Sibling sculptors, modellers and bronze workers. George Henry March (1842–1904) and his wife Elizabeth (1846–1904), of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, had nine children: seven sons and two daughters. Although neither of the parents had any artistic ability, the mother, in particular, encouraged her children in this direction, with the result that eight of the nine went on to become artists or craftsmen (the exception being Eva, one of the two daughters). By 1901, the family had moved to Battersea, south London, where George was employed as a builder’s clerk, and towards the end of that year acquired a 17-room house called The Leys – which they renamed Goddendene – with several acres of grounds, in Farnborough, Kent (now part of the Borough of Bromley, Greater London). In 1902, the eight artists/craftsmen built their first workshop at Goddendene, equipped with walls on rails, allowing them to be drawn back to view larger sculptural commissions in the open air. Two more workshops followed in 1911 and 1926. In addition, and importantly, they had their own bronze casting shed and pit, with furnaces, a small railway and a large hoist for lifting and moving heavy materials. Following the parents’ death in 1904, Eva, as the only non-artist, seems to have taken on the role of housekeeper to her sister and seven brothers, a role that passed to Elsie, following Eva’s marriage and departure from Goddendene in 1916. The remaining siblings remained at the address for their entire working lives, often working collaboratively, each contributing their individual expertise. An invaluable annotated sketch by R.J. Angel, Bermondsey Borough Surveyor, detailing a stage in the casting of the first substantial commission at Goddendene – Sydney March’s Bevington statue – shows Sydney at the mouth of the ‘molten metal chamber’ of the furnace using a long rod to encourage the flow of molten bronze down a chute into an opening of the statue’s sand mould, sunk into the floor (Southwark Local Studies Library; reprod. Cavanagh, 2007, p. 207). The foundry’s activities reached a highpoint with the family’s final major commission, Vernon’s 24-figure National War Memorial of Canada (completed c.1933), after which time any casting carried out was presumably for small-scale work. Following the death in 1974 of Elsie March – the last of the siblings at Goddendene – the property passed to her nieces and nephews; it remained empty until sold for redevelopment in 1978. All the siblings (barring Eva) and their parents are interred in the churchyard of St Giles the Abbot, Farnborough, beneath a bronze sarcophagus over which slumps a mourning angel, created by Sydney March in 1922. On 2 August 1982, a sale of 168 lots comprising sculptures, paintings and drawings by the March siblings was held at Sotheby’s, Belgravia.
The artist/craftsmen siblings are, in order of birth:
Edward March (1873–1941), painter, designer and bronze founder. He studied at Hull School of Art and subsequently the Royal College of Art, London. In an interview with a reporter from The Star (8 January 1909), he spoke of his leading role in developing the casting processes at Goddendene: ‘We transformed the outhouses to make the works, and they have been the scene of our experiments, clouded in the early days with little failures, but ending ultimately with success. It was while we were in Kensington eight or nine years ago that I conceived the idea of carrying out our own casting. One could not get casting properly done. We experimented, and now, as you can see, we do it all ourselves’. Notwithstanding Edward’s assertion, high quality bronze casting was available from commercial foundries at this period, the family’s real incentive to cast their own works more likely driven by cost. Perhaps Edward’s painting activities had gone into abeyance while he was supervising the family’s foundry, as his only contributions to the Royal Academy’s annual exhibitions post-date this period: three painted portraits, in 1935, 1937 and 1938 respectively.
Sydney March (1876–1941), sculptor, bronze founder and painter. In his 1891 census return, while still living in Kingston upon Hull, he described himself as a monumental sculptor’s apprentice. He was a student at the Royal Academy Schools, 1900–03, winning in his first year a first prize silver medal for a model of a statue or group. He exhibited at the Royal Academy 1901–32, showing 21 pieces in 16 appearances, mostly portrait busts and statuettes. Although he, like the rest of the siblings, worked from Goddendene from 1901, he and his brother Vernon also retained a London address, 64 Glebe Place, Chelsea, c.1907–c.1911. Sydney March first came to notice with a marble bust of King Edward VII for Windsor Castle (exhib. RA 1902; electrotype at the National Portrait Gallery, NPG 2019), as a consequence of which the royal family made a trip to Goddendene to see the sculptor. Also from this period are two South African War memorials in Northern Ireland: one to the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (unveiled 1904) in Omagh and the other to the Royal Irish Rifles (unveiled 1905) in Belfast. Both these and the electrotype King Edward bust were cast by Elkington and Co, indicating that the foundry at Goddendene was not yet up-and-running. (As Edward March confessed in 1909, ‘our experiments’ with the casting process were ‘clouded in the early days with little failures’.) The rest of Sydney March’s public commissions – all bronze parts cast at Goddendene – include a statue of Colonel Samuel Bourne Bevington (1909–11), for Bermondsey, south London; an equestrian statue of Lord Kitchener (1912), erected in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1914, relocated to Khartoum in 1920, taken down in 1958, and re-erected at Kitchener Barracks, Chatham, Kent, in 1960; a memorial to George William Lancaster (d. 1920) and his wife, Louisa Mary (d. 1922), East Sheen Cemetery, Richmond, south London; the South Suburban Gas Company War Memorial (unveiled 1920), Lower Sydenham, south London; two war memorials for Bromley, Kent (now south London), one for the men of the parish of St Peter and St Paul (unveiled 1921) and one for the men of the entire Municipal Borough (unveiled 1922); the Radcliffe War Memorial (unveiled 1922), Greater Manchester; and the United Empire Loyalist Monument (unveiled 1929), Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. After the Second World War, there now being little demand for large bronze memorials, March evidently devoted most of his time to painting portraits.
Percival March (1878–1953), a modeller, describing himself in the 1901 census as ‘an art craftsman’ working on his own account at home and in 1911 as an ‘Artist Craftsman Marble etc’. In 1937, he accompanied his brothers, Sydney and Walter, to Ottawa to assemble the multi-figure groups for the National War Memorial of Canada.
Frederick Henry [Harry] March (1879–1962), a modeller describing himself in the 1901 census as ‘an art craftsman’ working on his own account at home, and in 1911 as an ‘Art Craftsman Metal etc’. He married Agnes Gow in 1926.
Dudley March (1885–1962), a metal worker who trained as a goldsmith, and specialised in jewellery and statuettes. He described himself in the 1901 census as ‘an art craftsman’ working on his own account at home, and in 1911 as an ‘Art Craftsman Metal etc’.
Elsie March (1884–1974), a sculptor, portrait painter, decorative designer, and enamel and metal worker. There is no evidence that she attended art school, presumably acquiring her basic skills from her older brothers. She was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and showed sculptures at six of the annual Royal Academy exhibitions between 1919 to 1957: two imaginative works, two portrait heads and three terracotta groups on the theme of motherhood, the first work in this last category earning her the £20 prize in the 1943 Lady Feodora Gleichen Fund. Her bronze plaque, Christ before his Entry into Jerusalem, 1939, is in the Church of St Giles the Abbot, Farnborough, and her bronze bust of the collector Harry Beasley, 1939, is in the British Museum. From the evidence of the few surviving examples of her work, Elsie March had ability but her development as a sculptor was surely impeded by her brothers’ assumption that, as the only female member of the family at Goddendene following their sister Eva’s marriage, Elsie would take care of all domestic duties, a role she appears to have accepted was her lot as a woman. When asked why only one of her seven brothers had married, she replied: ‘I am their housekeeper, and I expect I look after them too well.’ On their own admission, the brothers were so comfortable with this arrangement that the idea of getting married had never entered their minds; as Sydney March explained, ‘Our art occupies all our attention.’ Elsie March outlived her brothers and died at Goddendene in 1974.
Walter March (1888–1954), a metal worker and art bronze founder. Evidently, he studied chemistry for two years so that he could patinate the family bronzes. He described himself in the 1911 census as an ‘Art Craftsman Metal etc’ working on his own account at home. He served in the armed forces in the First World War. In 1937, he accompanied his brothers, Sydney and Percival, to Ottawa to assemble the multi-figure groups for the National War Memorial of Canada.
Vernon March (1891–1930), sculptor, modeller, bronze caster, painter. As there is no known evidence that he attended art school, it is thought that he learnt his skills from his older brothers. At any rate his talent seems to have been precocious, for his bronze statuette, Psyche, was accepted for the 1907 Royal Academy exhibition when he was 16 years of age (and purchased within three days); in all he showed 12 pieces at the RA between 1907 and 1927, a mix of imaginative works, historical portrait statuettes and studies for commissions. In 1914, he won an open competition to design a monument to the 17th-century French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, for the town of Orillia, in Ontario, Canada, a commission not completed until 1925 because of his service in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War (although already a keen flyer, his poor eyesight precluded him from active service and he was made a mechanic). In 2017, the monument was removed for repairs but its return was opposed by First Nations activists. Their understandable objections centre on the representations of the pairs of Wyandot (Huron) men who, in each of the side groups, sit subserviently on the ground at the feet of standing Europeans, on one side a missionary and on the other, a trader. At the time of writing its fate is uncertain. First World War memorials provided Vernon March with a constant stream of public commissions throughout the 1920s (he died of pneumonia aged 38 on 11 June 1930). He designed the memorial at Whitefield, Greater Manchester (unveiled February 1921); two identical memorials for the neighbouring towns of Glossop and Hadfield, Derbyshire (unveiled on the same day, 26 March 1922, by the same officials, at 2.30 and 3.30pm respectively); and the memorial at Lewes, East Sussex (unveiled 6 September 1922). He also designed war memorials for Cape Town, South Africa (‘The Cenotaph’, unveiled 3 August 1924) and Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland (‘The Diamond War Memorial’, unveiled 23 June 1927). His magnum opus, however, was his National War Memorial of Canada (‘The Response’) for Ottawa, Ontario. He won the commission in open competition in 1926 with a design comprising 19 Canadian servicemembers (two of them on horseback) and a field gun passing through a granite arch topped with allegorical figures of ‘Peace’ and ‘Freedom’. At the time of his death, all the full-size models had been completed and some cast in bronze. However, when the bronze figures were assembled under a mock-up of the arch in Hyde Park, London (from October to December 1932) it was found that the width of the arch was demonstrably too narrow to admit the field gun and consequently the arch was enlarged, with Sydney March designing three extra figures to fill the space. Following delays in preparation of the site in Ottawa the figures were eventually shipped to Canada and the memorial unveiled on 21 May 1939.
News film: British Pathé, Sister & Seven Brothers Sculptors. All unmarried – who carry out entire work from first design to ultimate bronze, 1924
Bibliography: G. Archer, The Glorious Dead. Figurative Sculpture of British First World War Memorials, Kirstead, Norfolk, 2009, pp. 213–16; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, pp. xx, 160–61, 205–08, 380; The Champlain Monument at Orillia (brochure produced following the unveiling in 1925; PDF); A. Dawson, Portrait Sculpture. A catalogue of the British Museum collection c.1675–1975, London, 1999, pp. 37–39; Farnborough Village History: ‘Goddendene and the March family’; M.E.O. Ferguson, ‘Canada’s Response: The Making and Remaking of the National War Memorial’ (MA thesis, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada), 2012; F. Lloyd et al, Public Sculpture of Outer South and West London, Liverpool, 2011, pp. 235–26; Mapping Sculpture: ‘Elsie March’; Mapping Sculpture: ‘Sydney March’; Mapping Sculpture: ‘Vernon March’; P. Rose, Working Against the Grain. Women Sculptors in Britian c.1885–1950, Liverpool, 2020, pp. 111–12, 113, 246–47; Royal Academy website: ‘Sydney March (b.1876)’; J. Seddon et al, Public Sculpture of Sussex, Liverpool, 2014, pp. xv, 79–80; M.A. Steggles and R. Barnes, British Sculpture in India, Kirstead, Norfolk, 2011, pp. 116, 118, 120, 122, 267, 281–82; M.D. Stevenson, ‘“Free from all possibility of historical error.” Orillia’s Champlain Monument, French-English Relations, and Indigenous (Mis)Representations in Commemorative Sculpture’, Ontario History, Vol. 109, No 2, Fall 2017 (PDF); Sydenham, Forest Hill and Penge Gazette, 5 March 1920, p. 6; Sydney Mail, 17 February 1909, p. 23 (‘Nine Artists in one Family’); T. Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, Liverpool, 2004, pp. 223, 236, 259, 453.
Terry Cavanagh, September 2024
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