William Goscombe John

Sir William Goscombe John (21 February 1860 – 15 December 1952 Although as a young man he adopted the first name Goscombe, taken from the name of a village in Gloucestershire near his mother's home, he was actively engaged with his native Wales and Welsh culture throughout his career.

Biography Early life and career John was born in the Canton area of Cardiff, the eldest son of Thomas John, a wood carver from Llantrithyd and Elizabeth (née Smith), from Randwick, Gloucestershire.

As a youth John assisted his father in the restoration of Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch during 1874 which was being overseen by William Burges. He initially studied in his home town, attending the Cardiff School of Art throughout the 1870s and also took anatomy classes from a local painter. John then studied at the South London School of Technical Art under Jules Dalou and William Silver Frith and then at the Royal Academy Schools, where he won the gold medal and a travelling scholarship in 1887. Following the success of Morpheus, John created a series of exhibition pieces that embraced the naturalistic style of the New Sculpture movement and cemented his reputation. The Elf was highly praised when shown at the Royal Academy in 1898 and was subsequently reproduced both in bronze and marble to become among John's most popular works.

Before the outbreak of the First World War, John had been commissioned to create a memorial to the 244 engineers who had died with the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912. The monument consists of a cross on an octagonal base on an elevated podium. There are large bronze sculptural groups with a total of 11 figures and 12 relief panels on the podium. The main sculpture group shows three soldiers, one shielding a child and one lying wounded with a figure of a nurse approaching him. In bronze, John created a procession of deep-relief figures representing the volunteers and those they were leaving behind. The procession is led a winged angel, an allegory of renown, blowing a horn above two drummer boys followed by uniformed soldiers and men in civilian clothes, some of whom are saying goodbye to women and children. From 1892 John lived at Greville Road, Kilburn, London (in a house that had previously belonged to Seymour Lucas), and is buried in Hampstead Cemetery. The memorial statue of his wife, which he designed when she died in 1923, was stolen from the cemetery in 2001 and recovered after a few months; it was then put into storage, but was stolen again in 2007.

Public monuments and memorials 1890–1899

1900–1909

1910–1919

1920–1929

1930 and later

Other works

John exhibited medals on at least seven occasions at the Royal Academy between 1898 and 1918. During his career John also produced medals and seals for several organisations in Wales. These included medal designs for the Cardiff School of Art and the Welsh Nursing Association plus seals for the National Museum Wales, the Merthyr Tydfil Corporation and the Church of Wales. For the National Eisteddfod Association he designed a medal with bardic images. Figures of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra on the facade of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1906. Designed the regalia for the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon in 1911. Memorial relief to Canon Guy D.D, (1897) in Llandaff Cathedral. Bust of the artist John Macallan Swan. Bust of Frederick Stanley, Earl of Derby in Preston Town Hall. Bust of Lewis Morris, exhibited in 1899 at the Royal Academy. Marble statue of Sir John Woodburn, erected Uttar Pradesh 1906, placed in storage at the Uttar Pradesh State Museum during 1958–59