgust" at the actions: "While, personally, admitting the ugliness of the 'erection,' there is no reason why, at this stage of the Exhibition, a crowd of silly, irresponsible fools should run amok in such fashion.

[4] Armstrong's newly appointed Principal Sir William Marris admonished the students in a speech, suggesting that their energy would be better spent raising money for charity.

[53][54] One student ended up admitting the tarring to have been "in extremely bad taste", agreeing that "had it been perpetrated by a group of miners or news-boys would universally have been stigmatised as an inexcusable outrage".

[63] Much of the Exhibition was broken down and sold afterwards, both as objects (such as chairs and staff uniforms) and raw materials (such as steel, timber, and asbestos sheeting).

[67] A day after the Evening Chronicle reported on difficulties selling the statue,[68] a reader wrote in to suggest that it be moved to Roker Park as "a mascot to the woe-begone football team" there, Sunderland A.F.C., and rechristened "Alice in Blunderland".