Wellington Memorial Fund Correspondence

Letters to Lord Leighton on the Wellington memorial in St Paul's Cathedral.

The artist Alfred Stevens (1818-1875) in 1856 entered a competition to design a monument to Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), Duke of Wellington, for St Paul's Cathedral. Although his design was placed only sixth in the competition in 1857, it proved to be the only one fit for the proposed site and consequently execution of the monument was entrusted to him. Partly through his procrastination, but chiefly owing to bureaucratic and financial hindrances, the work was unfinished at his death and remained for many years standing in an unfavourable position in the consistory court of St Paul's. In 1892, owing to the recommendation of the artist Sir Frederic (afterwards Lord) Leighton (1830-1896), who raised and contributed to a fund for the purpose, it was moved to the position originally intended. It consisted of a sarcophagus supporting a recumbent bronze effigy of the Duke, surmounted by an arched canopy of late Renaissance style, flanked by large bronze allegorical groups. An equestrian statue of the Duke, designed to surmount the canopy, was never executed.

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