Bust

National Portrait Gallery - MacAulay

Inscription

MacAulay

Site: National Portrait Gallery (18 memorials)

WC2, Charing Cross Road

This building, 1896, designed by Ewan Christian, has 18 busts contained in medallions around the top of the facades. Starting at the east end of Orange Street and reading clockwise:
Facing north up Charing Cross Road: Chantrey, Lawrence, Reynolds, Hogarth, Roubilliac, Kneller, Lely, Van Dyke, Holbein.
Around the corner, facing east: Walpole, Clarendon, Fuller.
Facing north beside the entrance: Lodge, Faithorne, Granger.
Facing east, above the entrance are represented the three men chiefly responsible for the Gallery's existence: MacAulay, Stanhope, Carlyle.

2019: The Guardian reported on plans to move the entrance to this museum from the east side of the building round to the north side, where the Irving statue is.

2023: Londonist reported that the north entrance is now open and boasts three sets of doors etched with artworks by Tracy Emin. These show faces of 45 women, not specific or identifiable figures but, as the artist is quoted: "it's up to the viewer to discern what they feel and what they see or who they see..." Londonist sees 'The Doors' as "a direct challenge to/balancing act with the slew of Portland stone busts carved into the building’s original façade, featuring 18 men .."

This section lists the subjects commemorated on the memorial on this page:
National Portrait Gallery - MacAulay

Subjects commemorated i

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay

Historian, essayist, poet.  Born Leicestershire but brought up in the Clapham...

Read More

This section lists the other memorials at the same location as the memorial on this page:
National Portrait Gallery - MacAulay

Also at this site i

Nearby Memorials

Rodney's Head

Rodney's Head

EC1, Old Street, 12

1876 is incised into the stone work of the building.

2 subjects commemorated
John F. Kennedy bust - Marylebone Road

John F. Kennedy bust - Marylebone Road

W1, Marylebone Road, 1, International Students' Hostel

The original bust was first installed in 1965 in Military Park, Newark, New Jersey. Additional bronzes were cast for this site and for th...

1 subject commemorated, 3 creators
Sir Joseph Banks - British Library

Sir Joseph Banks - British Library

NW1, Euston Road, The British Library

This bust is a 20th-century replica after Anne Seymour Damer, 1814.

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
Bermondsey Library - 5 - unknown

Bermondsey Library - 5 - unknown

SE16, Spa Road, Old Bermondsey Library / Kagyu Samye Dzong Buddhist centre

The weather has removed all the hair and costume details which are essential for any chance of identifying the person represented. Chauc...

Hotel Russell - Gladstone

Hotel Russell - Gladstone

WC1, Russell Square, 1-8

This ornate extravaganza, designed by the splendidly named Fitzroy Doll, was built in 1898. Ornamental Passions has a good post about the...

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator

Previously viewed

Highbury boundary marker - Kelross Road
1 subject commemorated
1 Poultry - Frieze C - Charles II

1 Poultry - Frieze C - Charles II

EC2, Poultry, 1

Number One Poultry, built in 1995 in a post-modern style, and voted by Time Out readers the fifth worst building in London. Designed by t...

1 subject commemorated, 4 creators
Rotherhithe Tunnel Airshaft

Rotherhithe Tunnel Airshaft

SE16, Brunel Road

{Beneath the London Docklands Development Corporation logo:} Rotherhithe Tunnel Airshaft. This listed structure was constructed between 1...

4 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
Emma Cons - Old Vic

Emma Cons - Old Vic

SE1, The Cut, Old Vic Theatre

Our thanks to our deciphering-of-difficult-to-read-inscriptions consultant, John Hartley, without whom we would be reporting that Emma Co...

3 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
V&A façade - King Edward VII

V&A façade - King Edward VII

SW7, Cromwell Road

Excluding the allegories (such as Knowledge) there are 36 statues on the two public façades of the V&A Museum, on Exhibition Road and...

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator