Sculpture is not normally the stuff from which acrimonious public debates are made. But that is what happened in Sydney in 1883. It was such an intense controversy that it eventually destroyed the career of James Barnet, the state’s last Colonial Architect. Barnet came from Arbroath, a small fishing town on the east coast of Scotland a hundred or so miles north of Edinburgh. After educating himself as an architect in London, Barnet came to Australia and worked for Edmund Blacket as his Clerk of Works. By dint of effort he was appointed Colonial Architect in 1865, a position he…