Details of Sculptor

Surname

Watts

Alternative Surname

First Name

and Sons, of High Wycombe

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1738-1854

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Gunnis notes in the possession of Mr E Harris (before 1966) four volumes of accounts of the Watts family covering, with only one break, the years between 1738 and 1854. They were begun by Thomas Watts, whose father, Thomas, the son of another Thomas, was murdered on 8 June 1740. Banister Watts was the younger brother of Thomas, deputed from 11 March 1745 ‘to Look after the Bisness for my Mother’. William Watts was another brother: on 28 July 1755 Banister wrote, ‘William Watts came into partners with me at Sr. Francis Dashwood at that Jobb’.
William died on 21 December 1778, aged 41. The name of William Neale, who was bound apprentice to Mr Slingsby for five years on 3 March 1778, first appears in the accounts in 1784. Neale eventually took over the business, and from him it passed to William Broughton in 1833. Tablets and gravestones by the firm can be found in a number of churches around High Wycombe and in 1752 Banister Watts erected the obelisk at High Wycombe (6). In 1743 the firm made a temple for Sir William Stanhope.
Archival References: GPC