Details of Sculptor

Surname

Plows Family

Alternative Surname

First Name

of York

Initial of Surname

P

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Benjamin Plows 1765-1824
William Abbey Plows ?1789-1865
Henry Plows fl 1806-c1813
T Plows fl c1840
Benjamin Plows was born in Tadcaster in 1765. In 1811 he advertised that he had begun business as a marble mason in Coppergate, York (York Courant, 2 March 1811). The death of his widow, Rebecca, was announced in the York Gazette on 2 January 1830. Gunnis states that he was the father of William Abbey Plows, who was apprenticed to him in 1806. William married Miss E Abbey, late of Salton, at St Denis, Walmsgate, York, in 1828 (York Gazette, 26 April 1828). He showed a sarcophagus with a Gothic canopy, marble tables and a figure of David carved in stone at the Great Exhibition of 1851 (28, 29).
In 1806 Henry Plows, the brother of Benjamin, went into partnership with Francis Cowgill of Micklegate (York Courant, 6 Oct 1806). He continued with the yard after Cowgill’s death in 1807, and he must have died himself about 1813, as his widow Jane announced that she was ‘not declining business’ that autumn (York Courant, 13 September 1813). On 18 April 1814 his stock of marble and stone was offered for sale in the York Courant.
The large wall monument to John Strangways, 1840, at Well is signed by a T Plows, who must be Thomas, the brother of Benjamin (20).
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 308; family inf Lorraine Lockwood
Archival References: GPC