Details of Sculptor

Surname

Webster

Alternative Surname

First Name

Francis and Sons, of Kendal

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Francis Webster I 1767-1827
George Webster 1797-1864
Francis Webster II 1805-80
Francis Webster I was the son of Robert Webster (1726-1827), a mason of Quarry Flat, near Cartmel. By 1788 he had moved to Kendal where he established a marble yard in New Inn Yard, off Highgate, and developed a highly successful business as an architect, builder and mason, specialising in the production of monuments and marble chimneypieces. At first he worked in partnership with a local mason called William Holme and a directory of 1790 describes them as ‘builders and marble cutters’ (Universal British Directory, 1790-1, in Taylor 2004, 49).
Webster seems to have embraced technological advances. Around 1800 the firm introduced water-powered machinery for cutting and polishing marble at their mill at Helsington Laithes, on the river Kent, south of Kendal. In 1829 a local directory commented: ‘This machinery is brought to such a state of perfection, that every description of mouldings, whether straight or circular, is now wrought by it with more accuracy than manual labour, and the flutings of diminishing columns are furnished by it in a most beautiful and regular style’ (Parson and White 1829, 638-9, in Taylor 2004, 49). Webster was particularly well known for producing chimneypieces of highly polished Kendal Fell limestone, although he was not the first to utilise this material as has been suggested. The business also benefited from improvements to the transportation network. In 1819 the Lancaster Canal, which linked Kendal to Lancaster, Preston and Manchester, was completed and Webster moved his marble yard to new premises in Miller’s Close, near the canal basin.
As an architect, Webster designed such buildings as workhouses, mills, bridges and the firm’s own offices and showrooms at Bridge House in Kendal. Between 1796 and 1802 he was responsible for an abortive scheme to rehabilitate the gutted Lowther Hall for the 1st Earl of Lonsdale, who eventually employed Robert Smirke to design an entirely new house. He was also a prominent figure in the public life of Kendal and served as mayor in 1823-24. He retired in 1826 and moved to Eller How, a country house near Lindale which he had bought some years earlier. He died there on 10 October 1827 and is commemorated both by a tombstone in Kendal churchyard and a tablet at Lindale which was probably made by his firm.
Webster and his wife, Janet née Slater, of Spital Farm near Kirkby Lonsdale, had three sons and four daughters between 1793 and 1805. Their eldest son, Robert, died in 1810 when he was 15 or 16 years old, but the younger sons, George Webster and Francis Webster II, assisted and then succeeded their father in the business. Unlike his father, George Webster must have had a professional training in an architect’s office and after his father's death in 1827 he concentrated on his architectural work, building up a considerable practice in north-west England, while Francis oversaw the marble works. George Webster’s architectural designs included classical public buildings and gothic churches, but his most important and innovative buildings were Jacobean Revival country houses, such as Eshton Hall, Gargrave and Underley Hall, near Kirkby Lonsdale.
The Websters appear to have run an extensive masonry business. In 1829 they opened a second showroom in Bold Street, Liverpool, and by 1861 they apparently had a third, in Preston. In order to keep up with the steady demand for chimneypieces and memorial tablets they recruited both apprentices and mature masons. In 1809 the 14-year old Thomas Lindsay of Ravenstonedale was apprenticed to Francis Webster I and he was still with the firm in 1841. In 1826 ‘Six or Eight Stout Active Youths’ of about 14 were offered apprenticeships at 7 guineas each and the firm also advertised for ‘a number of Marble Masons who have served an apprenticeship to stonemasons [to] find immediate and constant employment at very liberal wages’ (Westmorland Gazette, 29 April 1826, in Taylor 2004, 51). Thomas Duckett managed the Websters’ sculpture department for several years in the 1830s and was probably responsible for the few examples of figurative sculpture produced by the firm. A weeping figure with an urn in memory of Francis Webster I which once stood in the garden at Eller How and the heads on the windows of St George's, Kendal, have been attributed to Duckett (Taylor 2004, 51) and he was probably responsible for the mourning soldier on the monument to Captain Considine in Chester Cathedral (117).
In 1845 Miles Thompson, who had been employed by the Websters as a draghtsman since the 1820s, was taken into partnership and the firm became ‘Webster and Thompson’. Thompson signs a number of monuments (149, 162-6, 173). George Webster retired the following year and died at Eller How on 16 April 1864. Francis continued in charge of the marble works until 1880 but the business declined during the second half of the 19th century and the firm seems to have produced few monuments after the 1850s.
In addition to the signed and documented works listed below, the Websters were probably responsible for decorative carving and chimneypieces for the buildings they designed and constructed, and about 80 additional monuments have been attributed to the firm (see Taylor 2004, passim).
EH
Literary References: GM, 1827, ii, 381; Cooper 1973, 762-4; Colvin 1995, 1032-5; Taylor 2004, passim