Details of Sculptor

Surname

Weigall

Alternative Surname

First Name

Henry

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

?1800

Flourished

Year of Death

1882

Biographical Details

He exhibited portrait busts and a relief portrait at the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Society of British Artists and the Royal Academy between 1829 and 1853, from addresses in St James’s Street, Somerset Street and Wimpole Street, London. His works included several busts of the Duke of Wellington (1, 12, 20). The last of these was a life-sized bronze, modelled from the life during sittings given in August and on 18 November 1851. The Duke died the following September and this was the last bust he sat for. In 1854 Weigall sent proofs to the RA of the ‘Flaxman medal executed for the Art Union of London’ and the ‘Prize Gold Medal given by the Lord Bishop of London to King Edward IV’s Grammar School at Bury St Edmund’s’. Several of his works were put on display at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham during the 1850s (10, 22, 23).
A number of artists named Weigall exhibited at the RA during the 19th century and it is not always easy to distinguish between them. It is possible that Henry Weigall was responsible for a number of impressions from intaglio gems and a wax portrait of the Duke of York which Graves lists as the work of a painter, Charles Harvey Weigall. This was shown from addresses in Conduit Street during the 1820s (Graves VIII, 1905-6, 198-9). Pyke calls the sculptor ‘C. Henry Weigall’ and notes that he was gem-engraver to Their Royal Highnesses the Dukes and Duchesses of Cumberland and Cambridge.
In 1856 Weigall and his wife, a sister of Dr Thyre Smith, a celebrated preacher at the Temple Church, sailed with Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria, to Melbourne. He died on 14 August 1882, and was buried at Kyneto, Victoria (inf. Mitchell Lib, Sydney).
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 420; Pyke 1973, 155-6; Pyke 1981, 42