Editing Duke of York Column (section)

==History==
[[Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany]], was the [[Commander-in-Chief of the Forces|commander-in-chief]] of the [[British Army]] during the [[French Revolutionary Wars]] and led the reform of the army into a capable modernised force. The Duke is remembered in the children's [[nursery rhyme]] "[[The Grand Old Duke of York]]". When he died in 1827, the entire British Army, by general consensus following a proposal of the senior officers, forwent one day's wages to pay for a monument to the Duke.

When the sum of subscriptions for a monument to the Duke reached £21,000 ({{inflation|UK|21000|1827|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}), the committee overseeing the project asked a number of architects to submit proposals, and in December 1830 they chose a design by [[Benjamin Dean Wyatt]]. The mason Nowell of Pimlico was contracted to build the column for a sum of £15,760. Excavations for the concrete foundations began on 27 April 1831. The ground was excavated to a layer of natural soil, around {{height|feet=22}} below street level. A layer of [[York stone]] slabs at a depth of around {{height|feet=11}} was used to consolidate the concrete, and another was placed at the top of the foundations, as a base for the masonry. The foundations were completed on 25 June 1831, and construction of the stonework began three weeks later.<ref name=arcana>{{cite book |last=Timbs |first=John |title=Arcana of Science and Art |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=baDkAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA29 |publisher=John Limbird |location=London |year=1835 |pages=29–31}}</ref>

On 7 May 1850, Henri Joseph Stephan, a horn player in [[Benjamin Lumley]]'s orchestra at [[Her Majesty's Theatre]], committed suicide by falling from the public gallery at the top of the column.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Suicide from the Duke of York's Column |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS135037616/TTDA?u=wes_ttda&sid=TTDA&xid=10db02ed |work=[[The Times]] |issue=20490 |date=16 May 1850 |page=8 |access-date=24 January 2021}}</ref>