[2][3][4] Robert Milligan (1746–1809) was a prominent Scottish merchant, ship-owner and slave-factor, who was the driving force behind the construction of the West India Docks in London.

[7] In 1998 an article in The Islander, a community newspaper sponsored by the Association of Island Communities on the local Isle of Dogs, published a photograph of the statue with another featuring Max Hebditch, at the time director of the Museum of London Docklands, with Roger Squire, at that time the Joint Chief Executive of the London Docklands Development Corporation, who had made the arrangements to return the statue to its original place.

The article argued that Milligan was a genius who had persuaded the city merchants to build the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs, rather than in Wapping.

Dubbing Milligan "the father of the Isle of Dogs", the article called for Wednesday 12 July 2000 to be celebrated as the bicentenary of the laying of the docks' foundation stone in 1800.

In November, at the time of the opening of the exhibition, the statue of Robert Milligan was shrouded in black cloth, tied up with rope – although this was removed after the event.