1775 - 1856

Sculptor. The son of Richard Westmacott the Elder, he became one of the leading Neo-classical sculptor of heroic monuments in England. He studied under his father before going in 1793 to Italy where he became a pupil of Canova. By 1795 he had been elected a Member of the Academy of Florence and had won the Gold Medal of the Academy of St Luke for his bas-relief, Joseph and his Brethren. He returned to England in 1797 and soon established his own studio, running a flourishing practice producing statues, busts, ideal works, chimney-pieces and funerary monuments. He exhibited at the RA from 1797--1839, was elected ARA in 1805 and RA in 1811, and was appointed Professor of Sculpture in 1827. He won commissions for two of the national monuments in St Paul’s commemorating heroes of the Napoleonic Wars, and sculpted memorials for Westminster Abbey to William Pitt the Younger (1807-15), and to Charles James Fox (1810-23). Westmacott also produced the first non-royal statues to be raised in the open-air; his London statues include those of Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford, Charles James Fox, George Canning and the Duke of York. For Birmingham and for Liverpool he made memorials to Lord Nelson, that in Liverpool, an elaborate allegorical composition, created in collaboration with Matthew Cotes Wyatt. The success of his practice was exceeded only by that of Chantrey. Like Chantrey he owned his own foundry, thus managing to secure many prestigious public commissions, including the colossal bronze Achilles (1814--22, Hyde Park) , erected in Hydee Park as a monument to the Duke of Wellington. Westmacott was knighted in 1837. His last major work was the multi-figure group, entitled the Progress of Civilisation, in the pediment of the British Museum (1847-51).