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Alfred the Great Statue, Alfred University
This statue of Alfred stands on the grounds of Alfred University (founded in 1836) in the town of Alfred, New York State. Built in 1990, it is inscribed “as a memorial to the Education King” – in reference to Alfred’s education reforms. These reforms include setting up a school for the sons of the nobility and hiring scholars to translate several key classical texts from Latin to English, allowing his subjects to read and learn from them. He also demanded his officeholders learn to read and write so that they could correspond with him and take his orders via letter.
The statue uniquely portrays Alfred without a beard, giving him the appearance of a younger man, perhaps even depicting him as a student, highlighted by the book in his right hand. Although the statue also alludes to his kingly duties, as evidenced by his wearing a crown and carrying a shield.
The statue is often dressed in a purple cloak, one of the university’s colours, and a pumpkin is traditionally placed upon its head during Halloween.
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Based on Wikipedia content that has been reviewed, edited, and republished.
Original image by Benjamin D. Esham. Uploaded by Michael McComb, published on 26 June 2025. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
