John Gibbs

John Gibbs was a British Gothic Revival architect based in Wigan, Manchester, and Oxford, England. Life John Gibbs was initially in Oxford but he moved to Wigan in the 1850s and then Manchester in the north of England. In 1858, he proposed a memorial fountain to commemorate Alfred the Great (purported to be the founder of Oxford University for many years) to be located in the centre of the wide Broad Street, southeast of St Giles', but it was never completed. The current Banbury Cross was erected in 1859 to a design of Gibbs at the centre of Banbury, Oxfordshire, in commemoration of the marriage of Queen Victoria's eldest daughter to Prince Frederick of Prussia. It is a stone, spire-shaped monument decorated in Gothic form. The cross is 52 feet 6 inches high and is topped with a gilt cross. Statues surrounding the cross were added later in 1911.