Sculptor born on 12 January 1874 in Wigan, the second eldest son of James Millard, photographer and portrait painter (John Millard’s bust of his father, 1900, is in the Museum of Wigan Life). After attending Warrington and Manchester schools of art, Millard passed the entrance examination to the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, studying under Jean-Antonin Injalbert (1845–1933) and Alexandre Falguière (1831–1900). At the end of March 1901, the census finds him temporarily residing in the ‘House of the School of Art’ in Warrington and working on his own account as a sculptor. He contributed to the Liverpool Autumn Exhibition in 1901 (Bust of a Man, plaster) and in 1927 (Le Baiser); the Manchester Art Gallery Autumn Exhibition in 1906 and 1907; and the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts Spring Exhibition in 1934 and 1935. He had work accepted for the Royal Academy annual exhibitions in 1907, 1909 and 1910, showing a total of four portrait busts in bronze, two of which, of Cuthbert Cartwright Grundy (1907, no 1724) and of J.R.G. Grundy (1909, no 1710), are in the Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool. He also exhibited regularly in Paris where, according to Geoff Archer, he was elected a member of the French Academy. In 1919, he won his most important commission, the Macclesfield War Memorial (unveiled 21 September 1921). Listed Grade II* on account of its sculptural interest, Historic England commended it as ‘of exceptional design, high quality, and intense realism’, ‘a rare depiction, possibly unique in the UK, by the respected Manchester sculptor John Millard of the figure of a gassed soldier, emblematic of one of the new weapons of modern war’. Millard’s bust of the pathologist and bacteriologist, Auguste Sheridan Delépine (d. 1921), in the Department of Bacteriology, University of Manchester, dates to 1923, the year in which he was elected an Associate of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, having been nominated by F.W. Pomeroy and T.M. Crook. Most of Millard’s working life seems to have been taken up by teaching, primarily at Manchester School of Art, where he was principal master of modelling from 1905 and head of modelling and sculpture from c.1918; although he described himself as the School’s ‘Modelling Master’ in 1939, he may have retired soon afterwards. He died on 10 July 1957 at Stockport.
Ancestry website: Censuses of 1891, 1901, 1911 and 1921; England and Wales Register for 1939; England and Wales Civil Registration Death Index, 1957 (Quarter 3); unattributed, undated local newspaper report: ‘Local News – Success of a Wigan Art Student’.
Bibliography: G. Archer, The Glorious Dead: Figurative Sculpture of British First World War Memorials, Kirstead, Norfolk, 2009, pp. 254–55; Historic England: Macclesfield War Memorial (Official List Entry); Mapping Sculpture; E. Morris and E. Roberts, Public Sculpture of Cheshire and Merseyside, Liverpool, 2012, pp. xxv–xxviii, 135–38; Victoria and Albert Museum collections: ‘James Millard (photographer)’; T. Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, Liverpool, 2004, pp. 103, 347, 399, 421.
Terry Cavanagh, October 2025