Details of Sculptor

Surname

Bateson

Alternative Surname

First Name

William, of York

Initial of Surname

B

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1725-before 1755

Year of Death

Biographical Details

In 1729 he made a chimneypiece for York Guildhall (1). His name appears frequently in the York Minster Fabric Rolls between 1725 and 1755, when a payment was made to his widow. In 1731, he and his partner, William Ellis, became the master-masons at York Assembly Rooms after the dismissal of Leonard Smith. Bateson and Ellis took over the shell of the building and ‘worked all the columns’, which were finished before the year was out, though the hall was not roofed until 1736. These columns, forty in number, with very fine Corinthian capitals, are closely spaced and divide all the four sides of the main room, or Egyptian Hall, from its aisles (2). A year later, as well as executing a great deal of masonry-work, the partners carved ‘the cornice stone of ye Corinthian order’. For some reason the partners were not allowed to finish the building, which was completed by the reinstated Leonard Smith. Bateson’s widow, ‘Elizabeth Bateson, mason’, took a Richard Waddington as an apprentice in 1757.
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 42
Archival References: Assembly Rooms Directors’ Minutes, Ledgers & Receipt Books, 1730-1925, York City Archives M23/1-18; York Minster Fabric Rolls, Minster Library, Dean and Chapter Archives, E4a, fol 40v (1726), fol 58r (1755)