Details of Sculptor

Surname

Abraham

Alternative Surname

First Name

Nicholas

Initial of Surname

A

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1678-88

Year of Death

Biographical Details

He signs the ambitious polychrome monument with kneeling life-size figures of Walter Langdon at St Martin by Looe. The figures are separated by a prayer desk and framed by columns and a broken pediment (1). On 29 April 1686 he and Peter Abraham ‘gave a noat & was admitt’ to the Masons’ Company (Court Book, MS 5304/1, fols 89v & 90r). In 1688 he obeyed the summons of the London Masons’ Company to appear before them as ‘a foreigner of the Mason’s trade’ (not hailing from the City of London), ‘to be sworn of the company.’
His son, Nicholas Abraham II (†1727), was apprenticed to Thomas Shadbolt in 1695 and made free of the Company on 30 June 1703. It was probably this son who built a house on the south side of Conduit Street, in 1719, which was insured with the Westminster Fire Office for £1,000. In 1723 it belonged to John Evelyn. Peter Abraham, who may have been a relative, was made free as a ‘foreign member' on 29 April 1686 (Masons’ Co Freemen List).
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 13
Archival References: Masons’ Co, Apprentices, 1695-1795; Freemen, fol 1; WFO, PR, no 307 (4 Sept 1719)