Introduction

This special issue on Westminster Abbey’s sculptural monuments in the long eighteenth century originates from a conference held at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds on 17 July 2024. The introduction provides an overview of some key themes that emerged from the live conversations at this conference and have now transitioned into article form. It establishes the methodological innovation of studying intersections between monuments to uncover how individual objects relate to each other within and beyond the abbey pantheon. The introduction outlines key trends in the limited scholarship on the abbey and the monuments to date, positioning this issue as straddling multiple fields including institutional histories of Westminster Abbey, eighteenth-century British sculptural studies, church monument studies, cultural pantheon studies and historical guidebooks. This outline notes the absence of specialist scholarship on the monumental pantheon which this issue addresses, highlighting comparatively under-researched monuments explored for the first time and identifying where this issue provides new insights into monuments that have enjoyed some previous attention. The introduction also provides an overview of the main history and developments of the eighteenth-century abbey pantheon. This overview is framed between two state-sponsored commemorations of nationally renowned naval figures – Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson. Comparing these two commemorations exemplifies the abbey’s material, sociopolitical and reputational transformations between 1706 and 1806 which established the foundations of the present-day pantheon.