Monument to Sir John Alexander Macdonald in the Crypt, St. Paul's Cathedral, London, by George Wade

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Monument to Sir John Alexander Macdonald

George Wade

1892

The Crypt, St. Paul's Cathedral

City of London

The inscription reads:

“The Right Honourable Sir John Alexander Macdonald, P.C., G.C.B., D.C.L.for nineteen years Premier of the Dominion of Canada.”

Born 1815 Died 1891

“A British subject I was born / A British subject I will die.”

George Edward Wade, 1853-1933 (homepage)

With thanks to the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral.

See commentary below

Photograph 2011 and formatting by George P. Landow. Text by Landow and Jacqueline Banerjee.

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Charles C. Hill, Curator of Canadian Art at the National Gallery of Canada, tells us that there was, naturally, some question about giving the commission to an Englishman: Canadians had wanted it to go to Hamilton MacCarthy of Toronto, who was an English sculptor of part-Canadian parentage, and who had already taken St John's death-mask and prepared a clay bust of him. However, Lord Lorne (the Marquess of Lorne, Governor-General of Canada 1878-83) was particularly keen on Wade, and believed his bust of Sir John to be "the best I have seen."

Hill explains,

Befitting the intentions of the Imperial Federation League Sir John was depicted in his Privy Council uniform and peer's robes, wearing the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath awarded him in 1884. At the unveiling [on 16 November 1892], Rosebery eulogized the late Premier for having "grasped the central idea that the British Empire was the greatest secular agency for good now known to mankind." [10]

Hill also tells us that the inscription on the bust's supporting bracket ("A British subject I was born, A British subject I will die") was the slogan from Macdonald's last campaign.

Bibliography

Hill, Charles C. "George Wade's Monuments to Sir John A. MacDonald." Journal of Canadian Art History XXII (2001): 6-25. Web. 3 August 2014.

Created 4 August 2014

Last modified 4 February 2020