Details of Sculptor

Surname

Atkinson

Alternative Surname

First Name

John, of London

Initial of Surname

A

Year of Birth/Baptism

c1799

Flourished

Year of Death

1856

Biographical Details

A mason and paviour who was responsible for a number of funerary tablets. His son practised as an architect. Atkinson had a yard at 100, Goswell Road, London, where, as a very young man, he was joined in partnership by Thomas Whitfield Browne. They are recorded at 22 College Hill, Upper Thames Street in 1822 (Pigot 1822, 153). As contracting masons Atkinson and Browne built Salters’ Hall, the clerk’s house and offices, 1823-27, to the designs of Henry Carr (8). Their tender of £17,362 was the lowest submitted in July 1823, though in the end, owing to various alterations and additions, they exceeded this figure by over £10,000. As early as August 1823, the clerk to the Salters’ Company wrote to them to express the great dissatisfaction of the Building Committee ‘at the extreme slowness and want of energy with which they had hitherto proceeded’. In addition to the buildings, they were responsible for most of the carved stonework and for a number of chimneypieces (6). They also tendered for eight carved wooden columns in the great hall which were to be done in scagliola to ‘imitate Sienna and Statuary’ for £670. The committee decided to pay them £440 instead and to choose a different finish. A summary of their payments to 25 October 1825 showed that they had been paid £27,544 to that date. The partners built the new hall of Christ’s Hospital in 1824, where they executed all the carved stonework (7). A tradecard for a ‘John Atkinson’ is listed under ‘Sculptors and Masons’ in the Heal collection, BM, 106.1. Atkinson’s death on 5 April 1856 at Frindsbury, Kent was noted in the Gentleman’s Magazine. He was 57.
Literary References: GM 1856, i, 660; Gunnis 1968, 21; Colvin 1995, 81
Archival References: Salters, Ct Mins, 1821-27; Salters BCM 1821-27, 129, 226, 242, 263; Salters C1/23, 125-9, 149-53, 376, 408