Details of Sculptor

Surname

Chambers

Alternative Surname

First Name

Robert

Initial of Surname

C

Year of Birth/Baptism

1711

Flourished

Year of Death

1784

Biographical Details

A mason, sculptor, architect and pioneer of marble staining, Chambers was christened at Minchinhampton, Glos on 19 December 1711, the son of Timothy and Hannah Chambers. He claimed descent from Francis Chambers, mason to King Henry VI, who had worked on the steeple of Minchinhampton church.
In 1759 Chambers won a premium of 10 guineas from the Society of Arts for ‘staining marble’ (Soc of A Archives, cited by Gunnis 1968, 90), and the following year Mendez da Costa, the librarian to the Royal Society, published an essay on ‘Experiments on several pieces of marble stained by Mr. Robert Chambers’ (Philosophical Transactions, vol 50, 30). Unfortunately the precise method was not disclosed. In 1761 Chambers began exhibiting specimens of his stained marble at the Free Society.
By 1763 he was living at Mr Kilby’s in High Holborn, near Broad St Giles. Mortimer’s Director for that year describes him as a ‘Sculptor and Stainer in marble,’ adding ‘This ingenious artist stains various colours, Ornaments, and Emblematical Devices in marble; and copies there in Mosaic Work, or ancient Tescillation, in their proper colours.’ Several examples were exhibited at the Free Society that year, including marble tables stained with a rose, a tulip, and a baron’s coronet. The puff added ‘[he] performs Inscriptions on Monuments, Tombs, etc. in a manner which renders them more durable than the method now in use’ (Mortimer 1763, 7). Examples of his lettering were exhibited intermittently at the Free Society between 1762 and 1782. These included ‘The Hebrew alphabet’, 1778, for which he appears to have had a passion, and ‘the name of God in five characters’ in 1782 (Graves 1907, 54-6).
Mortimer’s Director also advertised that Chambers ‘executes Ionic, Corinthian, and composite capitals’ and ‘draws designs in architecture’ (Mortimer 1763, 7). There are no known examples of the former, but his designs for chimneypieces for a ‘Bone-house’ in St Mary’s, Dover and for a canopy for a monument in Lee Churchyard, Kent, survive. A number of elaborate designs for fireplace surrounds are still at Claydon House, Bucks. Whilst none of these correspond exactly with chimneypieces at the house, there are similarities and they suggest an involvement at Claydon. Dated drawings fall between 1779 and 1782. Chambers exhibited architectural drawings at the Free Society in 1763, 1769, 1776, and 1782.
The memorial to the Earl of Stafford is signed ‘invented and stained by Robert Chambers' (2). It is described by Brayley as a ‘white marble tablet stained with the arms and ancient badges of the families connected with the Howards’ (Neale and Brayley 1818-23, 2, 160, 161). The progress of the commission is recorded in correspondence of the widowed Countess. At the time of its completion in October 1764 she wrote ‘I am told by all who have seen it, [it] has a very good effect, and that it is simple and noble; which is just what I wished it, and what my Lordship himself would have chose for any friend. Chambers has executed it in perfection. They say the colouring and badges are admirably well done, and that it has been much admired’ (Nichols 1812-15, 708). A press notice in March that year informed readers that ‘the whole was designed, executed, and the arms, &c stained in proper colours in the marble by a chemical process, by Mr Robert Chambers.’ It also claimed that this ‘is the first monument in England done in that manner’ (Anecdotes 1937, 142-3).
Chambers lived at a number of addresses in Holborn, including ‘Mr Franklyn’s, in Bartlet’s buildings’ in 1765, 265 High Holborn in 1771, and 12 Brownlow Street in 1782. He was still active as a monumental sculptor in the latter year when he submitted a bill for the monument to Colonel Molyneux (9). The wall-monuments to Richard Savage and Peter Eaton both have inscriptions in Hebrew: the Savage is decorated with two fat palm branches (4) and the Eaton has baroque and rococo motifs suspended above a Grecian sarcophagus (3). The remarkably good condition and legibility of the monuments to Stafford and Sir John Evelyn (2, 8) suggest that his claim for the durability of his innovations in lettering technology were well founded. His will describes him as a ‘sculptor' and a ‘master-mason’. He was apparently a wealthy man, for he left property in Leics and Warks as well as Holborn and Clerkenwell.
Mendez da Costa later recalled that Chambers was ‘a very curious person’ who ‘painted arms, flowers, fruit, Hebrew and other characters on marbles ... he painted, or stained, on marble, several roses, exquisitely well for me, and the blazoned arms of the present Duke of Norfolk on a marble slab for his Grace’ (GM 1812, I, 517).
MGS
Literary References: Nichols 1812-15, 3, 253; 8, 708; Graves 1907, 54-6; Anecdotes 1937, 142-3; Gunnis 1968, 90-1; Bowdler 1993, 91-93; Colvin 1995, 235-6
Archival References: Loseley MS LM/1087/21/Box I (1087/XXII/73); IGI
Will: PROB 11/1121/497
Miscellaneous Drawings: Designs for chimneypieces, Verney Papers, Claydon House, Bucks (Colvin 1995, 236); design for a canopy to be placed over the tomb of Sir Samuel and Sir Thomas Fludyer at Lee, Kent, s&d 21 Nov 1769, Lewisham Local History Centre, Manor House Library (Bowdler 1993, 91-3 (repr); ‘A drawing for monumental tombs’, exhib Free Soc 1783, untraced (Graves 1907, 56)