Details of Sculptor

Surname

Singleton

Alternative Surname

First Name

Robert, of Bury St Edmunds and Norwich

Initial of Surname

S

Year of Birth/Baptism

1682

Flourished

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Nothing is known of Singleton’s parentage, but he married Anne Crome on 28 April 1707, when both parties were aged 25. He was then described as a mason. There were nine or more children, at least five of whom died in infancy. He became a freeman of Norwich on 24 May 1716. Gunnis considered him a monumental sculptor of high rank and particularly admired his monument to Edmund Soames as an ‘exciting and remarkable work’ (1). It has a standing life-sized figure in armour, his helmet at his feet and his right hand holding his great cloak, ‘which billows out and falls in folds behind him’. The cartouche tablet to Richard Manty ‘is a delightful work’(4). The tablet to Thomas Pindar ‘has a large figure of a cherub, an hourglass in his hand and with his head resting on a skull’ (7).
In about 1729 he went into partnership with George Bottomley of the Bottomley family of Norfolk and Cambridge. Their monuments produced together are listed under Bottomley. An advertisement in the Norwich Mercury of 31 December 1737 announced that Robert Page of Norwich had bought the stock-in-trade of Singleton and Bottomley. (Add inf. Jon Bayliss)
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 353
Archival References: Marriage licence bond, Norwich; parish registers of St John Timberhill and St John Maddermarket, Norwich, and St Mary and St James, Bury St Edmunds; Norwich freeman rolls TNA IR1 47/210, 49/47, 49/120; GPC