Details of Sculptor

Surname

Woodington

Alternative Surname

First Name

William Frederick ARA

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

1806

Flourished

Year of Death

1893

Biographical Details

A sculptor and painter, Woodington was born at Sutton Coldfield, Warks, on 10 February 1806. He moved to London in 1815 and was apprenticed in about 1820 to Robert William Sievier, who was at that time working as an engraver. A few years later Woodington followed his master’s example by abandoning engraving to concentrate on sculpture. Early in his career he worked for the Coade Factory of Lambeth, modelling a colossal lion which was cast in artificial stone for the Lion brewery in Belvedere Road, Lambeth (4). This cast is now on Westminster bridge.
He first came to public attention with two submissions sent to the Westminster Hall Exhibition in 1844, Milton dictating to his daughters and The deluge (7, 8). One reviewer praised them as ‘able groups, designed with much skill and beautifully executed’. He considered the mother and son of The deluge group ‘finely imagined’ and admired the ‘calm earnestness’ of Milton and the ‘sweet simplicity’ of his daughters (Lit Gaz, 1844, 466). Three years later Woodington was commissioned to sculpt figures of the medieval Earls of Kent and Sussex for the chamber of the House of Lords (12, 13). Another prominent public work followed in 1850, when he was invited to prepare models for one of the four bronze reliefs at the base of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. He provided the relief of the Battle of the Nile and completed another, of the Battle of St Vincent, which was left unfinished at his friend Musgrave Lewthwaite Watson’s death (27, 26).
In 1857 Woodington was awarded the second prize of £500 in the competition for the national memorial to the Duke of Wellington (2). His design for a seated statue of the Duke, supported by figures symbolising Energy, Decision, Devotion and Order, elicited various critical responses. Several writers praised the portrait of Wellington and one thought that the sculptor had produced ‘a consummate likeness of the aged warrior and statesman as we saw him three months before his death’ (Building News, 7 August 1857, cited by Physick 1970, 154). Others were impressed by the careful execution of the model and the simplicity of the composition. Woodington’s failure to include any direct reference to the Duke’s military achievements and the vague symbolism of the supporting figures were however criticised. The competition results were discredited when it became clear that the judges, who lacked artistic expertise, had made no attempt to assess the suitability of the designs for the intended site in St Paul’s Cathedral and, after months of wrangling, the commission was finally awarded to Alfred Stevens. Woodington and William Calder Marshall, the first prize-winner, provided a series of reliefs for the chapel where the monument was eventually placed (30).
Woodington continued to take on demanding commissions until he was well into his sixties. In 1867 he carved a series of six statues of explorers and a pediment relief depicting Wisdom sending forth her messengers to the nations of the earth for T H Wyatt’s New Liverpool Exchange (24). It was demolished and replaced with a new building in 1937, when the statues were presented to the Liverpool Corporation. All have been lost or destroyed. In 1869 he was commissioned to provide three more statues of historical figures for the façade of 6 Burlington Gardens, London, the headquarters of the University of London (25). These figures were part of a substantial sculptural programme which included statues by Patrick MacDowell, William Theed II, Joseph Durham, Edward William Wyon, James Sherwood Westmacott and Matthew Noble. Woodington’s colossal marble bust of the architect and engineer Sir Joseph Paxton was unveiled outside his most famous building, the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, in June 1873, when the sculptor was 67 (21).
Woodington was a frequent contributor to Royal Academy exhibitions between 1825 and 1882. He showed many figures and reliefs of biblical, mythological and literary subjects, as well as a number of oil paintings and a few portrait busts. He occasionally exhibited at the Society of British Artists, the British Institution and the Liverpool Academy and sent ideal sculpture to the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857 (9, 11). He was appointed curator of the RA sculpture school in 1851 and was elected an associate Academician in 1873. Towards the end of his life Woodington, who was unmarried, lived at 51 Hayter Road, Brixton, with a sister, a niece and one domestic servant. He died at home on 24 December 1893 and was buried nearby in Norwood cemetery. A few years later F M O’Donoghue, who provided a brief biography for the DNB, described his ‘fancy figures and reliefs of sacred and poetical subjects’ as ‘deficient in the highest qualities of art’ but ‘composed with much grace and feeling’. The 1881 census records that another sculptor called William F Woodington, who was born in London about 1831, lived with his family at 25 Knowle Road, Lambeth. It is not known whether the two men were related.
EH
Literary References: Lonsdale 1866, passim; AJ, 1894, 61; DNB; Gunnis 1968, 441-2; Read 1982, 22, 84, 89, 90, 120, 226; Physick 1970, passim; Friedman 1993, 13, 91; ODNB (O’Donoghue, rom. Barnes)
Archival references: IGI
Additional MS Sources: Woodington/Riddel
Collections of Drawings: Album of 42 drawings, HMI 44/1990