Thomas Thornycroft

Biography

Thornycroft was born at Great Tidnock, near Gawsworth, Cheshire, the eldest son of John Thornycroft, a farmer. He was educated at Congleton 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. In 1840 he married Francis' daughter, Mary, who was also a sculptor.

In 1843 he exhibited Medea about to Slay her Children at the exhibition held at Westminster Hall, held to choose sculptors to make works for the new Houses of Parliament. It led to a commission to make two bronze statues of barons who signed the Magna Carta for the House of Lords.

For the Great Exhibition of 1851 Thornycroft made an over-life-sized plaster equestrian statue of Queen Victoria which was much admired by the queen herself and by Prince Albert.

He made several memorials to Prince Albert following his death in 1861. The first to be completed was an equestrian sculpture at Halifax, He went on to create similar works for Wolverhampton and Liverpool. The one at Liverpool, commissioned in 1862 but not completed until five years later, was soon paired with an equestrian portrait of Queen Victoria (1869), the pose based on the earlier bronze statuette.

In 1867 Thornycroft was commissioned to make the marble group entitled Commerce for the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens in London. she is shown standing on a column, encouraging a young merchant who stands at her side, while a crouching figure brings her corn, and another, bearded and wearing a turban, offers a box of jewels. George Gilbert Scott, the designer of the memorial thought the concept was "too complicated and artificial".

Thornycroft also worked on a monumental representation of Boadicea and Her Daughters, The figures are shown in a chariot with scythed wheels, drawn by two horses.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1839 and 1874.

In later life Thornycroft worked with his elder son John Isaac Thornycroft (who was to become a shipbuilder) on designs for steam launches,

In 1875, together with Mary and another son, Hamo Thornycroft, he designed the Poets' Fountain, near Hyde Park Corner, London. Other works by Thornycroft are in the Old Bailey and in Westminster Abbey, London. Through his daughter, Teresa, he was the grandfather of the poet Siegfried Sassoon. Thornycroft died in Brenchley, Kent, and was buried in Chiswick Old Church, Middlesex. His estate was over £11,046.

His other works include:

• Statue of George Benjamin Thorneycroft, first Mayor of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton (1856).
• Memorial to John Hamilton-Martin in St Michael's Church, Ledbury (1857, with Mary).
• Statue of Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster in Grosvenor Park, Chester (1869).

References

Bibliography

References

1. "Thomas Thornycroft". University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII.
2. Mark Stocker, 'Thornycroft, Thomas (1815–1885)', ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', [[Oxford University Press]], Sep. 2004 online edition, Oct. 2006 [https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27369], accessed 2 January 2009
3. (1864). "Portraits of Men of Eminence, with Biographical Memoirs". Lowell Reeve and Co.
4. "Queen Victoria on horseback". Victoria and Albert Museum.
5. "The Prince Albert statue/". Calderdale Council.
6. Bayley 1983, p.23
7. Bayley 1983, p.91
8. Groves, Linden. (2004). "Historic Parks & Gardens of Cheshire". Landmark.