Richard Trevithick’s Monument to the Reform Act

Illustration of Richard Trevithick’s Monument to the Reform Act proposal, which included a 1,000-foot tower of gilded cast-iron panels. The project is shown next to a few other landmarks in London, and shows just how tall it would’ve been had it been built.

This is Richard Trevithick’s Monument to the Reform Act, proposed in 1832 for a site somewhere in London. It was meant to be 1,000 feet (304 meters) tall, and it would’ve towered over the entire cityscape at the time. It’s one of a few tower proposals that aimed for the landmark 1,000-foot height, long before the Eiffel Tower made it a reality in 1889.

Richard Trevithick was an engineer from Cornwall, England, who built his career as a railroad engineer and mining consultant. He enjoyed much success, designing the world’s first high-pressure steam engine and the world’s first steam locomotive, among various other innovations. In the twilight of his career, he turned his head skyward and proposed the record-breaking needle tower pictured above.

The design included a tall, slender shaft made of gilded cast-iron modules, each ten feet square with a six-foot circular opening in the center. The circular openings would reduce the wind load on the tower and acted as daylighting for the interior. At the base was a four-sided temple-front which created an open portico around the column. At the top was an equestrian statue. Inside, Trevithick included a central column which housed a platform lift, allowing visitors to ascend to the summit to view their city from above.

Plan and section of Richard Trevithick’s Monument to the Reform Act proposal. The design was rather simple, with a hollow conical shaft that rose 1,000 feet above the city, and an internal lift that would take visitors to the summit.

All-in-all, it’s a rather simple design, and if it was built it would’ve been amazing to behold. The massive column, shining with a golden hue, would’ve towered above London and acted as an instant landmark for the city and it’s surroundings. On the inside, the delicate, porous walls would’ve shined with a similar golden hue, creating a warm, glowing atmosphere from all the openings. Structurally, the self-supporting modular wall panels are a bit naïve, but all that would’ve been sorted out had the project been developed further.

Trevithick was successful at building interest for his design, and at one point he got the king to acknowledge the proposal. Multiple meetings were held to discuss the project, and there was a time when it seemed possible he could get it built. Sadly, he died early in 1833, and all the interest he built up died along with him.[1]

Trevithick’s tower is one of myriad examples throughout history of an individual from an unrelated field who got the itch to tackle verticality. After all, he could’ve just designed a monumental column or statue to commemorate the Reform Act. This wasn’t enough, however; he went two steps further and designed the tallest building in the world, and he let the public experience that height by ascending it. Something was going on here beyond the monument itself. Trevithick was tapping into his primal need to escape the surface of the Earth. It’s just a shame he didn’t get to build his gilded tower, because it would’ve dominated the skyline of London, and it would’ve been the tallest building in the city until the Shard got built in 2012.

Check out other unbuilt designs here.


[1]: Jenkins, Frank I.. “Harbingers of Eiffel’s Tower.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 16, no. 4 (1957): 22-29.