Details of Sculptor

Surname

Linton

Alternative Surname

First Name

William, of Norwich

Initial of Surname

L

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1675-c1719

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Nothing is known of his origins or training. On 22 June 1675 in Norwich he married Ursula Wright. She died in 1679, being buried on 22 December. On her floor slab, presumed to be William’s work (2), he is described as a sculptor. The Offley monument (1) is suggestive of a working visit by him to London in 1680(?) involving a link of some kind with William Stanton, a design by whom was used for that monument. By 1681 Linton had a new wife, Elizabeth, and was presumably back in Norwich, where two of their children were baptised, Elizabeth in 1681 and John in 1683. A further child of one of William’s marriages, also William, was buried in 1685. A land indenture of 1688 (Norfolk Record Office, AG 87, 233X3) names ‘William Lynton of Norwich, carver’.
In addition to authenticated works, listed below, a number of late 17th and early 18th-century Norfolk church monuments are attributable to Linton on grounds of style. His works outside London provide stylistic confirmation that ‘W. Linton’ who signs the Offley monument and William Linton of Norwich are one and the same. Characteristic of Linton are wall monuments with convex inscription tablets, pilasters, side scrolls, and foliate aprons incorporating skulls and bones. The attributed monument to John Greene, +1684, at East Bradenham, Norfolk, includes two indifferent busts. The workmanship of the Offley monument does not match the quality of its design which is due to Stanton.
Jon Bayliss, Geoffrey Fisher