Duke of York Column

Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, was the commander-in-chief of the British Army during the French Revolutionary Wars and led the reform of the army into a capable modernised force. The Duke is remembered in the children's nursery rhyme "The Grand Old Duke of York". When he died in 1827, the entire British Army, by general consensus following a proposal of the senior officers, forwent one day's wages to pay for a monument to the Duke. When the sum of subscriptions for a monument to the Duke reached £21,000 (), the committee overseeing the project asked a number of architects to submit proposals, and in December 1830 they chose a design by Benjamin Dean Wyatt. The mason Nowell of…

The column is of the Tuscan order. It is built of granite from Aberdeenshire; a light grey variety was used for the pedestal, a bluer grey type for the base of the shaft, The statue is slightly more than twice life-size, at tall The statue faces south-southeast; from its base, there are views of The Mall and St. James's Park. The great height of the column caused contemporary wits to joke that the Duke was trying to escape his creditors, for the Duke died £2 million in debt.