[1][2] He was a keen student of classical sculpture and was one of the youngest artists to be elected to the Royal Academy, in 1882, the same year the bronze cast of Teucer was purchased for the British nation under the auspices of the Chantrey Bequest.

While a student, Thornycroft assisted his father, Thomas, on the monumental sculptural group Boadicea and Her Daughters, later installed beside Westminster Bridge in London.

[3] After 1884, Thornycroft's reputation was secure and he won commissions for a number of major monuments, most notably the innovative General Gordon in Trafalgar Square and since moved to Victoria Embankment Gardens.

[10] Thornycroft's frieze, carved between 1889 and 1893, includes a series of figures representing Arts, Sciences, Crafts, Education, Commerce, Manufacture, Agriculture, Mining, Railways, Shipping, India, the Colonies, and Building.

[4] Thornycroft exhibited The Kiss, a large ideal piece he had worked on for three years, at the Royal Academy in 1916, and received a standing ovation from his fellow artists when it was unveiled.

[4] Thornycroft's last major work was the tomb effigy of Bishop Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs which was shown at the Royal Academy in 1925 and subsequently installed in Coventry Cathedral.

A blue plaque commemorates Thornycroft at 2b Melbury Road, Kensington,[13] his studio designed by his lifelong friend the architect John Belcher, c. 1892.

At a dinner in 1889, Agatha was introduced to Thomas Hardy, who later described her as "the most beautiful woman in England" and admitted that she was one of the models for the title character in his novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles.