xt7qjq0stw34_5302 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474.dao.xml unknown archival material 1997ms474 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. W. Hugh Peal manuscript collection Francis Leggatt Chantrey clipping text 43.94 Cubic Feet 86 boxes, 4 oversize boxes, 22 items Poor-Good Peal accession no. 11453. Francis Leggatt Chantrey clipping 2017 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474/Box_61/Folder_63/Multipage28183.pdf undated section false xt7qjq0stw34_5302 xt7qjq0stw34 CHANTREY (Sm FRANCIS LEGATT), ILA.
B. 1781. D. 1841.

Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey, Whose generous bequest endowed
the Nation with the pictures in this and other rooms, and with most
of the sculpture in the Central Hall and Corridors of this Gallery,
was himself a sculptor. He was born on the 7th day of
April, in the year 1781, at Norton, in Derbyshire ; his father was
a carpenter and small farmer at J ordanthorpe, near Sheffield, and
died when his son was only 12 years old. The boy had only been
taught in the village school, and soon entered upon the work of
life in the shop of a grocer at Sheffield. In his sixteenth year he
was very much attracted by the shop window of a carver and
gilder named Ramsay, and became his apprentice for a term of
seven years. John Raphael Smith, the draughtsman and mezzotint
engraver, encouraged him and taught him to draw portraits in
coloured chalks—a pleasant art, that he made use of in his early
struggling days. A statuary and stone mason taught him to carve

stone; and Sam James, the son of Sam Arnold
- musician, taught him oil painting. Thus equipped he opened a
studio at 24 Paradise Square, Sheffield, and advertised in the Shef-
field “Trio,” 22nd April, 1802, that he would execute portraits in
crayons and miniatures from 2 to 3 guineas each, at that address.
He is said to have tried his fortune both in Edinburgh and
4 Dublin before he came to London, where he studied for a short
time in the Royal Academy Schools. At this time he made his
living by wood-carving for a German furniture dealer named
Bojaart, and long afterwards recognised, as his own handiwork,
the table at which he was dining in the house of Samuel Rogers,
the poet and banker. A marble bust of the Rev. J. Wilkinson for
’ the Parish Church of Sheffield was the first that he chiselled.
He executed the colossal busts of the Admirals Howe, Duncan,
, and St. Vincent, for Greenwich Hospital, at the price of ml. each.
His pecuniary difficulties were solved by his marriage to Miss
Wale, his cousin, as she brought him a small fortune, which
subsequently by his exertions in portrait sculpture he increased
to wealth, which grew with his fame. Perhaps his most celebrated
work is the “Sleeping Children," in Lichfield Cathedral. In the
National Portrait Gallery are his busts of Sir Walter Scott,
Benjamin West, P.R.A., and George Canning, and a medallion of
Kirke White. His statues of Wellington, Pitt, and George IV.,
are to be seen at the Royal Exchange, Hanover Square, and
Trafalgar Square respectively. In the year 1815 he was elected
an Associate, and in 1818 a full member of the Royal Academy.
In 1819 he was able to travel in Italy for the first time.
William IV. honoured him by knighthood in the year 1835. He
was an honorary D.C.L. of Oxford, and honorary M.A. of Cam-
bridge, F.R.S. and F.S.A. He died suddenly of spasm of the
heart on the 25th of November, 1841, and was buried in his
native village in a tomb he himself had prepared. There is a
portrait of him painted by himself in this gallery, and two more
are in the National Portrait Gallery, one by himself in black and
white chalk, and one painted by Thomas Phillips, R.A. He
bequeathed the reversionary interest, after the death of his widow,
.in the bulk of his estate to the Royal Academy under certain
terms, a sum to be spent each year in the purchase of works of art
to form a national collec a I * . .