Summary

Sandstone, marble and granite funerary monument, dated 1830.

Description

A red and buff sandstone, Carrara marble and granite obelisk on a pedestal. It is decorated with inverted torches and a wreath, with a finial in the form of a flaming bowl with lion mask decoration. The inscriptions read 'At evening time it shall be light' (Zachariah 14:7) and 'I am come, a light into the world' (John 12:46). The design is based on the heart monuments of the French royal family.

History

Frederick Albert Winsor (1763-1830) was an inventor and pioneer of gas street-lighting. Born Friedrich Albrecht Winzer in Brunswick, Germany, he settled in London in the 1790s where, inspired by the prototypes of the Frenchman Philippe Lebon, he began to experiment with gas lighting, heating and generation. He obtained a number of patents and, in 1807, succeeded in lighting up part of Pall Mall; but his prospectus for a 'New Patriotic Imperial and National Light and Heat Company' proved wildly optimistic and became the target for much public ridicule. He was among the founders of the London and Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company, which carried out London's first large-scale lighting schemes in the early 1810s, but was ousted as its technical adviser by his arch-rival William Murdock. Winsor moved to Paris in 1815, where his lighting schemes met with only limited success. He was buried in Père Lachaise cemetery, and a monument in his honour was later erected at Kensal Green.

The Cemetery of All Souls at Kensal Green was the earliest of the large privately-run cemeteries established on the fringes of London to relieve pressure on overcrowded urban churchyards. Its founder George Frederick Carden intended it as an English counterpart to the great Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, which he had visited in 1821. In 1830, with the financial backing of the banker Sir John Dean Paul, Carden established the General Cemetery Company, and two years later an Act of Parliament was obtained to develop a 55-acre site at Kensal Green, then among open fields to the west of the metropolis. An architectural competition was held, but the winning entry – a Gothic scheme by HE Kendall – fell foul of Sir John's classicising tastes, and the surveyor John Griffith of Finsbury was eventually employed both to lay out the grounds and to design the Greek Revival chapels, entrance arch and catacombs, built between 1834 and 1837. A sequence of royal burials, beginning in 1843 with that of Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, ensured the cemetery’s popularity. It is still administered by the General Cemetery Company, assisted since 1989 by the Friends of Kensal Green.

Reasons for Listing

The monument to Frederick Albert Winsor is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Artistic interest: an unusual and impressive funerary monument, based on the heart monuments of the French royal family and executed to a high standard of craftsmanship;
* Historic interest: commemorates Frederick Albert Winsor, a pioneer of gas street lighting;
* Group value: with other listed monuments within the Grade I registered Kensal Green Cemetery.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27086882

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)