Details of Sculptor

Surname

Lawrence

Alternative Surname

First Name

Richard I

Initial of Surname

L

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1746-95

Year of Death

Biographical Details

He was probably the son of a carver, also Richard Lawrence, who provided furniture for the Duke of Montrose in 1732 and worked with James Richards on the Queen’s Library at St James’s Palace in 1737. Young Lawrence was apprenticed to Sefferin Alken in 1746. As ‘Surveyor and Repairer of Carved Work’ at Windsor Castle, he was responsible for maintaining the Grinling Gibbons carvings in the royal apartments in 1760-1. George Murray, the recently appointed master sculptor and master carver to the Crown, complained bitterly that the care of ‘the Limetree work at His Majesty’s Palace at Windsor’ had been taken from him without his knowledge and ‘given to one Lawrence a Carver who never had any Concern with His Majesty’s work on any Acct’ (Archives, West of Alscot Park in Gunnis 1968, 236). Lawrence was paid £50 a year for this work, which Murray felt belonged to him.
By 1763 Lawrence was established at premises in Wardour-street, near Oxford Road and at about that time he went into partnership with Alken. He must have been a close friend of the family, for when Oliver Alken, Sefferin’s brother, died in 1769, Lawrence, and the carver James Thorne of Westminster, were entrusted with the care of his children.
He was employed as a carver in stone and wood at several royal palaces and government buildings. In 1773 he was paid for work at Greenwich Palace on the King Charles building (3) and in 1784 he provided embellishments for Queen Mary’s building, working with John Deval II (11). He had a major contract in the chapel, then being rebuilt after a disastrous fire (10, 12, 14-16, 21, 22). In 1778 he carved portico ornaments at the Queen’s Lodge, Windsor (6). In the previous year he had begun to work at Somerset House, and continued there until 1791, carving in both wood and stone (17). Lawrence also worked at a number of private homes (4, 7, 9, 19, 20) and in 1791 provided part of the column commemorating Philip Hills at Colne Park, Essex (18).
Literary References: Mortimer 1763, 17, Gunnis 1968, 236; Colvin V, 1973-76, 479; Beard 1985, 690, 693