Henry Cheere

Sir Henry Cheere, 1st Baronet (1703 – 15 January 1781) was an English sculptor and monumental mason.

Born in Clapham, Surrey (now part of London), he was the son of Sarah and John Cheere (d.1756).

He purchased property in the area surrounding the Abbey and took on civic offices including acting as a director of the Westminster Fire Office (in 1745–47 and 1760–62), Controller of Duties for the Free Fish Market of Westminster (from 1749), Justice of the Peace (c. 1750)[2] and deputy lieutenant for the county of Middlesex.

[1] In July 1748, Cheere joined William Hogarth and other artist friends, including Thomas Hudson, Joseph and Alexander Van Aken and Francis Hayman, on a trip to Paris, and then on to Flanders and the Netherlands.

[5] According to the Pevsner Buildings of England series guides, Henry Cheere was "the first English-born sculptor to match the virtuosity of the continentals" and "formed his style on the small, crisp, curvaceous shapes of the French sculptor [Roubiliac], though his monuments never approached Roubiliac's in ease and inventiveness.