BPC00441
Aquatint engraving drawn by A S, printed and published by W Leppard.
The arch was erected in Marlborough Place, at the southern end as it joins Church Street and just before the entrance to the Pavilion Grounds, where two years later William IV was to have the North Gate built.
The arch was 50 feet high and wide and illuminated at night by 4,000 lamps. It had five viewing tiers each side, holding alternately men and women celebrating the royal arrival, then one central tier at the top, and three men are depicted starting to climb the central flagpole.
There was a larger lithograph of this arch published at the same time by C J Scott of West Street. Hand-written manuscript at the base of this particular copy reads: ‘and on the same day arrived from Hill Cottage, near Derby, Mary Milford Wayne, aged nine months, with her father and mother on a visit to her Grandfather and Grandmother Milford’. Mary was born in November 1829, her father, a blacksmith, was William Henery and her mother was Jane Milford. In the 1851 census the family lived in Much Wenlock, Derbyshire. Mary moved to Devon after the 1861 census, and died there in the first quarter of 1869, aged 39 and unmarried.
This copy of the print must have been purchased from William Leppard by Mary’s parents, Henery and Jane, as a memento of the family’s visit to Brighton. It’s unusual for an engraving to have a provenance that goes back to the day it was purchased.
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