Thomas Woolner (1825-1892). Portrait by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, from Thomas Woolner, Sculptor and Poet: His life in letters, 1917. Courtesy Internet Archive.
Thomas Woolner RA (17 December 1825 - 7 October 1892) was an English poet and sculptor, who was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was the only sculptor among the original members.
Life[]
Youth and education[]
Woolner was born at Hadleigh in Suffolk, the son of Thomas Woolner and his wife Rebecca (Leeks). He received his first education at Ipswich, but in his boyhood his father removed to London on obtaining an appointment in the post office, and at the age of 12 young Woolner, who had shown much ability in drawing and modelling, was placed as a pupil in the studio of William Behnes. So great was his promise deemed that Behnes agreed to teach him without charging tuition, on condition that, when sufficiently advanced, he should work for him at something less than the usual rate of pay.[1]
He continued with Behnes 4 years, and in December 1842, at his master's recommendation, entered the schools of the Royal Academy, continuing to be employed by Behnes in his spare time. In 1843, aged 17, he exhibited his first work, a model of ‘Eleanor sucking the Poison from the arm of Prince Edward.’ In 1844 a life-sized group, representing ‘The Death of Boadicea,’ was exhibited in Westminster Hall. In 1845 he gained the Society of Arts' medal for a design representing ‘Affection,’ a woman with 2 children. In 1846 a graceful bas-relief of ‘Alastor’ was exhibited at the academy. The now well-known statuette of Puck, afterwards cast in bronze for Lady Ashburton, was exhibited at the British Institution in 1847, when it attracted the attention of Tennyson.[1]
During all this period Woolner had been in very narrow circumstances; his models, though admired, brought him few commissions, and he gained his livelihood by working for Behnes.[1]
Pre-Raphaelite[]
In 1847 he made the acquaintance of Rossetti, through whom (though even less known than himself) he became a member of a circle destined profoundly to influence English art. Rossetti introduced him to F.G. Stephens, who found him "encamped in a huge, dusty, barn-like studio, like a Bedouin in a desert."[1]
Ere long he became one of the original "Pre-Raphaelite Brethren." In this capacity in January 1850 he contributed to the first number of The Germ two cantos — "My Beautiful Lady" and "My Lady in Death" — of the poem subsequently expanded and known by the former title, which later obtained celebrity. Two short poems from his pen also appeared in the second and third numbers. "My Beautiful Lady" was accompanied by a striking etching by Holman Hunt, the quintessence of Pre-Raphaelitism. Woolner, however, said to William Bell Scott, who made his acquaintance about this time, "Poetry is not my proper work in this world; I must sculpture it, not write it. Unless I take care, my master Conscience will have something to say that I shan't like. I have noticed his eye glaring at me already."[1]
Immediately before his initiation into the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Woolner's exhibited work had been of a highly idealistic character, comprising ‘Eros and Euphrosyne’ and ‘The Rainbow,’[1] shown at the academy in 1848, and ‘Titania and the Indian Boy’ at the British Institution in the same year. Now, however, from the lack of encouragement for idealistic sculpture, he devoted himself chiefly to portrait medallions. Among these was one of Carlyle, to whom and to Mrs. Carlyle he became greatly attached. He also, through Coventry Patmore, made the acquaintance of Tennyson.[2]
A visit to him at Coniston in the autumn of 1850 led to his executing the medallion of William WordsworthWordsworth now in Grasmere church. He also competed for a monument to the poet, and produced a fine seated figure, with a spirited bas-relief in illustration of ‘Peter Bell’ upon the pedestal. The design, which is engraved in Professor Knight's edition of Wordsworth, was not accepted.[2]
Woolner was a thoroughly sterling character: manly, animated, energetic; too impetuous in denouncing whatever he happened to dislike, and thus creating unnecessary enmities; but esteemed by all who knew his worth, and could appreciate the high standard he sought to maintain in the pursuit of his art. His appearance throughout life corresponded with F.G. Stephens's description of him as a young man, "robust, active, muscular, with a square-featured and noble face set in thick masses of hair, and penetrating eyes under full eyebrows."[3]
In Australia[]
Woolner, weary of ill success, embraced, in common with many other struggling Englishmen, the idea of trying his fortune at the Australian goldfields. He sailed for Melbourne on 24 July 1852, accompanied by 2 friends, one, Latrobe Bateman, nephew to the governor of Victoria. The Rossettis, Madox Brown, and Holman Hunt accompanied him on board, and his exodus inspired Madox Brown's noble picture, ‘The Last of England.’[2]
He arrived at Melbourne in October, and in November proceeded to the diggings, his object being to provide sufficient resources to tide him over the first difficulties of the artistic career which he looked forward for a time to following in Melbourne or Sydney. He could procure little beyond a bare livelihood, however, and upon establishing himself at Melbourne in the following May, found himself obliged to depend solely upon his professional exertions.[2]
At Melbourne he executed a medallion of Governor Latrobe, and at Sydney fine portraits of the governor-general, Sir Charles Fitzroy, and of the father of Australian self-government, William Charles Wentworth. A colossal statue of Wentworth was to have been executed, but the money was ultimately devoted to endowing a fellowship in the University of Sydney, much to the disappointment of Woolner, who had returned to England hoping to obtain the commission.[2]
Return to England[]
He arrived in England October 1854. On the way home he read a pathetic story of a fisherman, which he gave to Tennyson, who based Enoch Arden upon it. The plot of "Aylmer's Field" also was derived from him.[2]
During Woolner's absence a great improvement had taken place in the position of English art and artists. John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites between them had raised the standard of taste, and several friends whom Woolner had left poor and struggling were now celebrities.[2]
The turning-point of his career may be said to have been the fine bust of Tennyson, now in the library of Trinity College, executed in 1857. In the same year he exhibited the celebrated medallion portraits of the laureate and of Thomas Carlyle, and one equally fine of Robert Browning. The statue of Bacon in the New Oxford Museum was also executed in this year; and in 1858 Woolner modelled in alto-relievo figures of Moses, David, St. John the Baptist, and St. Paul for the pulpit of Llandaff Cathedral, then under restoration, for which Rossetti also laboured.[2]
From this time Woolner's position was assured, and the history of the remainder of his life is little else than the chronicle of his successes. In 1861 he was commissioned to design and model the colossal Moses and other sculptures for the assize courts, Manchester. Among his most remarkable works were Constance and Arthur, children of Sir Thomas Fairbairn, 1862; Mrs. Archibald Peel and son, in Wrexham church, 1867, and in the same year a mother and child for Sir Walter Trevelyan; bust of Gladstone in the Bodleian Library, with three splendid bas-reliefs from The Iliad, 1868; ‘In Memoriam,’ children in Paradise, 1870; Virgilia, wife of Coriolanus, 1871; ‘Guinevere,’ 1872; a monument to Mrs. James Anthony Froude, in St. Lawrence Church, Ramsgate, 1875; ‘Godiva,’ 1876.[2]
Among the colossal and life-size statues the most important are: John Robert Godley, for Christ Church, Canterbury, New Zealand, 1865; Lord Macaulay, for Trinity College, 1866; Sir Bartle Frere, for Bombay, 1872; Dr. Whewell, Trinity College, 1873; Lord Lawrence, Calcutta, 1875; John Stuart Mill, Thames Embankment, 1878; Captain Cook, Sydney, 1879; Sir Stamford Raffles, Singapore, 1887; Bishop Fraser, Manchester, 1888. Among busts of distinguished men, besides those already mentioned, may be named the bearded bust of Tennyson, modelled in 1873, and those of Darwin, Newman, Maurice, Keble, Thomas CarlyleCarlyle]], Dickens, Kingsley, Sir Hope Grant, Archbishop Temple, Professors Adam Sedgwick and Huxley, Rajah Brooke, and Archdeacon Hare. He also executed recumbent figures of Bishop Jackson in St. Paul's, and of Lord Frederick Cavendish in Cartmel Priory church.[2]
In 1864 he married Alice Gertrude Waugh, by whom he had 2 sons and 4 daughters.[3]
Woolner was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1871, and academician in 1874; his diploma work, exhibited in 1876, was an ideal group — ‘Achilles and Pallas shouting from the Trenches.’ In 1877, upon the death of Henry Weekes,[2] he was appointed professor of sculpture, but never lectured, and resigned in 1879.[3]
His death on 7 October 1892 was somewhat sudden, following an internal complaint from which he seemed to be recovering. His beautiful statue of ‘The Housemaid’ had been completed a few weeks previously. The fact that he died within a few days of Tennyson and Renan served to divert much of the notice which his demise would otherwise have occasioned. He was interred in the churchyard of St. Mary's, Hendon.[3]
Writing[]
Woolner's poetry is that of a sculptor; he works, as it were, by little chipping strokes, and produces, especially in descriptive passages and in the expression of strong feeling, effects highly truthful and original, though scarcely to be termed captivating or inspiring.[3]
The recension of My Beautiful Lady published separately in 1863 was very considerably expanded from the original version in the Germ. It reached a 3rd edition in 1866 (with a title-page vignette by Arthur Hughes). Pygmalion was published in 1881, Silenus in 1884, Tiresias in 1886, and Poems (comprising "Nelly Dale," written in 1886, and "Children") in 1887. My Beautiful Lady (in 3 parts, 17 cantos in all), together with "Nelly Dale," was issued in 1887 as volume lxxxii. of ‘Cassell's National Library.’[3]
Recognition[]
The print-room at the British Museum has a portrait engraved from a photograph and a drawing of Woolner in his studio after T. Blake Wirgman (see also Illustrated London News, 15 October 1892).[3]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- My Beautiful Lady. London: Macmillan, 1863.
- Pygmalion. London: Macmillan, 1881.
- Silenus. London: Macmillan, 1884; New York: AMS Press, 1971.
- Tiresias. London: George Bell, 1886.
- Poems: Nelly Dale / Children. London: George Bell, 1887.
- My Beautiful Lady / Nelly Dale. London & New York: Cassell (National Library), 1887.
Letters[]
- His Life in Letters (edited by Amy Woolner). London: Chapman & Hall, 1917; New York: Dutton, 1917; New York: AMS Press, 1971.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[4]
"Yet With Time's Cycles Forests Swell" by Thomas Woolner
See also[]
References[]
Garnett, Richard (1900) "Woolner, Thomas" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 62 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 434-436 . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 10, 2017.
Notes[]
External links[]
- Poems
- Woolner in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895: "My Beautiful Lady (excerpt)," "Given Over"
- Thomas Woolner at Poetry Nook (31 poems)
- Books
- Works by Thomas Woolner at Project Gutenberg
- Thomas Woolner at Amazon.com
- About
- Woolner, Thomas in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
- Thomas Woolner, R.A. in Victorian Artists
- The Life of Thomas Woolner (1825-1892) at the Victorian Web
- Woolner, Thomas (1825–1892) in the Australian Dictionary of Biography
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Woolner, Thomas
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