Thomas Wolsey - Memorials

Memorials

• Before Wolsey was removed from power, he planned to make his home town of Ipswich a seat of learning. He built a substantial college, which for two years, 1528–1530, was parent of the Queen Elizabeth School or Ipswich Grammar School which today flourishes on another site. All that remains of the Wolsey structure is the former waterside gate, figured by Francis Grose in his Antiquities, which can still be seen in College Street.

• In 1930 Wolsey was commemorated in Ipswich with a substantial Pageant Play.

• He is far from forgotten in the town, an appeal having been launched in October 2009 to erect a statue there as a permanent commemoration. Arising from this project, a more-than-life-sized bronze statue to Cardinal Wolsey, shown seated facing south towards St Peter's Church (the former mediaeval Augustinian Priory Church of St Peter and St Paul, which Wolsey annexed as the chapel of his College of Ipswich), teaching from a book, with a familiar cat at his side, was unveiled from beneath a covering flag on 29 June 2011 near the site of the Wolsey home in St Nicholas Street, Ipswich. After a civic procession from the Tower Church, the image, created by sculptor David Annand, was dedicated by blessing in the name of the Holy Trinity by the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, and launched in the civic capacity by the Mayor of Ipswich, in the presence of a crowd of onlookers.