Details of Sculptor

Surname

Atkinson

Alternative Surname

First Name

William, of London

Initial of Surname

A

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

Year of Death

1766

Biographical Details

Atkinson was the step-son of Joseph Pickford, who married Atkinson’s widowed mother, Mary, in 1734. He appears to have entered into partnership with Pickford soon after, and they were working together as late as 1758 from premises between Brick Street and Down Street, Piccadilly. Atkinson was one of Pickford’s executors and with his mother inherited Pickford’s stock-in-trade and the yard by Hyde Park Corner, where he was still living in 1763. Like Pickford, Atkinson married when he was middle-aged, in 1762. Sarah Atkinson outlived her husband and continued to live at Hyde Park Corner until 1772.
From 1754 to 1758 the partners were building Stephen Wright’s University Library at Cambridge, for which they received nearly £5,000. Atkinson himself seems to have provided most of the decorative stone carving and was paid £333 for his work (8). In 1759 he was responsible for the masonry work when wings were added to Copt Hall, Essex under the direction of the architects Sir Roger Newdigate and Thomas Prowse, for which he received £86.
He provided the wall monument to Sir John and Lady Bendyshe, which has a conventional double portrait medallion supported by a weeping cherub (1). The memorial to Walter Cary is described by Pevsner as ‘boldly handled, with cartouche, wreath, and large lettering’ (2) and another wall monument with a fine bust celebrates Lewis Dymoke (5). He was also involved in two monuments in Ireland. That to the Earl and Countess of Bessborough, †1758, is his most ambitious work (3). In an elaborate architectural setting, the Earl and Countess are represented half-length above a sarcophagus, wearing Roman togas. They hold hands in a classical pose emblematic of conjugal fidelity, deriving from a Roman tomb, engraved and published in the 17th century by P S Bartoli. The monument to Mrs Osborne, who did not die until 1798, is signed by Carew of Waterford (perhaps the father of J E Carew), but incorporates a medallion of a man mourning over an urn signed by Atkinson (6). It seems likely that the medallion originally came from another of Atkinson’s memorials.
The will of William Atkinson, ‘Architect and Builder’, was proved on 7 July 1766. Two posthumous auctions catalogues of his stock-in-trade survive. The sale of 24-25 July 1766 conducted at his house and yard in Piccadilly, near Hyde Park Corner by a Mr Webster, comprised models, casts, moulds, figures, carved ornaments and utensils. Among the lots was a head of Apollo, ‘two side frizes of statuary carved with Diana’s trophies’, ‘5 figures in Portland stone (the Stuart family) and one pedestal’; ‘Figures of Peace, Plenty and Cleopatra’, ‘Two vases, one on a pedestal ornamented with vine leaves and a Janus’s head, the other on a truss ornamented’ and ‘a fine cast of dolphin and boys by Rysbrack’. The second sale, conducted by Burnsall, on 2-3 April 1767, offered vases, alabaster statuary, plasters and moulds after the antique. The items included ‘a large and magnificent vase in Bath stone, designed by Mr. Kent’ and ‘a most beautiful and magnificent table inlaid with horses’ teeth and different rich marbles in fret and with a statuary marble border’. Also listed were ‘Garden terms in Portland stone 7 ft. high of Alcibiden and a Grecian Venus’and a bust of Lord Westmorland. The unusually diverse range of sculpture and materials suggests a busy shop, which perhaps also dealt in work by outside craftsmen.
Literary References: Mortimer 1763, 49; Gunnis 1968, 22; McCarthy 1973, 26-36 (Copt Hall); Potterton 1975, 34; McCarthy 1979, 382 (Copt Hall); Pevsner, London 3: NW, 1991, 423; Saunders 1993, 11-16
Archival References: GPC
Will: PROB 11/920
Auction Catalogues: Atkinson 1766; Atkinson 1767