Thomas John Clapperton was born in Bridge Street, Galashiels, Scotland on 14 September 1879. He was the son of the pioneering Scottish Borders photographer Robert Clapperton. Thomas was educated at the Galashiels Mechanics Institute, where he secured a scholarship to Glasgow School of Art in 1899. He attended the Kennington School of Art and the RA Schools, 1904-05, where he was student assistant to the great Welsh sculptor Sir William Goscombe John. After completing his studies in Paris and Rome on a travelling scholarship, he set up his studio in Chelsea. Clapperton’s first commission was the production of two bronze panels for the memorial in Selkirk to the celebrated Scots explorer Mungo Park. He later sculpted the Flodden Memorial (1913), again in Selkirk. Clapperton was one of the ten eminent British sculptors controversially selected without competition by the Royal British Society of Sculptors to sculpt the statues in Cardiff’s new City Hall and in the period 1910-1916 he sculpted in Serravezza marble the statue of Escob Morgan (Bishop William Morgan). After serving in India during the Great War, Clapperton executed the sculpture for the war memorials at Canonbie (1919), Minto (1921) and his massive mounted Border Reiver forms the centrepiece of the Galashiels War Memorial (1925). In 1926, he collaborated with Charles L J Doman (1884-1944), to produce the colossal, figurative frieze representing Britannia with the Wealth of East and West for Liberty’s department store in Regent Street, London. His Wonderland Statue may be found in Oamaru Public Gardens in New Zealand and was gifted in 1926 by former Mayor Robert Milligan. Clapperton’s work in Glasgow is represented by two statues which have acquired affectionate nicknames – the bronze finial figure of Learning on the dome of the Mitchell Library, which has since become known to the locals as ‘Mrs Mitchell’ (c.1909), his statue of a young boy seated on a rock charming two attentive squirrels with his pipe playing, Springtime was originally erected in Kelvingrove Park in the ‘Sculpture in the Open-Air’ exhibition in 1949, and relocated soon afterwards to the McPhun’s Park section of Glasgow Green, as a gift to the city from ex-Lord Provost Dr James Welsh. In 1975, after having been attacked by vandals, the ‘Peter Pan’ was removed from his pedestal for safekeeping to the Winter Gardens of the People’s Palace and, in January 2006, the sculpture and pedestal were reunited when they were once again relocated to a new site outside the building. In the 19th century, a certain Captain Reid left a bequest to the City of Edinburgh for the erection of a monument to the two Scots patriots Sir William Wallace and King Robert the Bruce. The decision was taken that two statues would be commissioned, which would stand in niches set into the walls of Edinburgh Castle. A competition was held for the designs and the rules stipulated that the sculptors would choose their own architect for the design of the niche. Alexander Carrick chose to collaborate with Glasgow architect James B Dunn (1861-1930). He produced a design which was as simple and unobtrusive, in keeping with the fortress wall. By contrast, Clapperton worked with the celebrated Scots architect Sir Robert Lorimer, who produced a highly ornamental gothic niche. In the end, a compromise solution was reached and Carrick’s design was chosen for Wallace, while Clapperton’s entry for Bruce, and Lorimer’s design for the niche were also awarded the commission. In 1928 the Scottish newspapers carried a number of letters attacking Carrick’s design, particularly his portrayal of Wallace with a long, two handed sword, as being anachronistic. The Bulletin however reserved its most scathing criticism for Clapperton and Lorimer, somewhat unkindly describing their Bruce as ‘a pretty-pretty statuette in a pretty-pretty niche’. In 1929 the monuments, after much public debate and considerable revision of the original designs, were finally unveiled. Clapperton’s last important war memorial commission was for the 49th West Riding Reconnaissance Regiment (Royal Armoured Corps) Memorial in Wakefield Cathedral (1947). He exhibited at the RGIFA 1915-51 and was elected MRBS in 1913, ARBS in 1923, FRBS 1938-51 and HRBS 1951-62. He spent his retirement in Sussex and died there in 1962 at Upper Beeding. A permanent exhibition of Clapperton’s life and work can be seen in the ‘Clapperton Room’ at Old Gala House, Galashiels.