Details of Sculptor

Surname

Slater

Alternative Surname

First Name

Peter, of Edinburgh

Initial of Surname

S

Year of Birth/Baptism

1809

Flourished

Year of Death

Biographical Details

He was born in Edinburgh, the son of John Slater, a marble and stone cutter of Picardy Place. Some time between 1823 and 1828 he entered the Edinburgh studio of Samuel Joseph as a carver and assistant. When Joseph moved to London in 1829 Slater accompanied him and he worked for Joseph over the next four years. On 26 April 1831 he was admitted to the RA schools on the recommendation of W Collins RA.
In 1833 Slater returned to Edinburgh where he lived at a number of addresses including 12 Union Street, 50 George Street, 27 Elder Street, 12 Elder Street and 52 Broughton Street. He returned to London in 1860. Slater exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, 1833-65 and at the Royal Academy in London, 1846-70, showing principally busts of Scottish worthies. His Royal Scottish Academy submissions for 1850 included an architectural design entitled The house of Thespis. In 1844 he sent a statue of Canute reproving his flatterers to the Westminster Hall Exhibition (7). The work was not well received, one reviewer observing tartly ‘we must decline being one [a flatterer]’, while another thought ‘the general execution is coarse’ (Lit Gaz, 27 July 1844, 482; AU, 1844, 215).
According to one 19th-century source, the statue of George Heriot on the Scott Monument, Edinburgh, was begun by Peter Slater and completed by a relative of the same name (Colston 1881, cited by Woodward 1977, vol 1, pt 2, 219). Woodward argues that this statement must be incorrect since the only other member of the Slater family who worked in the profession was Peter’s father, John, who is not recorded in the Edinburgh Post Office Directories after 1816. She also suggests that Peter Slater can almost certainly be identified with Robert Slater, whom Samuel Joseph referred to as an ex-pupil in a letter written to William Lizars in 1833 (Joseph/Lizars). Peter exhibited a portrait of a Robert Slater at the RA in 1859 (59).
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 353-4; Woodward 1977,vol 1, pt 2, 218-220
Archival References: RA admissions