page_title: Simeon Monument
section_title: Completion
hierarchical_section_title: Simeon Monument / Completion
caption_attribution_description: English: Market Place, Reading, looking northwards to St. Laurence's Church, 1887. The Simeon Obelisk, designed by Sir John Soane, is garlanded to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. On the west side, Nos. 33 and 34 (J. S. Salmon and Son, tea dealers). On the east side, Nos. 21 and 20 (the Royal Standard Inn); Nos. 19 and 18 (the Elephant Inn); No. 17 (Frank Cooksey, estate agent); Nos. 16, 15, 14 and 13 (London and County Bank); Nos. 12 and 11 (Morris and Davis, tailors); No. 8 (Sutton and Sons, seedsmen); No. 7 (the "Reading Mercury" office); No. 6 (George Russell Butler, estate agent). Horse-drawn cabs wait in the middle of the road. 1880-1889&#160;; glass negative, Box 19 No. 6184, by H. W. Taunt.
context_page_description: The Simeon Monument, also known as the Soane Obelisk, the Soane Monument and the Simeon Obelisk, is a stone structure in Market Place, the former site of the market in Reading, Berkshire. It was commissioned by Edward Simeon, a Reading-born merchant who became extremely wealthy as a City of London trader. Edward Simeon's brother John Simeon was a former Member of Parliament for Reading who had lost his seat in the 1802 elections to the parliament of the newly created United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, since which time the family had been engaged in ostentatious spending locally in an effort to gain support among the town's voters. Although street lighting had been installed in Reading in 1797, the system used was one of lamps attached to the sides of buildings and as a consequence open spaces remained unlit. In 1804 Simeon persuaded the Mayor of Reading that it would be of benefit to erect a structure in Market Place, which would serve both to carry lamps to light the area and to improve the flow of traffic in the area, and volunteered to pay for such a structure himself.
  Simeon commissioned local architect John Soane to design a suitable structure.
context_section_description: There was no unveiling ceremony for the monument and the date its lamps were first lit is not recorded, but the stonework was complete by the time Soane inspected it on 3 September 1804. The first recorded mention of the completed monument comes in a report of a dinner hosted on 10 September 1804 by Reading's MP Charles Shaw-Lefevre, reporting that "Mr Monck was remarkably happy in his allusion to a certain newly erected monument, by observing that some gentlemen endeavoured to ingratiate themselves with the Electors by raising monuments of stone, and having their transitory names emblazoned on them in brass, but that his friend raised a more lasting monument, in the breasts and hearts of his constituents". The monument proved immediately controversial; a letter published in the Reading Mercury on 24 September accused Simeon of attempting to "bias the heads of the Borough in his favour by setting up in the market-place a paltry gew-gaw thing without use, or name", and stating that "Some denominate it an obelisk, others a pillar, but among the generality of the inhabitants it is called a p****** post". At this time the lamps were not yet in place, and it is possible that the anonymous critic (likely to have been local historian John Man) was not aware that the structure was intended as a lamp-post to illuminate the market, and thought that Simeon had erected the column as a monument to himself. The triangular base of the monument has shallow recesses on each side, the railings surrounding it had not yet been installed, and as the lamps were not yet operational these recesses would have offered a degree of privacy, so it is likely that the anonymous author was correct in asserting that at that time the structure was being used as an impromptu urinal.
  During the planning and construction of the monument, Edward Simeon had commissioned what he described as "a variety of experiments ... to produce the most effectual and brilliant light". On 17 January 1805, with the monument now in place, he wrote to George Gilbertson, the Mayor of Reading, advising that:
  The preference has to be given to burners containing 2 tiers of lights, 3 above and 4 below, each burner containing 36 threads of cotton, so that the 3 lamps are to give a light equal to 27 of the town lamps – as fully explained in the contract with Mr Owen who lights the town lamps – annual charge for lighting and cleaning the lamps £22-5-6. I enclose the bank receipt for £1000 3% – transferred to the mayor and Corporation. Ordered E. Simeon be presented with the freedom of this borough.
  The lamps themselves, along with their supports, were supplied by John Neville of Fleet Street in London. Neville died before being fully paid for the lamps and supports, and Simeon neglected to pay his heirs. On 18 August 1809, following Neville's death, his brother threatened to attach a second plaque to the structure reading "Edward Simeon Esq, of Salvadore House Accepted from William Neville of Fleet Street £20.9s.7d as a small donation towards the expense of erecting his obelisk in commemoration of his name for the work and expenses attending the same performed by his late brother John Neville 416 Strand London". In January 1810 Soane and Simeon each paid half of the outstanding sum to William Neville; Neville returned both cheques, requesting that Simeon donate his share of the sum to a local charity in Reading and that Soane keep his share to do with as he wished.
  While some welcomed the erection of the obelisk, others questioned its use and practicality, and were sceptical of Simeon's motives in funding it. Some felt its design was inappropriate, and as early as September 1804 an anonymous correspondent to the Reading Mercury described it as "A spruce pedestal of Wedgwood Ware, where motley arms and tawdry emblems glare", and sarcastically referred to the monument as "the eighth wonder of the world". John Man, describing Market Place in his 1810 A Stranger in Reading, wrote that:
  Nearly in the centre is a large stone lamp post, if such it may be called, of a triangular form, to corr
caption: The obelisk decorated for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, 1887
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