Memorials to William Shakespeare

• 1. The Earliest Stone And The Quill

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  Inside Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, a bust of William Shakespeare rests above his grave. This funerary monument dates from between 1616 and 1623. Gerard Johnson created the sculpture that features the poet holding a quill pen in one hand. A piece of paper lies in his other hand while his arms rest on a cushion. Above him stands the Shakespeare family coat of arms flanked by two allegorical figures. Labour holds a spade to represent work while Rest holds a torch and a skull. The First Folio mentions this memorial in 1623 but no exact construction date survives.

• 2. Fundraising For A National Poet

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  Lord Burlington and Alexander Pope funded a statue for Westminster Abbey installed in 1740. Peter Scheemakers executed the design by William Kent. At least two fundraising events were led by the Shakespeare Ladies Club. They held a benefit performance of Julius Caesar on the 28th of April 1738 at Drury Lane. Another benefit performance of Hamlet took place on the 10th of April 1739 at Covent Garden. Carved heads on the pedestal likely depict Queen Elizabeth I, Henry V and Richard III. Shakespeare leans on books pointing to a scroll with a misquoted line about leaving not a wrack behind. A variant of this design appeared in a Glasgow theatre in 1764 before moving to Dunlop Street.

• 3. Garrick's Marble And The Temple

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  David Garrick commissioned Louis-François Roubiliac to create a marble statue for his Palladian Temple to Shakespeare in Hampton. The English actor thought he posed for the figure himself. In 1779 Garrick bequeathed the statue along with his books to the British Museum. It moved to the British Library in 2005. Garrick later asked Roubiliac to produce a bust for his Stratford festival in 1769. That bust now resides in the Garrick Club in London. George Dance the Younger placed Thomas Banks's sculpture in an exterior wall of John Boydell's gallery in 1788. Banks received 500 guineas for the work depicting Shakespeare reclining against a rock between Painting and Poetry.

• 4. Statues Across The Atlantic Ocean

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  John Quincy Adams Ward designed a statue for New York City's Central Park commissioned in 1864. Funds were raised by a performance of Julius Caesar where Edwin Booth took the lead role. John Wilkes Booth played Mark Antony in that same production. The statue was unveiled in 1873 after commissioners proposed the Mall as a designated location for sculpture. A replica appeared in Montgomery, Alabama in 1986 for their yearly Shakespeare Festival. William Ordway Partridge unveiled a large seated statue in Lincoln Park, Chicago in 1888. Frederick William MacMonnies erected a bronze statue at the Library of Congress in 1896 as part of a series representing world geniuses.

• 5. Garden Fountains And Town Halls

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  Baron Albert Grant installed a fountain with a marble statue of Shakespeare in Leicester Square gardens in 1874. Giovanni Fontana sculpted this piece which replicated Scheemakers's monument from Poets' Corner. A committee formed in Stratford-upon-Avon to erect a memorial on land donated by the bank of the Avon. Lord Ronald Gower unveiled his work in 1888 situated in Bancroft Gardens. The monument shows Shakespeare seated surrounded by statues of Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, Prince Hal and Falstaff at ground level. These characters represent Philosophy, Tragedy, History and Comedy respectively. Another statue stands in a niche on the exterior of the town hall building.

• 6. International Monuments In Europe

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  Paul Fournier designed a statue erected on the Boulevard Haussmann in Paris in 1888. Otto Lessing created a statue in Weimar showing Shakespeare seated and staring into the distance with a bemused look. This appeared in Germany in 1904 despite early German roles in canonizing the playwright. Louis Hasselriis designed a memorial statue for Elsinore in Denmark funded by public subscription. It commemorates the 300th anniversary of the publication of Hamlet in 1603. The Danish monument includes a sculpture of Hamlet alongside the Bard himself.

• 7. Australian Sculptures And Canadian Tin

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  Sir Bertram MacKennal designed a memorial in Sydney Australia erected in 1926. Henry Gullett commissioned it before his death on the 4th of August 1914. His daughter Lucy ensured the commission was carried out using funds from his estate. The statue depicts five famous characters around the base including Hamlet and Romeo embracing. It sits in Shakespeare Place between the Mitchell Library and Royal Botanic Gardens. A bronze sculpture from Andor Meszaros bowing as if at the end of a performance stands in Ballarat completed in 1960. A tin statue exists outside the Festival Theatre in Stratford Ontario where plays run from April to November.

• 8. Banknotes And Cathedral Windows

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  An image of the Poets' Corner statue appeared on Series D £20 notes issued by the Bank of England between 1970 and 1993. An engraving of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet accompanied the portrait. Henry McCarthy created a recumbent statue for Southwark Cathedral placed in a niche carved with images of Elizabethan Southwark. The cathedral is also the burial place of Shakespeare's brother Edmund along with other actors. An elaborate stained glass window depicting Shakespearean characters replaced one destroyed by a bomb blast in World War II. The replacement arrived in 1954 while a birthday celebration occurs every year in April.