Details of Sculptor

Surname

Longley

Alternative Surname

First Name

Thomas White, of Canterbury

Initial of Surname

L

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

Year of Death

1846

Biographical Details

Gunnis describes Longley as ‘the best of the nineteenth-century Canterbury statuaries’ (Gunnis 1968, 242). He was the nephew of Thomas White and in 1799 he announced that he had taken over his uncle’s business and intended ‘carrying on that branch only, at the old established Stone Yard, near St George's Gate’, where he would provide ‘Monuments, Tombs, Wallpieces, Tablets, Chimney-pieces, Gravestones, Head and Body-stones, or any article in the above branch; executed in the neatest manner, on the shortest notice, and on the most reasonable terms’ (Kentish Gazette, 6 May 1799, in GPC). Three years later he succeeded White as master-mason at the Cathedral. He may also be the ‘Longley’ who was employed on carved work for the library of Lambeth Palace in 1829 (Cambridge Univ MS 3928 in Gunnis 1968, 242). His monument to Major Cairns in Canterbury Cathedral is also signed by a ‘Robert and Mary Rushbrook’, who may have designed it (3). The Lady Sondes at Nackington is a copy of the monument to Mary Milles by Richard Hayward in the same church (4). Longley married Ann George at St Paul’s, Canterbury, on 12 January 1797. He was buried in Canterbury on 6 May 1846. After his death his son John continued the business.
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 242
Archival References: Familysearch