sir william goscombe john·1860 - 1952

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use the down arrow to view option ========================= link to further material not in books ========================= ---------- section b ---------- bacon, john [BWM] baily, edward hodges [BWM] baker, sir herbert [Rem] behnes, william [BWM] bell, john [BWM] belsky, franta [BWM] binyon, laurence [Rem] blomfield, sir reginald [Rem] blunden, edmund [Rem] boehm, sir edgar [BWM] brock, sir thomas [BWM] butler, james [BWM] burdett-coutts, william [Rem] burnet, sir john james [Rem] ========================= ---------- section c ---------- chantrey, sir francis [BWM] churchill, sir winston [Rem] cockerell, professor charles [BWM] comper, sir ninian [BWM] ========================= ---------- section d ---------- derwent wood, professor francis [Rem] dick, sir william reid [BWM] drury, alfred [BWM] ========================= ---------- section e ---------- epstein, sir jacob [BWM] ========================= ---------- section f ---------- flaxman, professor john [BWM] frampton, sir george [BWM] ========================= ---------- section g ---------- gill, eric [BWM] gleichen, count victor [BWM] goscombe john, sir william [BWM] gotto, captain basil [BWM] ========================= ---------- section h ---------- haig, field marshall earl douglas [Rem] hepworth, philip [Rem] holden, charles [Rem] hutton, john [Rem] ========================= ---------- section j ---------- jackson, philip [BWM] jagger, charles sargeant [Rem] jones, captain adrian [BWM] ========================= ---------- section k ---------- kennington, eric [BWM] kenyon, colonel sir frederic [Rem] kipling, joseph rudyard [Rem] ========================= ---------- section l ---------- lafontaine, colonel cart de [Rem] lantéri, professor édouard [BWM] ledward, professor gilbert [BWM] lewis, sir robert [Rem] lloyd george, earl dwyfor - om [Rem] lorimer, sir robert [Rem] lutyens, sir edwin - om [Rem] ========================= ---------- section m ---------- mackenall, sir bertram [BWM] mallock, vivien [BWM] marochetti, baron carlo [BWM] marsh, sir edward howard [Rem] maufe, sir edward [Rem] mcmillan, william [BWM] melchett, lord [Rem] millington, major tasman [Rem] mills, john w [BWM] mond, sir alfred [Rem] ========================= ---------- section n ---------- nash, john [BWM] nightingale, florence - om [Rem] ========================= ---------- section 0 ---------- orpen, sir william [Rem] owen, wilfred [Rem] ========================= ---------- section p ---------- pegram, henry alfred [BWM] poole, henry [Rem] ========================= ---------- section r ---------- reid dick, sir william [BWM] roberts-jones, ivor [BWM] rosenburg, isaac [Rem] ========================= ---------- section s ---------- sassoon, siegfried [Rem] shepheard, sir peter [Rem] singer sargent, john [Rem] soissons, louis de [Rem] spencer, sir stanley [BWM] ========================= ---------- section t ---------- thornycroft, sir (william) hamo [BWM] toft, albert [BWM] turner, alfred [BWM] tweed, john [BWM] ========================= ---------- section w ---------- wade, george [BWM] ware, major general sir fabian [Rem] webb, sir aston [BWM] westmacott, sir richard [BWM] wheeler, sir charles [BWM] winter, faith [BWM] wood, francis derwent [BWM] worthington, sir hubert [Rem]

William John was born in Cardiff on 21 February 1860. His father was a stone mason and woodcarver employed by Lord Bute on the restoration of Cardiff Castle. William was trained in his art at Cardiff and later in London with Thomas Nicholls and C B Birch ARA at the City and Guilds School in Kennington. He assumed the name Goscombe from the name of a Gloucestershire village near his mother's old home.

“In 1889 he was awarded the Royal Academy Gold Medal and Travelling Studentship. He took a studio in Paris and made the acquaintance of Rodin”

He entered the Academy Schools in 1884 and first exhibited there two years later. He would produce a large body of work, much of it highly original in conception. In 1889 he was awarded the Royal Academy Gold Medal and Travelling Studentship. He took a studio in Paris and made the acquaintance of Rodin.

He returned to London in 1891. His works included: Morpheus (1892) - Mention Honourable at the Paris Salon of 1892, Girl binding her hair (1893); St John the Baptist (1894); winner of the Gold Medal at the Paris International Exhibition 1900; Boy at Play (1895); The Elf (1898) (his Diploma Work); Joyance (1899). Dean Vaughan at Llandaff Cathedral; The Seventh Duke of Devonshire at Eastbourne (Gold Medal at the Paris Salon 1901); the equestrian statue of King Edward VII at Liverpool, Lord Tredegar at Cardiff (1909); Lord Minto Calcutta (1913); King Edward VII Cape Town; King George V and Queen Mary at Liverpool; Queen Alexandra at Sandringham Church; Prince Christian Victor at Windsor; the Duke of Beaufort at Badminton; Thomas Sutton at Charterhouse; David Lloyd George at Caernarfon and Sir Stanley Maude (1921) at Baghdad.

He also produced memorials to the Marquess of Salisbury in Westminster Abbey and Hatfield Church; the Earl of Cromer in Westminster Abbey and Cairo Cathedral and Sir Arthur Sullivan in both St Paul's Cathedral and in Victoria Embankment Gardens (1903). He designed the Memorial Altar in Hereford Cathedral and produced portrait busts of Carnegie; Edmund Gosse and Earl Kitchener. He designed the regalia used at the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon in 1911. ‘John's art may be described as a compound of realism and romanticism; it is illustrative, but inspired by fancy rather than imagination. His style underwent little change throughout his long life, apart from a broadening in the treatment of portrait busts. Most of these were in bronze, but in bronze and marble alike he was a convincing portrayer of character and showed notable ability to render the soft surfaces of skin and hair.'

‘He was particularly active as a war memorial sculptor after both the Boer and First World Wars, specialising in dramatic compositions. Several of these memorials are naturally enough in his homeland of Wales, but his masterpieces were in Newcastle and Port Sunlight, where he provided two of the finest sculptural ensembles on any British monuments.' He produced the Royal Army Medical Corps Boer War Memorial (1905) at Aldershot, the gilt bronze relief Coldstream Guards Boer War Memorial (1904) in St Paul's Cathedral, London and the Journalists Boer War Memorial also in St Paul's. During and after the Great War he produced the King's Liverpool Regiment Memorial at Liverpool, the Royal Welch Fusiliers Memorial at Wrexham and The Engine Room Heroes (1916) at Liverpool Pier Head.

A proud Welshman, Goscombe John also sculpted the war memorials at Lampeter, Llandaff, Carmarthen and Penarth. In 1916 he produced Saint David Blessing the People in marble for Cardiff City Hall and in 1918 the bronze statue of Field Marshal Wolseley on Horse Guards Parade Ground. A considerable body of his work is in the collection of the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.

Goscombe John designed the Jubilee Medal of King George V (1935) and the Great Seal of King Edward VIII (1936). He was elected ARA in 1899, MRBS in 1905, RA in 1909 and knighted at Bangor in 1911. He was elected FRBS in 1928 and HRBS in 1952. He was awarded the Honorary Freedom of Cardiff in 1936 and the Gold Medal of the RBS in 1942. He died in London on 15 December 1952.