3-000-250 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Raising the Anglesey statue to the top of the column erected to the memory of the late Marquis [of Anglesey] near Menai Bridge - from a drawing by Mr. W. G. Haslam, 1860. 'Matthew Noble was intrusted with the execution of the...statue, which is of bronze [and weighs from two to three tons], in the full costume of the Hussar of the beginning of the century...It was most successfully cast by Messrs. Robinson and Cottam...[The column] stands upon a precipitous rock...The total height...of the statue above the Straits is 354 feet...[The] tackle acted while the hoisting was going on as a "preventer"; and when the statue was raised 106 feet off the ground the falls of the two purchase-blocks were "racked" and a slight strain kept on the hawser, which had the effect of drawing the carriage and the suspended statue directly over the bed prepared for the reception of the pedestal, upon which it was lowered, amidst the hearty cheering of a "thousand rejoicing voices," on the 24th of November, 1860. The whole of the arduous work of erecting the scaffolding and raising the statue was performed by Welsh carpenters and Anglesea sailors, the time occupied in hoisting, lowering, and fixing, being about an hour and twenty minutes'. From "Illustrated London News", 1860.