Elliot’s Monument including one 8in. and three10 in. howitzer barrels, bronze

Ref: HLMP2/025

The Alameda Gardens were originally created for use by off duty British soldiers by General George Don in 1816 and raised through the proceeds of eight lotteries sanctioned by Don himself. A year earlier, General Don had commissioned a memorial of George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield in the form of a colossal statue of General Eliott, carved from the bowsprit of the Spanish ship San Juan Nepomuceno captured during the Battle of Trafalgar. This wooden statue was placed was placed at the top of the Heathfield Steps, leading up to the south of Grand Parade. The statue, standing on a rocky plinth atop a raised stone platform, was to be the centre-piece to the newly created gardens.

Eliott Memorial by J.M. Carter 1844.

Eliott statue by Rev Edward John Burrow 1840's.

An anonymous American contributor who visited Gibraltar in 1820 published an article in the August 1834 edition of The Friend, an American religious and literary journal edited by Robert Smith. In it the contributor describes the colossal statue of Eliott as well as another sculpture of Neptune which was also carved from the San Juan Nepomuceno:¹

Look which way you will, you see cannon and all the implements of war. Near one of the pavilions stands a colossal statue of General Elliott, (sic) who so bravely defended Gibraltar against the combined land and naval forces of Spain, France, and Holland; he looks with a lofty countenance on Spain, and at his side are the mortar, the shell, the furnace, with balls and other destructive implements; passing beyond, over a rustic bridge of earth laid on the branches of large trees which are planted in a deep ravine, you see a huge figure of Neptune standing upon rocks, through which torrents of rain rush from the heights, and sticking his grainse, or in classical language his trident, into a sea dragon. This was once the head of the largest ship of war Spain ever had - taken by Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar.

James Williamson, a Scottish surgeon employed by Falmouth Packet Ship Service between 1828 and 1835, made several visits to Gibraltar and was quite scathing of the over-sized carved figurines. Williamson, however, describes the creature in the Neptune monument as a dolphin rather than a sea dragon.²

The last ornaments of these walks, if ornaments they may be called, were two statues, the one of the governor of the Rock during the siege, and the other of Neptune, piercing a dolphin with his trident. They are both of colossal size, and of no great merit, as to the talent displayed. The former was made from the mainmast of the Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the other from the wood of the “San Juan,” the ship I believe of the Spanish Admiral.

A third account, by Amasa Hewins, an American portrait and landscape painter who visited Gibraltar in 1830 and whose diaries were to be published a century later also mentions the two statues during her visit to the Alameda gardens. Once again, the description of the carvings were less than complimentary:³

Notwithstanding the ground is so very uneven there is a tolerably pleasant public walk and square for the exercise of the troops, called the Alameda. Here is a rude colossal statue in wood of Gen. Elliot, holding in his hand an immense key, as Gibraltar is the key of the Mediterranean. Likewise, a colossal statue of Neptune in the act of spearing a dolphin (rather a low employment for the god of the deep) which was once the figure head of the San Juan, man of war, taken by Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar.

However, by the late 1850’s both of these sculptures had begun to weather considerably. The Eliott statue was removed from the Alameda and taken to the Convent, the Governor’s residence, where it remains to this today. The other statue of Neptune and sea dragon, which according to the writer was erected over the waterfall at the Dell was not preserved, possibly due to its sheer size. There is no illustrative record of this wooden sculpture.

General Ironside standing next to the statue of Eliott at the Convent during WWII.

The Howitzers - Verbruggens’ Masterpieces

The mortars at the Eliott memorial are identifiable as howitzers (from the German haubitze meaning an explosive shell) by their trunnions, which are mounted in the axis of the piece rather than below it. The two sizes displayed here, 8 inch and 10 inch, indicate their bore in inches which is usual for siege howitzers, whilst field howitzers are referred to by the weight of their shells.

Although only several calibres long, each piece could discharge an eight or ten inch common or shrapnel shell or case shot or canister, which would deliver terrific execution. They were also portable - perhaps transportable would be more accurate for a gun weighing in at a ton and a quarter - and quite economic to operate; so what more could an 18^th century gun captain have asked for?

If he had asked for the best that money could buy, then these are what he would have been offered. In 1780, the Royal Brass Foundry, Woolwich, was considered to be the best in the world and one of the reasons for that was the father and son team Jan and Pieter Verbruggen.

Jan Verbruggen was born in 1712 at Enkhuizen, West Friesland. After initially training as an artist and architect, family influence landed him a job with the Admiralty’s local bell and cannon factory. Cannon founding skill was a closely guarded secret amongst the family guilds and it seems to have been shared with Jan though no record of an apprenticeship has surfaced. Clearly a skilled technician, Jan had been appointed Master Founder by 1746.

In 1755, Jan with another founder Siegler designed and built a horizontal boring and finishing machine. Pieter graduated from university and joined his father and in 1758 the Verbruggens and their machine were installed at the heavy ordnance factory in The Hague with Jan as Master Founder. However, problems with castings led to arguments between Verbruggen and the Inspector General, De Creuznach, in particular with regard to the efficiency of De Creuznach’s furnace. Whilst the Inspector General was off sick, Verbruggen rebuilt and reorganized the foundry, an act which enraged De Creuznach and was the beginning of a long, bitter feud. From that date, De Creuznach rejected every cannon founded by Verbruggen, claiming major defects and malfunctions. Verbruggen took the fight to court but it was not resolved and the controversy lingered for ten years.

In 1769, tension was increasing between Britain and Spain over the Falkland Islands. The British Ambassador to The Hague, Sir Joseph Yorke, persuaded Verbruggen to come to the Royal Brass Foundry to work for the Board of Ordnance. Within a year the Verbruggens had sailed for England and their connection with Woolwich established.

Jan and Pieter Verbruggen were employed as Master Founders from 1770 – 86 and were held in extremely high regard by their new employers. When they arrived they found that sixty years of constant production and no maintenance had left Woolwich in a very poor condition. Renovations took almost four years, at the end of which guns of an unsurpassed quality were being produced. In 1775, the American War erupted leading to an enormous increase in activity, which the newly refurbished foundry handled with ease. In England, the Verbruggens proved beyond a shadow of doubt that their cannon production was indeed of the highest quality, a proof confirmed by the fact that their ordnance was used in the American War - by both sides.⁴