Albert The Good Statue - Queens Square - Hyde Park Barracks Vicinity - Macquarie Street - Sydney - NSW
Prince Albert Road
Forming the eastern half of the semi-circle of road at the northern end of Hyde Park, Prince Albert Road serves no particular purpose than to provide balance and contrast to St James Road. Its name seems appropriate, given that it honours Albert the Good, the German born Consort and husband of Queen Victoria, who many believe served no particular regal purpose than to provide balance and contrast to Queen Victoria. The connection between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert accounts for the naming of Prince Albert Road, given its relationship with Queens Square. His formal title was Prince Consort, granted by Queen Victoria in 1857. There would have been some concern over the Queen marrying a foreigner, and the name "Albert the Good" would have been part of Royal propaganda to winning the people around with the assurance that he was a real good fellow.
Prince Albert never visited Australia and was little known in this country except for his straight-laced moral attitude, his devotion to his wife and her deep love for him. He was the mastermind of the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851 which triggered a succession of imitative expositions around the British Empire including one in Sydney and another in Melbourne. He contracted typhoid fever and died shortly before Christmas 1861. Prince Albert's death devastated Queen Victoria who suffered a nervous breakdown. Tradition has it that for the rest of her life she slept with a photo above her head, taken of him as he lay dead, and had his clothes laid out on the bed. The basin in his room was filled with fresh water every day until her death.
Albert the Good – The Full Story of Sydney's Prince Consort Statue
Walk up Macquarie Street to the top end, where it meets Prince Albert Road and St James Road, and you'll find two bronze figures eyeing each other across the traffic. On the western side is Queen Victoria. On the eastern side, out the front of Hyde Park Barracks, is her husband Prince Albert, robed up in the Order of the Garter. He's been standing in Sydney since St George's Day, 23 April 1866, when somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand people turned out to watch him unveiled. Since then he has been shifted off his first spot at the top of Hyde Park, spent decades out of the way, and was only put back next to his Queen in 1987. Here's how it all happened.
Who Was Prince Albert?
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was born on 26 August 1819 at Schloss Rosenau, near Coburg in Germany. He married his first cousin, Queen Victoria, on 10 February 1840 at the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, and they went on to have nine children. Victoria formally gave him the title "Prince Consort" in 1857.
He wasn't popular with the British at first. Wikipedia's account of his life notes he was seen as coming from a poor little German state, and that Parliament's refusal to make him a peer was partly down to anti-German feeling. Over time he won people over. He backed educational reform and the fight against slavery, ran the royal household and estates, and above all pushed through the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace in London's Hyde Park. The profit from that show bought the land in South Kensington where the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall and the Victoria and Albert Museum now stand.
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His Death in December 1861
Albert had been poorly for a couple of years with stomach trouble. On 9 December 1861 one of his doctors, William Jenner, diagnosed typhoid fever, and Albert died in the Blue Room at Windsor Castle at 10.50 pm on 14 December 1861. He was only 42. Some modern writers think a long-running illness such as Crohn's disease, kidney failure or cancer may have been the real cause, given how long he had been sick.
Victoria never got over it. She went into deep mourning and wore black for the rest of her life, and Albert's rooms in all their houses were kept as he left them, with hot water brought in each morning and fresh linen and towels laid out every day. Albert had asked that no statues be put up to him, but nobody listened. Memorials went up right across Britain and the Empire, so many that Charles Dickens joked to a friend that he was looking for an "inaccessible cave" to get away from them.
Sydney Passes the Hat Around
When the news of Albert's death reached the colony, Sydney decided it wanted its own statue. According to the City of Sydney, a Prince Consort's Statue Association was set up to raise the money, chaired by Edward Deas Thomson, the former Colonial Secretary and a member of the Legislative Council. The plan was paid for by public subscription.
The money didn't exactly pour in. The City of Sydney says the public's response was "perhaps more equivocal" than the committee's enthusiasm, and quotes the Illustrated Sydney News of 16 May 1866 saying that "a temporary want of funds" meant the statue was barely ready in time for its big day. The Empire newspaper of 23 May 1866, quoted on Monument Australia, put the sum needed at about £3,000, which was sent off to England.
The Sculptor – William Theed the Younger
The statue was the work of William Theed the younger (1804–1891), who was born in Trentham, Staffordshire. He trained at the Royal Academy Schools, spent nearly twenty years working in Rome, and came back to London in 1848. He did a lot of work for the royal family, and after Albert died Queen Victoria had Theed take the prince's death mask. He went on to make several memorial statues of Albert, including the one at Balmoral Castle.
The Empire's 1866 report says the Sydney bronze was "the second of the Prince", designed by "Mr. W. Theed, Henrietta-street, Cavendish-square, London", and cast at Nuremberg. It was put on show in London in March 1865. The paper says the original model had been made at the Queen's command as a present to Coburg, and that the Duke of Newcastle ordered a bronze cast taken from it for the people of Sydney. It also says the Queen thought this the best likeness of Albert there was.
Unveiling Day – St George's Day, 23 April 1866
On the day, the Empire reported, the statue was "uncovered on St. George's Day" at the northern entrance to Hyde Park, opposite Macquarie Street, with "his Excellency the Governor" there to give an address (that was Sir John Young, as my original text says). The paper called the crowd "the largest assemblage of citizens of all classes ever witnessed in Sydney", with estimates of twenty to thirty thousand people. The City of Sydney, quoting the Illustrated Sydney News, says the streets were packed from early in the morning.
The Empire described the figure as ten feet high, showing the prince "in a commanding attitude dressed in the robes of the order of the garter". The railings were the "universal trident" pattern used at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the oval base, 20 feet by 16, was of colonial stone with spots left on which it was "intended to place lions". The whole thing, statue and pedestal, stood 20 feet 6 inches. The City of Sydney adds that in his left hand he holds a sceptre and in his right an unrolled scroll.
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The Inscription
The words on the pedestal read:
THE PEOPLE OF NEW SOUTH WALES TO ALBERT THE GOOD PRINCE CONSORT OF QUEEN VICTORIA 1866
So "Albert the Good" isn't just a nickname. It's carved right there in the stone.
Queen Victoria Joins Him – 1888
For more than twenty years Albert stood on his own. Then, for the centenary in 1888, a statue of Victoria went up across the way in Queens Square. Governor Macquarie had planned a public square there. It was first called Kings Square and was renamed Queens Square when Victoria came to the throne in 1837.
The Queen's statue is by Joseph Edgar Boehm. The Yale Center for British Art says it was commissioned for her Golden Jubilee of 1887 and that a foundation stone had gone down as early as 1881, during the visit of Prince Edward and Prince George of Wales. Lord Carrington, the Governor, unveiled it on 24 January 1888, two days before the centenary itself. Yale puts the crowd at over fifty thousand. When Victoria died in 1901 the statue became a focus for Sydney's mourning, and for years afterwards it was dressed up for Empire Day.
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Moving Albert
The City Circle Upheaval, 1922
The City of Sydney's Hyde Park history says the underground City Circle railway was built from 1916 into the early 1930s and that most of the park was dug up using the "cut and cover" method. The fig trees were cut down, the park was fenced off and the surrounding streets were widened. St James and Museum stations were open by 1926.
Albert was in the way. The City of Sydney's Hyde Park history and Monument Australia both say he was moved to the Botanic Gardens in 1922. The City of Sydney's own page on the statue is more careful. It says he was moved in 1922, "possibly to the Royal Botanic Garden", during the railway works.
Back With His Queen, 1987
In 1987 the statue was moved again, this time to the spot where it stands today, on the corner of Macquarie Street and Prince Albert Road out the front of Hyde Park Barracks. The City of Sydney describes him as "gazing earnestly at Queen Victoria opposite". A nearby plaque, quoted on Monument Australia, reads in part: "This bronze of Prince Albert was reunited with that of his wife, Queen Victoria, in 1987. He first stood outside Hyde Park but was later isolated for many years in the Botanic Gardens." (Monument Australia's transcription has "Her first stood", which looks like a slip for "He".) The plaque was sponsored by Caltex and the New South Wales Government.
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The Neighbourhood – Queens Square, the Barracks and St James'
Albert couldn't have better neighbours if you're into old Sydney. Around Queens Square, going clockwise from the north, are the Law Courts Building, the Sydney Mint, Hyde Park Barracks, the Land Titles Office, Hyde Park, St James' Church and the old Sydney Law School building.
Hyde Park Barracks
Right behind Albert is Hyde Park Barracks, designed by the convict architect Francis Greenway. Macquarie laid the foundation stone on 6 April 1817, and the barracks opened on 4 June 1819 with 589 convicts admitted. Around 30,000 men and boys are thought to have passed through between 1819 and 1848. After the convicts left, the building became a female immigration depot, then an asylum for infirm and destitute women. From the late 1880s it was home to courts, by then known as the Queen's Square Courts. It's now a museum, and in 2010 it was one of eleven Australian Convict Sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
St James' Church
Across the square from the barracks is St James', King Street, another Greenway design. Macquarie and Commissioner Bigge laid its foundation stone on 7 October 1819. It was first meant to be a courthouse, but Bigge pushed for it to become a church, and Samuel Marsden consecrated it on 11 February 1824. Greenway lined it up with his barracks, and the two buildings have similar proportions, pilasters and gables. It's the oldest church still standing in inner Sydney.
The Mint and Macquarie Street
Next door to the barracks is the Mint, the southern wing of Macquarie's Rum Hospital. The Royal Mint's Sydney Branch began work there on 14 May 1855 and closed in January 1927.
Heritage
I couldn't find a heritage listing for the statue on its own in the sources I checked. The square it stands in, though, is well covered. The New South Wales State Heritage Register listing for the "Mint Building and Hyde Park Barracks Group" (listing 190, from 2 April 1999) includes "Queen's Square" among its official names. Hyde Park Barracks is also on the National Heritage List (2007) and the World Heritage List (2010), and St James' Church has been on the State Heritage Register since 2004.
Albert Today
These days Albert has a front-row seat on one of the busiest corners of the old town. Lawyers rush past to the courts, school groups head into the barracks, and St James' Station is just underneath. Next time you're up that end of Macquarie Street, stop for a minute and look at the pair of them: Victoria on her side, Albert on his, back together after all those years apart.
Timeline
- 26 August 1819 – Albert born at Schloss Rosenau, near Coburg.
- 1837 – Victoria comes to the throne. Kings Square in Sydney becomes Queens Square.
- 10 February 1840 – Albert and Victoria marry.
- 1 May 1851 – The Great Exhibition opens in the Crystal Palace, London.
- 25 June 1857 – Victoria makes Albert "Prince Consort".
- 14 December 1861 – Albert dies at Windsor Castle, aged 42.
- 1860s – The Prince Consort's Statue Association, chaired by Edward Deas Thomson, raises about £3,000 by public subscription.
- March 1865 – Theed's bronze, cast at Nuremberg, goes on show in London.
- 23 April 1866 (St George's Day) – The statue is unveiled at the northern entrance to Hyde Park before 20,000 to 30,000 people.
- 1881 – Foundation stone laid for the Queen Victoria statue in Queens Square.
- 24 January 1888 – Lord Carrington unveils Boehm's Queen Victoria statue.
- 1916 to early 1930s – City Circle railway built through Hyde Park.
- 1922 – Albert moved off his Hyde Park site, possibly to the Royal Botanic Garden.
- 1987 – Albert moved to his present spot outside Hyde Park Barracks, facing Victoria.
- 2 April 1999 – The Mint and Hyde Park Barracks group, including Queen's Square, listed on the NSW State Heritage Register.
- 2010 – Hyde Park Barracks inscribed on the World Heritage List.
Where the Sources Disagree
- Where Albert went in 1922, and when. Monument Australia and the City of Sydney's Hyde Park history say he went to the Botanic Gardens in 1922. The City of Sydney's page on the statue only says "possibly" the Royal Botanic Garden. Meanwhile the Dictionary of Sydney lists a 1925 W.D. & H.O. Wills card titled "Prince Consort's statue & Astor House, Macquarie St", and Sam Hood's photo of "the then new Astor Flats in Macquarie Street" shows the statue. The Dictionary dates the Astor to 1923, and Commons dates Hood's photo to the 1930s. If those dates are right, the statue was still in Macquarie Street after 1922. I couldn't settle this from the sources I could reach.
- Why he was moved. Some popular accounts link the move to anti-German feeling in World War I. The City of Sydney, Monument Australia and the Hyde Park history all tie the 1922 move to the City Circle railway works and don't mention the war. I couldn't find a fetched source for the wartime campaigns against the statue.
- Where the model came from. The Empire (1866) says Theed's model was made at the Queen's command as a present to Coburg, with the Sydney bronze cast from it. The City of Sydney says the bronze copies a terracotta Theed made in 1865 for the Royal Albert Infirmary at Bishop's Waltham.
- What the base is made of. The Empire describes an oval base of "colonial stone". The City of Sydney says the statue stands on a granite pedestal and that the plinth is Pyrmont stone.
My Earlier Posts
- Queens Square - Macquarie Street
- Hyde Park Barracks - Macquarie Street
- St James Church - 173 King Street
- Hyde Park - Sydney
- Macquarie Street And Associated Landmarks
- The Sydney Mint – Macquarie Street – Sydney – New South Wales
- NSW Parliament - Macquarie Street - Sydney
- Sydney Hospital - Macquarie Street - Sydney
- Sydney Royal Botanic Garden
- Captain Cook Statue - Hyde Park South - Unveiled 25th February 1879
- John Frazer Fountain – Hyde Park – Sydney
- Queen Victoria – Golden Jubilee – 1887
- Queen Victoria - Diamond Jubilee - 1898
- Proclamation – Sir Richard Bourke – King William IV’s Death – Queen Victoria as Sovereign – 27 October 1837
- The Attempted Assassination of Prince Alfred – Clontarf – 12 March 1868
- The Garden Palace – The Sydney International Exhibition of 1879
- Alfred And Albert Streets - Semi Circular Quay
- Sydney Garden Palace - Part 1 - Macquarie Street
Sources
- City of Sydney – Prince Albert (sculpture)
- City of Sydney – History of Hyde Park
- Monument Australia – Prince Albert (quotes Empire, Sydney, 23 May 1866)
- Dictionary of Sydney – Statue of Prince Albert
- Yale Center for British Art – Statue of Queen Victoria, Sydney
- Wikipedia – Albert, Prince Consort
- Wikipedia – William Theed
- Wikipedia – Queens Square, Sydney
- Wikipedia – Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney (draws on NSW State Heritage Register listing 190)
- Wikipedia – St James' Church, Sydney
- Images: Wikimedia Commons, with credits under each picture