Person    | Male  Born 19/5/1815  Died 30/8/1885

Thomas Thornycroft

Categories: Sculpture

Sculptor. born Cheshire. Came to London in 1835 where he was apprenticed to John Francis and worked alongside another of Francis's apprentices, his daughter Mary, whom he married on 29 February 1840. Four of their children became artists or sculptors, including Hamo and Teresa, a painter who had three children including Siegfried Sassoon. Thomas's eldest son, John Isaac became a naval architect. It was Mary's work which sustained the family financially. The only surviving public sculptures by Thomas himself in London of which we are aware are the Commerce group on the Albert Memorial and the Boudicca statue, but even that was actually a joint production by the Thornycroft family.

He was an amateur engineer and late in life assisted his son John to design steam launches (we wonder if that "assisted" should be in quotes). The Thornycroft marriage appears to have been happy, but one has to admire Mary: a Victorian wife who brought up six children, carried on a successful career as a sculptor, and taught her skills to the royal princesses including Princess Louise. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography recounts this significant story from their granddaughter: "Thomas Thornycroft had been known to cut the heads off Mary's clay models, ostensibly to position them better, but provoking exasperated cries of ‘Only tell me! Thorny, only tell me!’ from his wife as she tried to protect her works". Our hearts go out to her.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
Thomas Thornycroft

Creations i

Boadicea/Boudicca/Boudica

The horses look totally out of control to us; no wonder the two daughters loo...

Read More

Fame - from Poets’ Fountain

The statue glistens with recent gilding. This was first done in 2002 in honou...

Read More

Poets’ Fountain - Chaucer, Shakespeare & Milton

The seated figures represent the three Muses; the standing figures, the three...

Read More

Other Subjects

Peter Peri

Peter Peri

Born in Hungary as Ladislas Weisz. Moved to Berlin in the 1920s and became, the less Jewish-sounding, Laszlo Peri. He and his wife Mary were active Communists and so had to leave Germany in 1933 an...

Person, Sculpture, Hungary

3 memorials
Henry Moore

Henry Moore

Sculptor Born Castleford, Yorkshire. For his work at 55 Broadway see Ornamental Passions and for a little-known piece from 1953, on the Time-Life building in Bond Street see Ornamental Passions. 2...

Person, Sculpture

2 memorials
Michael Rysbrack

Michael Rysbrack

Also known as John Michael or Johannes Michel or Jan Michiel Rysbrach or Rijsbrack. Born Antwerp (which probably explains the confusion). Sculptor of busts and funerary monuments of many prominent...

Person, Sculpture, Belgium

4 memorials
Newbury Abbot Trent

Newbury Abbot Trent

Sculptor.  Born Forest Gate.  His cousin was a cinema architect which probably explains a number of theatrical commissions.  Married Hilda, sister of Gilbert Ledward.  Other work in London includes...

Person, Sculpture

2 memorials
Charles Samuel Kelsey

Charles Samuel Kelsey

His father, James Kelsey, was also a sculptor.

Person, Sculpture

1 memorial

Previously viewed

Alderman T. J. Boyce

Alderman T. J. Boyce

Member of Housing Committee, Diss Street 1922.

Person, Politics & Administration

2 memorials
Sir Francis Burdett

Sir Francis Burdett

Born Derbyshire. Inherited the baronetcy from his grandfather. Married an heir of the Coutts banking family. From the ODNB: "When in London, the Burdetts lived at 1 Stratton Street (the home of Tho...

Person, Politics & Administration

1 memorial