Details of Sculptor

Surname

Smith

Alternative Surname

First Name

Francis, of Warwick

Initial of Surname

S

Year of Birth/Baptism

1672

Flourished

Year of Death

1738

Biographical Details

He was born on 4 January 1672, the third son of Francis Smith of Warwick, a bricklayer of The Wergs, near Tettenhall, Staffs. He and his brother William were brought up in the building trade, William as a bricklayer but Francis, apparently, as a mason. They often worked in partnership and by the time of William’s death in 1724 they had become the leading master builders in the Midlands. Francis erected a monument to William at Tettenhall, on which the latter is described as an ‘Architect Eminent in his profession’.
Francis established himself in Warwick, where in 1702 he married Anne Lea, a native of that town. Warwick had been devestated by fire in September 1694 and in 1696 Francis was appointed one of the two surveyors who were to regulate its rebuilding. Although it was this that gave him his first opportunities, in his subsequent career he relied on patronage from the Midlands gentry, many of whom employed him to build their country houses. Nearly all of them went up within a 50 mile radius of Warwick and there must have been years when he had three, four or even more houses in progress. Colvin lists 14 churches designed or built by the Smith brothers, and 53 houses. Their reputation for honesty and reliability were the qualities which stood them in good stead rather than any great distinction as architectural designers.
As a mason Francis maintained a yard at the Marble House in Warwick, from which he supplied chimneypieces and some statuary marble work, particularly the monument to Sir Justinian Isham, 1732, for which he received £87. This is an architectural composition with Corinthian pillars supporting an open pediment (1). Since the Smiths were prepared to undertake the construction of an entire building on behalf of the owner, Francis and his team of masons, which included Henry Watson in the 1730s, were inevitably responsible for much decorative carving, including chimneypieces. Gunnis suggests that he was responsible for those at Ombersley Court, Worcs, where he received regular payments between 1723 and 1726, amounting to some £1,500. He certainly supplied two chimneypieces for Lamport Hall, where he worked from 1732-8 (2, 3). Pevsner attributes four Northamptonshire monuments to him on stylistic grounds, including one to the Knightley family, 1728, at Fawsley, another to Mrs Knightley, †1730 at Woodford Halse, a third to Thomas Cave, †1733 at Stanford and one of coloured marbles to Robert Andrew, †1739, at Harlestone.
In his later years Francis grew corpulent though his energy seems to have been undiminished. When he died in April 1738 he left a flourishing business and an estate in Warwickshire that he had bought for £10,000. He had been twice mayor of Warwick (in 1713-14 and 1728-9). He was buried in St Mary, Warwick, but there is no record of any monument to his memory. He had four sons and a daughter, but only two sons survived him. William, the elder, to whom he left ‘all my stock of Marble and Timber in my Marble Yard in Warwick’ continued his father’s business.
Literary References: Isham 1951, 442; Gunnis 1968, 356; Pevsner, Northants, 1973, 214, 247, 409, 468; Colvin 1995, 882-90; Gomme 2000
Will: PCC 162 BRODREPP
Portraits of the Sculptor: Unidentified artist, canvas, Court House, Warwick, nd (Birmingham Arch Soc's Trans, LIX, 1935, repr IV); W Winstanley, canvas, Bodleian, Oxford, nd (engraved by A Vanhacken); Michael Rysbrack, bust, tc, 1741, Radcliffe Library, Oxford