Bacon, John
1740-1799

The name of two sculptors, father and son, who were associated with George Whitefield's Tottenham Court Road Tabernacle.

John Bacon senior (1740-1799), RA, was described as 'one of the most influential sculptors of the eighteenth century'. Among his works was the monument to William Romaine in St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe, Queen Victoria Street. He died on 7 August 1799 and was buried at Whitefield's Tabernacle.

His son, also John Bacon (1777-1859), was brought up a Whitefieldite in the staunchly Methodist home at Newman Street, London and took Charles Manning junior as his partner. He was a gold medallist at the Royal Academy in 1794 and, like his father, was responsible for monuments in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral. During the last three decades of his life he was largely inactive. He was buried at the Tottenham Court Road chapel in 1859.

Sources
  • Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors, 1660-1851 (1951; revised edn., n.d.)
  • Maurice H. Grant, A Dictionary of British Sculptors (1953)

Occupations

Category: Person
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