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Queen Victoria married Albert, Prince of Saxe Coburg, in 1840;
twenty-two years later Albert died of typhoid, leaving the Queen an
"utterly broken-hearted and crushed widow of forty-two." Soon after
the Prince's death, Disraeli declared: "This German Prince has governed
England for twenty-one years with a wisdom and energy such as none of our kings
have ever shown."
The composition has
a large statue of Albert seated in a vast Gothic shrine, and includes a frieze
with 169 carved figures, angels and virtues higher up, and separate groups
representing the Continents, Industrial Arts and Sciences.
The pillars supporting the canopy are of red granite from the Ross
of Mull and from a gray granite from Castle Wellan Quarries, Northern Ireland.
These latter pillars, of which there are four, are from single stones each
weighing about 17 tons. Each pillar took eight men about 20 weeks to finish and
polish, and the Albert Memorial was noted at the time of its completion as
being one of the most costly works in granite of the period.
Darley Dale stone
was used for the capitals, and the arches are of Portland stone. Pink granite
from Correnac, Aberdeen, appears with marble in the pedestal on which the
statue of Albert sits.
