Details of Sculptor

Surname

Wood

Alternative Surname

First Name

Henry I and II, of Bristol

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

c1764-c1876?

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Henry Wood I was a monumental mason working in London and then in Bristol from the later eighteenth century until about 1830, when he was succeeded by his grandson, Henry Wood II. Little is known about the pair and their dates of birth and death have not been discovered, but they left behind them a sizeable body of work, consisting of both church monuments and designs for monuments and chimneypieces. These are contained in two albums, the Paty Copy Book and Wood's Monumental Masonry.
From the 1770s until the mid-1790s Henry Wood I, who was then resident in Chelsea, worked for the architect Henry Holland, carrying out ornamental stone carving at a number of country houses, including Althorp, Claremont and Woburn, and at the Prince of Wales’s London residence, Carlton House (72, 75, 77-80). In 1794-96 he built the pyramidal mausoleum at Blickling Park, Norfolk, to the designs of Joseph Bonomi, and he was probably the ‘Wood’ who designed the church of St Margaret at Thorpe Market in the same county, which was rebuilt in 1796. In 1801 he supplied a marble fireplace for The Mote, near Maidstone (74).
In the same year Wood bought the yard and business of William Paty and settled in Bristol. An advertisement, dated Bristol, 16 March 1801, announced: ‘The Public are respectfully informed, Mr HENRY WOOD, ARCHITECT AND STATUARY, from London, having engaged and succeeded to the business of the late Mr. WILLIAM PATY continues and carries on the same, At his House and Yards, College-place. His engagements in many of the first buildings in the Kingdom enable him to say, those who may honour him with employment in the Architectural, Statuary and Building Line, may depend upon having their business in those several departments executed with propriety and taste. All letters and orders addressed to Mr. WOOD, Architect, College-Place, will be duly attended to’ (Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, 28 March and 4 April 1801).
Wood carried out building work at Ashton Court, near Bristol, in 1802 and in 1806-8 he designed and built Merthyr Mawr, a small country house in Glamorganshire, for Sir John Nicholl. However, after the move to Bristol he seems to have concentrated on his monumental business, which flourished in this prosperous port. Gunnis comments: ‘Wood’s monuments and tablets, which are quite pleasant, must have been much admired in his day, for they are not only found all over England, but also in Ireland and the West Indies’. Among the most ambitious are a pair of elegant tablets at New Ross, County Wexford (3, 4). The Arabella Tottenham has a relief figure of her husband mourning over an urn beneath a weeping willow. Her husband’s monument features a portrait relief of the deceased attended by diminutive grieving figures of his three sons.
Further light is thrown on the firm’s activities by the album Wood’s Monumental Masonry. It was put together over a long period as a copybook from which prospective customers could select designs. Most of the 223 drawings are by Henry Wood I and probably his grandson, but a few were inherited from the Paty family and some are by other, unidentified, draughtsmen. Evidence of another member of the Wood family is provided by drawings inscribed ‘I. WOOD, Sculr BRISTOL' (fol 207) and ‘I. WOOD, Ft. BATH’ (fol 145, left). The monuments are carefully arranged by design, size and materials and many are annotated with dimensions and prices, ranging from about £20 for the most modest tablets to as much as £99 for large wall monuments in coloured marbles. Some of the drawings include inscriptions which show that while most of the firm’s patrons came from the landed gentry, they also included clergymen, professionals and aristocrats. The Woods were not innovative designers and the monuments represented tend to be repetitive. Few include figures or elaborate decorative detailing but a range of fashionable styles, including Greek, Egyptian and Gothic, were available. Indeed the designs are typical of the conventional repertory employed among late-Georgian sculptors across Britain and it is likely that similar albums were in use in many other workshops.
The business survived into the 20th century and in 1923 the Bristol historian, C F W Dening noted that Henry Wood II’s grandson was still operating from the workshop originally occupied by the Paty family (Dening 1923, 139). It is possible that some of the later works listed below were produced by Henry Wood II’s successors.
EH
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 439; Potterton 1975, 88; Haslam 1984, 1276-1280; Dale-Jones and Lloyd, 1989, 59; Friedman 1993, 12, 91, cat 16-17; Colvin 1995, 1071-2; Friedman/Woods c2000; Priest 2003, passim
Archival References: Woburn Cash Book 1791-92, BLARS R5/1297; Woburn Building Accts, 1789-01, BLARS R5/1105; Friedman typescript (HMI)
Collections of drawings: Paty Copybook; Wood’s Monumental Masonry