William John commissioned Giovanni Belzoni, a famed adventurer of the day, to take on the task. But soon after the obelisk had been moved to the edge of the Nile, its support failed and it began to sink into the riverbed.
When the obelisk eventually arrived in England, the Duke of Wellington, whom William John knew from his military service, offered his gun carriage for its onward transportation to Dorset. And the obelisk’s connection with the Duke doesn’t end there. An inscription at the bottom confirms that he chose where it was to be finally positioned in Kingston Lacy’s grounds, and laid the foundation stone in August 1827.