This memorial, designed by Joseph Durham, with modifications by Sydney Smirke, has occupied its present site since the early 1890's. Before then it stood further to the south, where the carriageway of Prince Consort Road now lies, surmounting a water-cascade in the garden of the Royal Horticultural Society. It was unveiled in June 1863, when The Art Journal, whose editor was a member of the building committee, remarked that 'the history of this Memorial of the Great Exhibition and its illustrious Founder need not be written—and never will be!' The records of the committee in question have not come to light. In their absence no full account of the memorial's history of dissension can in fact be given.
The foundations of the memorial were begun in July 1861. In that same summer the Queen's statue was substituted for Britannia. The Art Journal in October called Durham's figure 'a noble work'. The intention to execute the statuary in marble had been abandoned, probably at an early date, and the figure was to be cast in bronze. In the Queen's left hand an orb of glass bore a dove of aluminium.
But in December the Prince died. Within a few days, in a letter to the Horticultural Society, the Prince of Wales declared the Queen's wish that Prince Albert's statue should replace her own, and his own wish to make a gift of his father's statue to the Society. Durham was retained for the task but was required to consult with a committee of six—three sculptors, Marochetti, Foley and Westmacott, and Smirke, Godwin and Grey. By October the work was far enough advanced for The Art Journal to praise Durham's likeness of the Prince. The Art Journal also admired Durham's relentless detailing—'there is no evading that which would be difficult in modelling and composition, and, of course, expensive in carving—the lines are decided where required, and for the effect there is no want of darks and half-lights...'
The memorial was unveiled, with great ceremony, on 10 June 1863. Journals recorded that the materials of the pedestal were red Aberdeen and grey Cornish (Cheesewring) granite, and that the statues were of electro-typed bronze by Messrs Elkington of Birmingham. This process was one in which the Prince Consort had had great faith, according to Gilbert Scott, who thought it looked 'exceedingly well'.
In accordance with Marochetti's advice the Prince was represented in the robes of the Bath (freely interpreted). Durham's acquaintance, Sir William Hardman, thought the 'tights and boots in the Robin Hood style . . . the only objectionable part of the figure.'
When the Royal Horticultural Society's garden was abolished to make way, at its northern end, for Prince Consort Road, the memorial was moved, c. 1891–3, to its present position. In 1898–9 the 1851 Commissioners had the present terrace constructed around it over vaults, by Higgs and Hill (with a pavement laid by Italian workmen), at a cost of £12,000. The memorial is still owned by the Commissioners.