Lord Belfast
Patrick McDowell
Bronze
1855
City Hall, Belfast
Sir Edward James Harland was Belfast's leading shipbuilder, and his Harland and
The so-called "Black Man" statue of the Young Earl of Belfast, which now resides in City Hall, was originally paid for by public subscription and placed in front of the Academical Institution. A statue of Dr. Henry Cooke (1788-1868), leader of Belfast's Evangelical Presbyterians, replaced McDowell's work, which depicts the second son of the third Marquis of Donegall. The Romantic youth was a poet, novelist, and composer who died in Naples of scarlet fever at the age of 25. His sister, Harriet, married the eighth Earl of Shaftesbury in 1857, and thereby restored the family fortunes.
Photograph and text by Philip V. Allingham 2006.