Thomas Duckett Senior

Thomas Duckett Senior or Thomas Duckett I (1804-1878[1]) was an English sculptor

Life

Born in Claughton, Wyre, he was apprenticed to a plasterer before working in Lancaster as a wood carver.[1][2] Next he was employed by the sculpture firm Franceys and Spence in Liverpool then the architectural and sculptural firm of Francis Webster and Sons in Kendal.[1]

He set up his own studio around 1844 in Preston, Lancashire, with tomb monuments and busts forming most of his output.[1] That town commissioned a statue of Robert Peel from him in 1850, now in Winckley Square in the town,[3] though he failed to win the competitions for Leeds' Wellington Monument and another Peel monument in Bolton, Lancashire.[1] His works are well-represented in Preston's Harris Art Gallery.[1]

He and his wife are both interred in the cemetery in New Hall Lane Cemetery, with a monument that has a head on each elevation, possibly carved or at least designed by Duckett himself.[1][4] Their son Thomas Duckett Junior was also a sculptor.

Bibliography

  • Art Journal, 1878, pp. 169, 207
  • D.A. Cross, Public Sculpture of Lancashire and Cumbria, Liverpool, 2017, pp. xi, 63, 107–08, 169
  • C. Hartwell and N. Pevsner, Lancashire: North (The Buildings of England), New Haven and London, 2009, pp. 237, 240, 410, 468, 505, 523, 707
  • K. Johnson, Preston through Time, Stroud, 2011, p. 76
  • Preston Chronicle:
    • 6 September 1845
    • 22 November 1845
    • 15 April 1854
    • 9 January 1858
    • 11 June 1859
    • 21 January 1860
    • 12 March 1862
    • 19 March 1864
    • 1 April 1865
    • 19 March 1870
    • 16 February 1878
  • I. Roscoe et al., A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660–1851, New Haven and London, 2009, pp. 378–79
  • A. Taylor (ed. J. Martin), The Websters of Kendal. A Northwestern Dynasty, Kendal, 2004, pp. 51–52, 60

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "PSSA UK entry".
  2. ^ "Thomas Duckett 1803-1878". Winckley Square Gardens.
  3. ^ "Thomas Duckett of Preston (1805-1878)".
  4. ^ "Sculptor Thomas Duckett's Gravestone". Preston History Map Website.