John Webb Singer
John Webb Singer (23 February 1819 – 6 May 1904) was an English businessman who created a substantial art foundry in Frome, Somerset, known for its statuary and ecclesiastical products.
In that same year he moved into 25 Market Place,[7] a larger and more public display for his watchmaking business, at the same time as providing workshops for his church work and living quarters for himself and soon afterwards his family.
[10] In his obituary in the Somerset Standard in 1904 it was stated that over 600 churches were lit by candle, oil and gas, including Bristol Cathedral, on fixtures from his foundry.
[11] In 1866, Singer acquired a new permanent site for a factory in Cork Street, setting up a new furnace and recruiting craftsmen from Belgium, France and Switzerland.
Among these new recruits were sand-moulders; their skills were deployed in castings for the ecclesiastical side of the business, but then proved invaluable when statuary was requested when sand-casting was essential.
"Mr J W Singer, of the Market Place, Froome, has been engaged, for the last twelve years, in the manufacture of medieval metal work, in silver, brass, and iron, which has been principally employed for ecclesiastical purposes.
He wanted to apprentice pupils from the Frome Blue Coat School, needing artist craftsmen, skilled in creative design and not just in mechanical production.
The project ultimately failed under economic pressures; he was innovating well in advance of the Arts & Crafts Movement under the leadership of Morris and Ruskin.
In 1902 his educational foresight led to the School of Art and Science, built in Park Road, which ultimately formed the core of the later Technical College.
As a former pupil of the Blue School, he gave money for boys to learn swimming at the newly opened Victoria Jubilee Public Baths.
[19] His daughter, Amy Mary (1862-1941) was the artist of the Digby Memorial[20] in Sherborne, Dorset: this is an ornate stone cross with four bronze figures of St Aldhelm, Bishop Roger, Abbot Bradford and Walter Raleigh.
[25] In 1889 in St John's Church Amy married Fountain Elwin[26] who had exhibited a sculpture at the RA; he was a direct descendant of Pocahontas.
In 1888 Singer was invited to attend a meeting of leading sculptors, including Hamo Thornycroft, Onslow Ford and Thomas Brock, who were concerned about the quality of work of British foundries compared with those of France or Belgium.
Singer then cast a large equestrian statue by Hems of William III for the Clifton Street Orange Hall in Belfast.
Onslow Ford created the plaster form; it had highly complex elements: a refined face, ornamented jacket, a rattan cane, intricate saddlebag tassels and the camel's harness, all requiring the 'lost wax' method.
A copy by another bronze founder once stood in Khartoum; shortly after Sudan achieved its independence, the statue was removed and reinstalled at Gordon's School, near Woking in 1959.
[29] From 1890 Singer produced reduced-scale versions in bronze, organised by Arthur Collie, one of the first people to sell reductions of large works.
Singer delivered the statue on time in 1898, but the then Prime Minister, Lord Roseberry delayed the unveiling till the following year, concerned about demonstrations.
[32] Then Thornycroft's massive statue of "King Alfred" was unveiled in Winchester for the millennial commemoration of his death, 17 foot high from the base to the top of his arm.
This was a complex piece for Singer: Boudica herself with a spear, her other arm upraised, two crouching daughters with bared breasts, two horses reinless, a chariot, scythes on both wheels.
As part of Queen Victoria's Jubilee celebrations in 1897, Albert Parrott, a manager at Morris Singer, recalled his memories as a nine year old in Frome:[35]"I was fascinated by the team of five horses trying to pull the bronze casting of one of the horses up the steep incline leading from the centre of the town......On a wagon in the same procession one of the casters from the J. W. Singer & Sons foundry was busy pouring molten zinc into a steel die carrying an impression of Her Majesty to produce medallions.
Apart from "The Sluggard" (see illustration above), the V & A have three fine examples of products from his workshops: an alms dish,[37] a wall sconce designed by Herbert and Edgar[38] and a large brass pricket candlestick;[39] these are not currently on display, except in the online catalogue.
After the death of J W Singer in 1904 at Knoll House[40] in Gentle Street,[41] his two sons, Herbert and Edgar took charge of the firm, under the continuing and colourful chairmanship of William Bull.
The statuary work continued, including noteworthy castings: Thornycroft's "Gladstone" in the Strand,[42] Pomeroy's "Justice" on the Old Bailey, Fehr's fantastical Welsh Dragon on the top of Cardiff's City Hall and eight large lions for the Cecil Rhodes Memorial in Cape Town, South Africa.
150 lion's head bronze mooring rings, designed by Gilbert Bayes, were installed in 1910 along the Thames Embankment beside the County Hall.
After WWI, with a reduced staff, orders for metal stampings, wrought iron work, war memorials, ecclesiastical metalwork and statuary resumed.
[50] All kinds of bronze work were in demand from home and abroad: statues, wreathes, emblems, friezes, tablets, as well as entrance doors and revolving doors for the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank in Shanghai, lift enclosures for flats in Brook Street, London, lighting standards for Reading Bridge and the gates for Africa House[51] in Kingsway, London.
[65] New gates for the Blue House were provided by the Singer company in 1994 in response to an appeal by the trustees; a plaque is placed on the wall to the left of the entrance.
[71] In July 2019 'Casting the World: the story of J W Singer & Sons, Frome' was published as part of the town's celebrations; this includes newly discovered photographs of the workshops.
On its return it was placed outside what became the Tyco site in Handlemaker Road,[78] till it was gifted to serve as the memorial on a 99-year lease to Frome Town Council.
