“we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone – an image made by human design or skill.”

 

Acts 17:29

 

Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey

At the age of sixteen, he began work with a grocer in Sheffield. He was, however, more interested in the shop opposite belonging to Mr Ramsay, a carver and guilder who also dealt in prints and plaster models. Chantrey was apprenticed to Mr Ramsay and soon began to flourish and, by meeting other artists, began to receive formal training.

He went to the school of the Royal Academy in London, before returning to Sheffield as a portrait painter in 1802. Many people went to him to have their portraits in crayon. However, painting was not really his greatest love, and he returned to London and was admitted to the Royal Academy to study further. He then returned to Sheffield as a sculptor, and his first commission in marble was a bust of the Rev James Wilkinson, vicar of Sheffield.

After some time, Chantrey returned to London, and his career took off. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1804 and again in 1805, and then his fame grew, and he created huge busts of Howe, St. Vincent, Duncan and Nelson for the Greenwich Naval Asylum, a bust of William Pitt for Trinity House, and a statue of King George III for the City of London.

His works included sculptures of many famous people including Wellington, Watt, Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, and four monarchs ranging from King George III to Queen Victoria. Perhaps his most famous work is ‘The Sleeping Children’ in Lichfield Cathedral.

Chantrey died on 25 November 1841. He could have been buried at Westminster Abbey alongside other great people, but chose instead to be buried in his hometown, and at his beloved St James the Great parish church in Norton.

‘The Sleeping Children’ by Chantrey at Lichfield Cathedral