A grand monument to Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Lloyd (1751–1828) stands in a side chapel of Leeds parish church. Commissioned by former members of the Leeds Volunteer Infantry, the memorial was completed by the prominent sculptor Joseph Gott in 1834. Lloyd’s bust is styled in the classical funereal fashion of the time, with his hair and pose echoing the virtues of Roman statesmen. Two officers stand alongside, dressed elegantly in their military uniforms, their heads bowed in mourning and prayer. The epitaph resting between them extols the ‘social virtues’ of ‘the English Gentleman’ by giving a hagiography of Lloyd’s public life:

Here was an education in modern chivalry, patriotism and more importantly, loyalism, in material form. The surviving former volunteers who commissioned the monument were not just concerned with remembrance of their leader and his past achievements, but also ‘to hand down his bright example to future ages’.

In some respects, there was nothing particularly unusual about Lloyd’s monument. Cathedrals, parish churches and town halls are full of this late Georgian statuary. Indeed, in Manchester Cathedral, or the Collegiate Church as it was then, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Taylor (1772–1820) is commemorated by a marble plaque. It is smaller and more simple and restrained than Lloyd’s sculpture. Situated on the left-hand side of the entrance to the north aisle of the choir, the memorial’s position indicated the respect given to and respectability of this gentleman from a modest estate in nearby Moston. Taylor raised, financed and commanded the regiment of Manchester and Salford Volunteer Rifles and acted as justice of the peace.