Following the Duke of Wellington’s successful Peninsula campaign and decisive defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo on the 18^th June, 1815 a decision was taken to honour the ‘Iron Duke’ with the erection of a monument in the Alameda Gardens. A memorial in the form of a bust was to funded by deducting a day’s pay from all the members of the garrison. The bust was cast in bronze from guns seized by the Duke of Wellington during the peninsular Campaign.

In April 1819, Sir George Don, accompanied by the Naval, Military and Civil officers of the Garrison, assembled at the gardens to unveil the bust of The Duke of Wellington. A Guard of Honour and four bands attended. The memorial to the Duke of Wellington was placed on top of a Roman marble pillar brought to Gibraltar from the ruins of Lepida (Lybia) aboard H.M. Storeship Weymouth.

Around Wellington’s column stand two 13-inch mortars with shells and a 1758 bronze 12-pounder gun on a wooden carriage.

Inscription on reverse of the marble column.