Details of Sculptor

Surname

MacBride

Alternative Surname

First Name

John Alexander Paterson, of Liverpool

Initial of Surname

M

Year of Birth/Baptism

1819

Flourished

Year of Death

1890

Biographical Details

He was born on 27 February 1819, the son of Archibald MacBride of Campbelltown, Argyll and was christened at Oldham Street presbyterian chapel, Liverpool on 21 March. MacBride trained under William Spence and at the age of 16 exhibited at the Liverpool Academy, giving his address as 7 Finch Street, Liverpool. He went to London c1841, and in 1844 exhibited a group of Margaret of Anjou and her son at Westminster Hall (4). The Literary Gazette considered it ‘a good subject poorly treated’. Margaret, they said, appeared ‘a virago’ instead of a ‘sorrowing, yet dignified queen,’ and her son ‘a poor attenuated, impudent lad’. Samuel Joseph was however so impressed with the work that he took the sculptor into his studio as a pupil without charging his usual fee of 500 guineas. MacBride later became Joseph’s chief assistant.
He seems, nonetheless, to have kept an address in Russell Street, Liverpool, from where he exhibited at the Liverpool Academy, 1847-65. He became an enthusiastic supporter of the Pre-Raphaelite School: as secretary of the Liverpool Academy in 1851-2, he was instrumental in awarding the annual prize of 50 guineas on two occasions to Holman Hunt and J E Millais. He competed unsuccessfully for the commission to provide a statue in Liverpool for the Wellington Column (54), but was more successful elsewhere, winning the contract for the statue of the biblical commentator Adam Clarke at Portrush (11), and providing numerous busts of local and national worthies. His monument to Dr Stevenson, one of his few funerary memorials, depicts the doctor attending to patrons in classical draperies (2). He prepared at least one model for the Minton pottery (13), and models of his Lady Godiva were awarded by the Liverpool Art Union as one of their prizes in 1850 (53). His death, on 10 April 1890, was reported the following day in the Liverpool Daily Post.
Literary References: Graves V, 1905-6, 128; Gunnis 1968, 247; Cavanagh 1997, 332; Morris and Roberts 1998, 401-2
Archival References: IGI