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Title:
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Jonas Webb
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Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
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Jonas Webb, the celebrated stockbreeder, noted for his improvements to Southdown sheep and Shorthorn cattle, died on 10 Nov. 1862, on his own birthday and on the day on which his wife's funeral was due to take place. Reporting on the death and on the funeral in Webb's hometown of Babraham, the Cambridge Chronicle suggested that a monument to his memory should be erected by the agriculturalists of that and neighbouring counties, if not of the country at large. (reported in Bury and Norwich Post and Suffolk Chronicle, 18 Nov. 1862) Indeed a meeting followed very swiftly, on 12 Dec. 1862, at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, at which the chairman, Eliot T. Yorke M.P., proposed the erection in the hall of a statue, which would "defy criticism and do justice to him whom they might call their Shepherd King". (Ipswich Journal, 20 Dec. 1862)
The Jonas Webb Memorial Committee seems to have been very active in commissioning commemorative works, so that, at the Smithfield Club Cattle Show in December 1863, a medal by Charles Wiener, medallist to the King of the Netherlands, with a portrait of Webb on the obverse, and an image of one of the famous Babraham rams on the reverse, and a plaster portrait statuette of him by Charles Bacon, both instigated by them, formed part of the display. (Standard, 8 Dec. 1863) On the 8 December, the committee, meeting once again at the Agricultural Hall, appointed a seven man sub-committee to report on the most appropriate form of permanent commemoration. (Bury and Norwich Post and Suffolk Herald, 15 Dec. 1863)
The report of the sub-committee was read out on the same day of the month in December of the following year. It was determined that no more than £1000 should be spent on the monument, and that the work should be entrusted to Baron Marochetti. Although the original intention had been to erect a statue in the Agricultural Hall in Islington,, London, since Webb had been one of the founders of the Agricultural Hall Company, it had come to the committee's attention that much that went on in the hall had nothing to do with agriculture. It was therefore decided that it should be raised instead in Cambridge. Another committee was appointed to liaise with Marochetti and with the Cambridge city authorities. (Essex Standard, 14 Dec. 1864)
When these decisions were communicated to the subscribers at a meeting held in the Freemasons' Tavern, Great Queen Street on 1 Feb. 1865, some were surprised that the Agricultural Hall had been relinquished as a site. Not all were upset by this. One person, alluding to the ferrovitreous structure of the hall, stated that Cambridge was certainly a more appropriate home for the statue than a glass house. The matter seems to have been decided when a Mr Clayden (Chairman of the Hall Company) announced that, whilst it would be welcome in the hall, and might be allowed to stand under the clock, Webbs statue could not be offered a central position. (Essex Standard, 3 Feb. 1865) The choice of artist appears to have been uncontentious.
In its issue for 9 May 1866, the Essex Standard announced that the site in Cambridge, on the Market Hill, nearly opposite St Mary's Passage, had been fixed upon. The plinth would be about ten feet high, and the statue in accordance with Baron Marochetti's wish, will face the west. (Essex Standard, 9 May 1866) The unveiling took place in the early hours of 28 June 1866, in the presence of the Mayor of Cambridge, Mr Swan Hurrell, and other members of the committee. Several newspapers declared the likeness to be an admirable one, and the whole thing to be one of Marochetti's best efforts. (Birmingham Daily Post, 26 June 1866 and Bristol Mercury, 30 June 1866)
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Material(s): |
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Medium: |
Unassigned |
Finish: |
- |
Technique: |
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Genre: |
Unassigned
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Location: |
Babraham, Cambridgeshire, , ,
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Colours: |
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Year: |
1866 |
Height: |
0 metres |
Width: |
0 metres |
Depth: |
0 metres |
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Key: |
2735 |
Acc. No.: |
2735 |
Col. No.: |
2735 |
Number of views: |
2722 |
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