Details of Sculptor

Surname

Wallis

Alternative Surname

First Name

James, of Newark

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

c1748

Flourished

Year of Death

1824

Biographical Details

He was apprenticed to Christopher Staveley I of Melton Mowbray, ‘stonecutter’, in 1761 (PRO, IRI/22, 203), and subsequently established himself himself as a builder and monumental mason in Newark, Notts, where he is said to have designed several houses. His nine surviving slates in Kesteven were influenced by Staveley’s work but are less florid. Gunnis describes his monuments as ‘neat and pleasant’ works, mostly in coloured marbles, and considers the best to be that to Richard Fydell, a large tablet with a profile portrait medallion on an obelisk (7). Pevsner describes the Edward Smith as a tablet with good lettering (5), but does not consider the Darwin to be ‘up to much artistically’ (24). Examples of his slate gravestones can be found at Caythorpe, Claypole, Cranwell (two), Foston, Grantham, North Witham and Woolsthorpe.
Wallis later went into partnership with R Marshall and together they sign a number of tablets (20, 21, 25-29) as well as slate gravestones at Caythorpe and Claypole. Wallis died on 6 January 1824, aged 76, and Marshall erected a large monument to him, now in the north transept of St Mary Magdalen, Newark. The inscription describes him as an architect. Marshall continued the business after Wallis’s death.
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 411; Neave and Heron 1969, 5; Colvin 1995, 1019