Sculptor born in Sculcoates, Kingston-Upon-Hull, the second son of the sculptor and architect William Day Keyworth I (1817–1897). He worked with his father from the age of 12, supplementing his training with evening art classes at Hull’s Mechanics’ Institute. In 1860 he moved to London to study at the National Art Training School in South Kensington and in 1863, on the recommendation of the school’s modelling master, Felix Martin Miller, enrolled in the Royal Academy Schools. In this same year, he made his first appearance at the annual Royal Academy exhibitions (between this and his final appearance in 1896 he would exhibit 26 works, all of them portrait busts or statues). Although he kept a studio in London throughout these years, he maintained close ties with Hull, the source of the majority of his commissions; indeed, his first Royal Academy exhibit was a bust of the physician Humphry Sandwith for the boardroom of Hull General Infirmary. Shortly after came two commissions from the Hull-based architect Cuthbert Brodrick, firstly to provide an exterior frieze for the new town hall he was building in Hull (completed in 1866; demolished in 1912) and secondly to provide four Portland stone lions to decorate the approach to his earlier town hall in Leeds (lions added in 1867). Also in these years, Keyworth was commissioned by Councillor John Winship to make what would be the first of a succession of marble statues for placing within Hull town hall, that of the poet and MP for Hull, Andrew Marvell (unveiled in 1867). This was followed in 1868 by a commission from then sheriff of Hull, Robert Jameson, for a statue of the first mayor, William de la Pole (unveiled in 1870). Statues of Anthony Bannister and James Clay followed. Keyworth’s final statue for the town hall was of William Wilberforce, commissioned by sheriff Henry Briggs and presented by him to the town in January 1884. When the town hall was demolished, the Bannister and Clay statues were placed in storage but the other three were relocated outdoors: Marvell is now in Market Place, de la Pole in Nelson Street and Wilberforce in the garden of Wilberforce House in the High Street. Keyworth’s only portrait statue outside Hull (and his only one in bronze) is that of Sir William Gray in Hartlepool (unveiled March 1898). Keyworth was also responsible for a small number of church monuments, most notably a bust of Sir Rowland Hill in Westminster Abbey (completed 1881). He is known to have produced just two imaginary works: The Young Cricketer and The Croquet Player, commissioned by Algernon Peckover of Wisbech in 1875 (an 1895 copy of The Young Cricketer is in Ferens Art Gallery, Hull). In addition to his own commissions, Keyworth also worked in collaboration with his father, that part of the business operating from about 1880 until his father’s death in 1897 as W.D. Keyworth & Son. By the turn of the twentieth century demand for Keyworth’s sculptures had dried up, his style of sculpture now out of fashion. He fell into debt and on 9 August 1902 shot himself in the head, leaving behind a wife and two daughters.
Bibliography: A. Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts. A complete dictionary of contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904, Vol IV (Harral–Lawranson), 1906, p. 322; Historic England: (i) ‘Statue of Andrew Marvell’, (ii) Statue of William de la Pole, (iii) Statue of William Wilberforce; Mapping Sculpture; G. Mulcahy-Parker, ‘Keyworth, William Day, junior (1843–1902)’, ODNB (online edn), 2016; I. Roscoe et al, A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660–1851, New Haven and London, 2009, pp. 692; P. Usherwood et al, Public Sculpture of North-East England, Liverpool, 2000, pp. 281–82.
Terry Cavanagh, February 2025
