Monumental sculptor born in Gwersyllt, Denbighshire, in north-east Wales, one of the sons of William Chatham, then a quarryman, and his wife, Lavinia. By the date of the 1891 census Herbert’s father was a quarry manager and he, aged 22, was a stone carver. Ten years later he was living in a lodging house in Rhyl, describing himself as a sculptor employing others. In 1904 he married Jessie Mary May Darlaston; a year later their daughter, Cicely, was born. From 1911 onwards he described himself as a monumental sculptor. He died on 20 January 1930 in Rhyl. His only known public sculpture is the Boer War Memorial at Winsford, Cheshire, which was unveiled on 24 November 1906.
Ancestry website sources: England and Wales Civil Registration Birth Index … 1869, Q1; Wales censuses 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911, 1921; Flintshire, Wales, Anglican Baptisms, Marriages and Banns … Rhyl, Banns 1899–1908 (1904); England and Wales, National Probate Calendar … 1930.
Bibliography: E. Morris and E. Roberts, Public Sculpture of Cheshire and Merseyside, Liverpool, 2012, pp. 254–55.
Terry Cavanagh, October 2025