Albert Memorial

Minute Book of the Albert Memorial Committee

Following Prince Albert’s death in December 1861, a committee of influential Mancunians chaired by Mayor Thomas Goadsby established a fund to provide an appropriate memorial to the former Prince Consort. The following year Goadsby decided to offer the town a marble statue of Albert, the sculptor of which was to be Matthew Noble. Thomas Worthington, the Manchester architect, was invited to provide a magnificent shrine-like canopy to house the statue. The minute book of the Albert Memorial Committee, which was given to the Library by Colonel A.F. Maclure in 1924, records the scheme’s slow progress. Although the initial intention had been to fund the memorial largely by public subscription, an additional grant of £500 had to be made by the City Council in 1866 to meet the cost.