Thomas Thornycroft
Encyclopedia
Biography
Thomas Thornycroft was born near GawsworthGawsworth
Gawsworth is a civil parish and village in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is one of the eight ancient parishes of Macclesfield Hundred. Twenty acres of the civil parish were transferred to Macclesfield civil parish in 1936The country houses...
, Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
, the eldest son of John Thornycroft, a farmer. He was educated at Congleton
Congleton
Congleton is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, on the banks of the River Dane, to the west of the Macclesfield Canal and 21 miles south of Manchester. It has a population of 25,750.-History:The first settlements in...
Grammar School and then briefly apprenticed to a surgeon. He moved to London where he spent four years as an assistant to the sculptor John Francis
John Francis (sculptor)
-Life:He was born in Lincolnshire 3 September 1780, and was intended to go into farming. He settled in London from, where he became a pupil of Samuel Joseph and Francis Leggatt Chantrey. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1820 a bust of Thomas William Coke, and another of Captain Sir W....
. In 1840 he married Francis' daughter, Mary
Mary Thornycroft
Mary Thornycroft was a British sculptor and a member of the Thornycroft family.-Biography:The daughter of sculptor John Francis, she was born at Thornham, Norfolk...
, who was also a sculptor. One of their grandsons was the poet Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...
.
Thomas made an over-life-sized plaster equestrian statue of Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
for the Great Exhibition of 1851 which was much admired by the queen and by Prince Albert. He produced 50 bronze statuettes from this model and in 1868 a full-sized version for the exterior of St George's Hall, Liverpool, which was accompanied by a matching statue of Prince Albert. He made similar statues of the queen for Halifax
Halifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
in 1864 and for Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
in 1866. In 1867 Thornycroft was commissioned to carve in marble the group entitled Commerce for the Albert Memorial
Albert Memorial
The Albert Memorial is situated in Kensington Gardens, London, England, directly to the north of the Royal Albert Hall. It was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband, Prince Albert who died of typhoid in 1861. The memorial was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the...
. He also worked on a monumental equestrian statue of Boadicea
Boudica
Boudica , also known as Boadicea and known in Welsh as "Buddug" was queen of the British Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire....
and her Daughters. However this was not cast in bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
until 1902, 17 years after his death; it now stands on Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames between Westminster on the north side and Lambeth on the south side, in London, England....
, London.
In later life Thomas worked with his older son John Isaac Thornycroft
John Isaac Thornycroft
Sir John Isaac Thornycroft was a British shipbuilder, the founder of the Thornycroft shipbuilding company and member of the Thornycroft family.-Biography:He was born in 1843 to Mary Francis and Thomas Thornycroft....
(who was to become a shipbuilder) on designs for steam launches. He did design in 1875, together with Mary and another son, Hamo Thornycroft
Hamo Thornycroft
Sir William "Hamo" Thornycroft, RA was a British sculptor, responsible for several London landmarks.-Biography:...
, the Poet's Fountain, near Hyde Park Corner
Hyde Park Corner
Hyde Park Corner is a place in London, at the south-east corner of Hyde Park. It is a major intersection where Park Lane, Knightsbridge, Piccadilly, Grosvenor Place and Constitution Hill converge...
, London. Other works by Thornycroft are in the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
and in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
, London. He died in Brenchley
Brenchley
Brenchley is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.-History:The name is historically derived from Branca's Leigh. The parish is located east of Tunbridge Wells, and south of Paddock Wood, and includes the neighbouring village of Matfield...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
and is buried in Chiswick
Chiswick
Chiswick is a large suburb of west London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located on a meander of the River Thames, west of Charing Cross and is one of 35 major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with...
Old Church, Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
. His estate
Estate (law)
An estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...
was over £11,046.
Thomas Thornycroft's other works include:
- memorial to John Hamilton-Martin in St Michael's Church, LedburyLedburyLedbury is a town in Herefordshire, England, lying east of Hereford, and south of the Malvern Hills.Today, Ledbury is a thriving market town in rural England. The town has a large number of timber framed buildings, in particular along Church Lane and High Street. One of Ledbury's most outstanding...
(1857, with Mary) - statue of Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of WestminsterRichard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of WestminsterRichard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster KG, PC , styled Viscount Belgrave from 1802 to 1831 and Earl Belgrave from 1831 to 1845, was an English politician, landowner, property developer and benefactor....
in Grosvenor Park, ChesterGrosvenor Park, ChesterGrosvenor Park is a public park in the city of Chester, Cheshire, England . It consists of of land overlooking the River Dee. It is regarded as one of the finest and most complete examples of Victorian parks in the North West of England, if not nationally...
(1869)