I left you with a cliffhanger on Monday, with my post about the WD Stephens fountain. I’m sure you haven’t slept since!

I told you that the placement of the WD Stephens fountain had required another one to be moved out its way… and this is the fountain that had to move:

A 1889 granite tribute to Edwin Dodd Colvill, located just up the road from the WD Stephens fountain. The text reads:

This fountain was presented to the city of Newcastle by Miss Caroline Sophia Russell Colvill in loving remembrance of her brother the late Edwin Dodd Colvill who was for upwards ????? years well and honourably known in Newcastle.

In the section below that, I can make out the words ‘Mayor’, ‘Stephens Esq’ and ‘1888’. Since we know from the WD Stephens fountain that he was the mayor in 1888, I suspect this recorded the commissioning or unveiling of the statue.

Below that, although there are a lot of missing letters, I’m fairly sure there is a quote from Matthew 25:

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Perhaps undermining the inscription, unfortunately nobody seems to know anything but the barest details of Colvill’s life—he may have been well known at the time, but he isn’t any more, which is, I suppose, a fate to which we all succumb eventually, fountain or none.