Londoner of Interest: Sir George Frampton

 Who was Sir George Frampton?

Born into a family of stone carvers, Sir George Frampton (June 1860-May 1928) was a sculptor and a prominent figure in the new sculpture movement. He trained as an architect before studying sculpture at the Lambeth School of Art under W. S. Frith. He then attended the Royal Academy while creating many commissioned pieces.

His studio and first home were located at 32 Queen's Grove, where a blue plaque commemorates Frampton today. He lived and worked around St. John's Wood his entire life, leaving only for travelling scholarships or exhibitions. 

Frampton's best known works are the Peter Pan Statue in Kensington Gardens (Grade II listed), the lions outside the King Edward VII Galleries entrance at the British Museum (Grade I listed), and most notably, the Queen Victoria Jubilee Monument at Victoria Memorial in Kolkotta, India. 

It was written in the 1898 issue of The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art:

The figure, which is some two and a half times larger than life, stands with its pedestal twenty-seven feet high. Certain details of the material employed may be worth setting down. The figure itself is to be of light bronze, the sceptre of ivory with gold ornaments, the orb of blue lapis-lazuli, surmounted” by a golden figure of St. George; the crown and wreath will also be in gold, and the cushion behind the figure enamelled, probably in pale blue and white. The robes are those pertaining to the Order of the Star of India which her Majesty wore when she assumed the title of Empress. The lion and tiger side” by side on the back of the statue typify respectively the British Kingdom and the Indian Empire. Two figures at the top represent Art and Literature and Justice. The capitals which support them are carved to represent English oak leaves, and a typical Indian tree, which is a sacred symbol of the Indian religion. Roses ornament the throne behind the head of the Queen. The base, which will be of richly coloured marble, will bear the Royal arms in enamel, supported” by bronze figures of two Indians. It is fortunate that a work of art, at once novel in treatment and remarkably stately in its conception, should represent the flourishing condition in our Indian empire but it is impossible to avoid feeling a slightly jealous regret that so fine a work should leave the country.

It was so popular that Frampton was commissioned to create more sculptures of Queen Victoria after her death, located in Winnipeg, Merseyside and Leeds.

Sir George Frampton died on 21 May 1928 at the age of 67 and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium along with well known people such as Peter Sellers, Bram Stoker, and Sigmund Freud. There is a memorial to him was in St Paul’s Cathedral that shows a child holding a miniature version of Frampton’s Peter Pan Statue.