The Duke of Clarence's Naval Pillar Project
The Duke of Clarence's Naval Pillar Project
Due to the limitation of publication and the limited nature of the reading public at the end of the eighteenth century, public monuments and memorial architecture played a crucial role in presenting the British masses with a national identity. The Duke of Clarence’s unsuccessful ‘Naval Pillar or Monument Project’ of 1799-1800 was an attempt to idealize the efforts of the British navy [1]. Although an earlier monument was proposed to celebrate the efforts of Admirals Earl Richard Howe (1726-1799) and Sir John Jervis St. Vincent (1735-1823) at the Battles of Cape Saint and Camperdown, the naval project was not given a decisive impetus by the Duke’s committee until the news of Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson’s (1758-1805) epic victory against the French in the Battle of the Nile [2].
The committee of the Duke of Clarence William Henry IV (1765-1837), his royal brothers, Parliament, the Pitt ministry and the Admiralty, placed an announcement in The Gentleman’s Magazine in February of 1798, for the monument to be,
‘Under the auspices of His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, in the year 1798, by voluntary subscription, as a testimony of public admiration and gratitude to the heroes who, by the blessing of Providence, as a most important and perilous crisis, defeated (within the space of a few months) three formidable naval powers, combined together for the declared purpose of subverting the Constitution, Religion and Liberties of Great Britain.’ [3]
Compared to previous naval monuments and memorials, this naval pillar was novel. With the intent that the erection of the pillar occur before the war’s end, it was meant to recognize the already successful British naval battles, while also purporting the triumphs of future endeavors. The pillar committee envisioned the monument as the British counterpart to war monuments of antiquity such as the columns of Trajan, Antonius and Pompey. This initial idea was only further intensified by the Battle of Nile’s occurrence in the geographical location of the ancient world.
Artists and architects such as John Flaxman (1755-1826), Alexander Dufour (1760-1835) and John Opie (1761-1807) all proposed colossal statues highlighting the triumphs of Lord Nelson and his contemporaries [4]. Conflicts quickly emerged between sculptor John Flaxman and architect Alexander Dufour as to how the monument should be constructed. Flaxman proposed a gigantic statue of Britannia Triumphant on Greenwich hill stressing, “how much more sentiment and interest there is in a fine human figure than can possibly be produced in the choicest piece of Architecture" [5]. Dufour countered Flaxman’s argument stating: “If we wished to perpetuate his [a hero’s] memory, a piece of Architecture is better calculated for the purpose than a Statue…It is to the Pillars of Trajan, Antoninus, Pompey…and their inscriptions, which have survived so many ages, that we are indebted for the memory of these great men; while their statues’ have been mostly destroyed" [6].
John Opie further defied Flaxman’s statue proposal writing:
A colossal statue might do more, in some respects, than a column, but in magnitude and effect it must be inferior…the ideas suggested by it would be of too refined and abstracted a nature to allow it to be very instructive, and it must at last partake of too much of the uniformity of a pillar, to be capable of affording that plenitude and succession of entertainment which ought always to accompany great durability' [7].
The committee ultimately selected Opie’s proposal for A Temple of National Virtue. A circular structure, Opie’s designed incorporated statues of naval heroes accompanied by historical paintings and colossal sculptures of King George III and Neptune paying homage to Britannia [8]. However, after the fall of the Pitt ministry the ‘Naval Pillar Project’ was abandoned due to a lack of governmental and national financial support.
[1] Timothy Jenks, Naval engagements: patriotism, cultural politics and the Royal Navy 1793-1815 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 168.
[2] Ibid, 169. The Battle at Cape Saint occurred on February 14, 1797. The Battle of Camperdown followed on October 11, 1797.
[3] Sylvanus Urban, The Gentleman’s Magazine: and Historical Chronicle. For the Year MDVVXCVIII, Vol. 83, 1798, 100.
[4] The Duke of Clarence’s advertisement required that the statue be at least 230ft tall.
[5] John Flaxman, A Letter to the Committee for Raising the Naval Pillar or Monument, Under the Patronage of his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence (London: G. Woodfall, No. 22, Paternoster-Row, 1799), 7. (Link to PDF)
[6] Alexander Dufour, Letter to the Nobility and Gentry Composing the Committee for Raising The Naval Pillar, or Monument (London: 1800). 15. No surviving image of Dufour’s monument exists. (Link to PDF)
[7] John Opie, ‘A Letter addressed to the editor of the True Briton, on the Proposal for erecting a public memorial to the naval glory of Great Britain,’ Library of the Fine Arts, 4, 1832, 61-4, 63. Cited in Alison Yarrington, The Commemoration of the Hero, 1800-1864: Monuments to the British Victors of the Napoleonic Wars (New York: Garland, 1988), appendix 338-9.
[8] Emma Major, Madam Britannia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 64. No surviving image of Opie’s monument exists.