| Description | In 1853 a meeting was convened at Mansion House by Thomas Challis, MP and Lord Mayor of London to discuss erecting a memorial to the exhibition and to those responsible for its success. Money was subscribed to enable this to be built.
A competition was held to find a suitable design. Joseph Durham's design was selected out of nearly 50 entries. However there was much criticism of the winning entry and by late 1859 there were discussions about how to get the designs modified whilst still being perceived as the winning design. At this stage Prince Albert said that all questions about the memorial should be referred to him. He became very involved with its design, inspecting models of the statues before they were cast. He asked RHS architect, Sydney Smirke to make changes to the architectural features. Until mid 1861 it was going to be Brittania on top of the memorial, then it was changed to Queen Victoria, but straight after Prince Albert's death Queen Victoria ordered that her statue should be replaced with one of Prince Albert. Durham was once again asked to design it but this time he had to consult with a committee of 6, three of whom were sculptors.
Originally it was intended that the memorial should be in Hyde Park on the site of the Exhibition but this proved impossible to achieve. The Memorial Committee called on Prince Albert for assistance and late 1860 he helped them negotiate with the Royal Horticultural Gardens in South Kensington so that it could be placed in the gardens. In the early 1890s it was moved to the south of the Royal Albert Hall, and in 2000 it was repositioned as part of the development of the South Steps.
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