2-698-984 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'New Bridge Street and the Obelisk in 1755', (1897). View of the obelisk on New Bridge Street at the junction of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill in London, looking towards Blackfriars Bridge. The Atlas Insurance Office is on the left. 'For over a century and a half after his death, it was believed ... that [John] Wilkes was commemorated by an obelisk with lights attached to it at the southern end of Farringdon Street ... An inspection of the Corporation Records in 1949, however, proved that this had originally been erected by the Blackfriars Bridge Committee as a street lamp, and had had Wilkes' name placed on it only because it was put up in his mayoralty. The obelisk had deterioriated to such an extent by this time, that, when in the following year, an attempt was made to dismantle it, it disintegrated.' From Old and New London, Volume I, by Walter Thornbury. [Cassell and Company, Limited, London, Paris & Melbourne, 1897]