Details of Sculptor

Surname

Brown

Alternative Surname

First Name

Richard and Sons, of Derby

Initial of Surname

B

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Richard Brown I fl 1735- † before 1785
Richard Brown II 1736-1816
Richard Brown III fl 1816-1829
The firm was founded in 1735 by Richard Brown I, whose advertisement that year in the Derby Mercury stated that he ‘performed monuments, gravestones, chimney-pieces on reasonable terms.’ In 1759, and again in 1782, he was paid for paving the floor at All Saints, Derby. In 1765 he made a pair of ‘purple obelisks’ for Kedleston, probably the magnificent pair made of blue-john that are still in the house (10).
He was succeeded by his son, Richard Brown II, who was in his turn followed by his son Richard Brown III, grandson of the founder. The firm leased a water-driven mill, the Derby Marble Works on the banks of the Derwent, from the corporation of the City of Derby. The lease on this building terminated in 1802 and they moved to premises on the site of the old monastery of St Helen, where they remained until 1829. The third Richard Brown sold this workshop to Joseph Hall the Younger of Derby.
On 7 November 1797 an auction of the property of ‘a statuary and mason going abroad’ was held by Mr Christie. One of the lots was a chimneypiece of Derbyshire Spar ‘manufactured at considerable expense at Mr. Brown’s of Derby for the late Mr. Harris of the Strand’ (3) (see Charles Harris). The use of a range of local ‘marbles’ is a feature of the firm’s work at this period and they also provided decorative carving. The altarpiece at Stapleford (11) was described by Nichols shortly after the turn of the century as ‘just completed by Brown of Derby, and is beautifully formed of marble, with borders of black, statuary and dove colour. In the centre is a neat tablet, with the emblems of Hope and Eternity, an anchor suspended on an encircled serpent; and at the top a handsome urn’ (Nichols 1795-1815, 2, 1, 340).
The firm also had a workshop in Matlock Bath until 1811, and by 1818 they were in possession of the extensive mill for sawing and polishing Derbyshire marbles at Ashford-in-the-Water, founded in 1748 by Henry Watson. Between 1828 and 1831 the Ashford works were recorded as being in the hands of John Brown, presumably another member of the family. The Browns quarried ‘entrochial’ marble in mines at Monyash owned by the Duke of Devonshire, for whose seat at Chatsworth the firm carried out work (12). They also quarried shiny ‘Derbyshire black’ marble (carboniferous limestone) at mines in Ashford. At the Ashford mill marble was carved ‘into chimneypieces, vases, ornaments etc… equal in quality and beauty to any in the world; consequently, it is in great request in this kingdom, and finds a ready market in distant countries’ (Glover 1831-3, 2, 266). Chimneypieces could be had at prices ranging from 30s to £60 and more, and they found an international clientele: in his Picturesque Excursions in the High Peak (1819) Henry Moore recorded that ‘Mr Brown sold in 1818 in Ashford, an enriched black marble chimney piece to Archduke Michael, who was progressing through Derbyshire’ (6, quoted in Tomlinson 1996, 42).
MGS
Literary References: Glover 1831-3, 1, 71; 2, 55, 266; Gunnis 1968, 64-5; Tomlinson 1996, 18, 19, 42, 43
Archival References: GPC