Stone merchants and quarry owners, dealing principally in granite. The business was established by John Freeman (1800–1874) and his brother, William, in Westminster. Having secured several important contracts requiring granite, the brothers decided to acquire their own quarries and in 1840 John moved to Penryn, Cornwall, a location having the twin benefits of proximity to substantial areas of granite on or just beneath the surface and a port from which the cut granite could be shipped. By 1851 the firm was not only in possession of granite quarries throughout southwest England but, as is evidenced by its entry in the catalogue for the Great Exhibition, was also able to supply limestones, sandstones, marbles, slates and schists from quarries throughout Britain and Ireland. Nevertheless, W. & J. Freeman’s core business remained granite, its principal exhibit in 1851 (for which the firm was awarded a Prize Medal) being an 11.4-metre-high obelisk, sourced from its Carnsew quarry; following the exhibition’s close the obelisk was acquired for the Royal Hospital Chelsea and modified by the architect C.R. Cockerell to serve as a memorial to the men of the 24th Regiment of Foot who fell at Chillianwala (erected 1853). By the early 1860s two of John’s sons, William George (chairman from 1861 until his death in 1911) and John Deane, had entered the business and, following William Freeman’s retirement, the firm operated as John Freeman and Sons. In 1892 it became a private limited company, John Freeman, Sons & Co Ltd. In due course, William George Freeman’s sons also joined the firm: John Albert, who was managing director in Cornwall until his emigration to Canada in 1910, and Bernard, who was managing director in London before succeeding his brother in the Cornwall role. In 1927, John and Eric Wettern (directors of Cooper, Wettern and Co Ltd) acquired shares in the company and in 1931 were joined by George McLeod (d. 1958), of McLeod Ltd. In 1936, following Bernard Freeman’s retirement, the firm became John Freeman and McLeod Ltd; it ceased trading in 1965. Although the greater number of the firm’s contracts were for buildings, bridges, docks and paving, etc, it also supplied the granite for the stonework of many public monuments. The sculptor Carlo Marochetti was among Freeman’s most regular customers; his commissions incorporating Penryn granite include his Crimean War Memorial, British War Cemetery, Scutari, Turkey (1856–57); Richard Coeur de Lion, Old Palace Yard, Westminster, London (1860); Robert Clive, Shrewsbury (1860); King Carlo Alberto of Savoy, Turin, Italy (1861); Sidney Herbert, Salisbury (1863); Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Hereford (1864); Wellington Memorial, Stratfield Saye, Hampshire (1866); and Sir Colin Campbell, Baron Clyde, Waterloo Place, London (1867). Other public monuments including Freeman’s granite include J.H. Money’s Monument to Viscount Falkland, Newbury, Berkshire (1868); John Birnie Philip’s Revd Robert Hall, Leicester (1871) and Colonel Edward Akroyd, Halifax (1875); G.A. Lawson’s John Biggs, Leicester (1872); James Edmeston’s Charity Drinking Fountain (sculptor Aimé-Jules Dalou), Royal Exchange Buildings, City of London, (1877–79); Thomas Brock’s Robert Raikes and Sir Bartle Frere, both Victoria Embankment, London (1880 and 1888 respectively); Charles Barry II’s United Kingdom Temperance & General Provident Institution Drinking Fountain (sculptor August von Kreling), Clapham Common, London (1884), comprising – according to John Deane Freeman – ‘the most massive block he had ever quarried for a fountain’; Albert Bruce Joy’s John Bright, Manchester (1891); and William Hamo Thornycroft’s Alfred the Great, Winchester (1901). The firm’s last major sculptural commission was a monolithic group of four over-life-size men hauling on a rope, commissioned from the sculptor David Wynne by the Taylor Woodrow Group, and entitled Teamwork. The piece was carved by Wynne, assisted by two granite carvers at Freeman’s Pelastine quarry, Hershell Lawrence and Ronald Toy, and erected outside the commissioning company’s offices in Ealing in 1958 (relocated to Solihull in 2006).
Bibliography: The British Architect, 7 January 1876, p. 3 (‘The Penryn Granite Works’); The Builder, 9 February 1861, p. 100 (‘Penryn Granite’); T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Leicestershire and Rutland, Liverpool, 2000, pp. 89, 178, 180, 181n1; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, pp. 16, 19, 436; Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, 1851. Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, London, 1851 (3 vols), Vol. 1, pp. 114, 137; The International Exhibition of 1862. Illustrated Catalogue of the Industrial Department (3 vols), British Division. Volume 1, London, 1862, p. 10; Kelly’s Directory … of Cornwall (various edns); F. Lloyd et al, Public Sculpture of Outer South and West London, Liverpool, 2011, pp. 68–70; G.T. Noszlopy and F. Waterhouse, Public Sculpture of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire, Liverpool, 2010, pp. 26, 112; Stone (British Stone Federation newsletter): (i) No. 15, October 1958; (ii) No. 16, February 1959; The Times: (i) 9 November 1852, p. 3 (letter to the editor: ‘A Lasting Memorial of 1851’), (ii) 1 February 1866, p. 12 (transporting Marochetti’s Wellington Memorial), (iii) 11 September 1879, p. 9 (letter to the editor: ‘The Decay of Granite’); P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of the City of London, Liverpool, 2003, p. 337; P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Volume 1, Liverpool, 2011, pp. 167, 170, 321, 330, 397; T. Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, Liverpool, 2004, p. 19.
Further sources include: emails from Emelia Spargo, volunteer, Penryn Museum, to the author, 26 September to 3 October 2024
Terry Cavanagh, October 2024
