Francis Legatt Chantrey was born at Norton near Sheffield on 7 April 1782, the son of a carpenter. Aged 15 he was on the verge of being apprenticed to a grocer in Sheffield, when having seen some wood-carving in a shop-window, he announced his wish to become a carver and was placed with Mr Ramsey, a woodcarver in Sheffield. The mezzotint engraver Raphael Smith was a frequent visitor to Ramsey’s shop. He took a liking to Chantrey and gave him drawing lessons. Chantrey commenced painting portraits and moved from painting to wood carving and back again, before attempting clay modelling. He obtained the cancellation of his indentures and went to try his fortune in Dublin, Edinburgh and finally, London in 1802. In 1807 he married his cousin Miss Wale. Her ₤10,000 dowry established his studio and funded the purchase of several houses. In 1809 he exhibited his Head of Satan at the RA, which led to the commissions of four colossal busts of admirals Duncan, Howe, Vincent and Nelson for Greenwich Hospital. His bust of Lord Nelson, nearly three feet tall and weighing three quarters of a ton was originally sculpted in 1834 for the guardroom at Windsor Castle and was reinstated there in 2005. In 1815 Chantrey executed the statue Dr James Anderson for the vestibule of Madras Cathedral. In 1827 he sculpted his youthful Stephen Babington, of that long line of illustrious judges, for Bombay Town Hall. He sculpted the portrait statue The Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone in the Grand Assembly Room of Bombay Town Hall. At the request of Lady Raffles, he produced the statue Sir Stamford Raffles for Westminster Abbey in 1834. His white marble bust of Henry Thomas Colbrooke (1820) may be found on the third floor of the British Library; that of Edward Troughton (1824) on the Upper Deck of the National Maritime Museum; that of Admiral Sir Richard Goodwin Keats (1835) at the entrance to the Royal Naval Chapel in Greenwich and that of Lord Canning on the Committee Stairs in the Palace of Westminster. Chantrey produced the statue of Bishop Reginald Heber (1835) for St Paul’s Cathedrals in both London and Calcutta. He sculpted the marble statue Major-General Sir John Malcolm (1836) for Old Town Hall, Bombay. He spent ten years sculpting the bronze equestrian statue Major-General Sir Thomas Munro (1838), which stands on the Island in Madras. His equestrian bronze King George IV may be seen in Trafalgar Square. His Monument to Lieutenant-Colonel the Honourable Henry Cadogan may be found in St Luke’s Church, Chelsea. His George Washington is in Boston State House, USA and his equestrian bronze Duke of Wellington stands in front of the Royal Exchange in the City of London. Three of his marble busts of British kings may be found at the Goldsmiths’ Hall in Foster Lane, City of London. Critics hold that Chantrey’s finest works are his representations of children. His figures of Sleeping Children (1817) in Lichfield Cathedral have long been praised for their simplicity and grace. Chantrey travelled to Paris in 1814 and in 1819 to Rome, where he visited the studios of Canova and Albert Bertel Thorwaldsen and bought marble at Carrara. Chantrey was elected ARA 1815, RA in 1818 and knighted in 1835. A man of warm and genial temperament, he is said to have borne a strong resemblance to the playwright William Shakespeare. He died after a brief illness on 25 November 1841 and was buried in the church of his native village. He had no heirs and had made a fortune, which he willed be devoted to the purchase of works of fine art of the highest merit for the nation. The Chantrey Bequest permitted the RA to purchase works of art executed in Britain for the National Collection. Up to 1905 inclusive, 203 works had been bought, all except two from living painters, at a cost of nearly £68,000. Of these 175 were oil-colours, 12 water-colours and 16 sculptures. Galleries in the V&A at South Kensington were at first adopted as the depository of the works acquired until, in 1898, the RA arranged with HM Treasury for the transfer of the collection to the National Gallery of British Art established by Sir Henry Tate (1819-99) at Millbank. The RA’s administration of the bequest was attacked in the press by the critic D S MacColl and in 1903 a debate in the House of Lords led to the appointment of a Select Committee, which sat from June to August 1904. Their report made recommendations with a view to the prevention of former errors of administration held to have been proved, but dismissed all other charges. Chantrye’s Bust of Benjamin West may be seen above.