Sculptor. He came to sculpture through the crafts, and was first employed as a carver and designer to a cabinet-maker. He then worked under John Banks, a Manchester architectural carver, on the restoration of Manchester Cathedral. Coming to London, he entered the competitions of the Department of Science and Art, and went on to the Royal Academy schools (1865–69), where, in 1865, he was awarded a silver medal for the best model from the antique and, in 1869, was joint winner with Thomas Brock of the school’s gold medal, for a group of Hercules Strangling Antaeus, the first time in the history of the schools that two gold medals had been awarded at once. Montford became an assistant to Matthew Noble, working on portrait busts, sketch designs and reliefs. Amongst other work, he executed the reliefs for the pedestal of Noble’s statue of the Earl of Derby (1874) in Parliament Square. Following Noble’s death in 1876, he went to work for C.B. Birch, who he assisted with the City Dragon for the Temple Bar Memorial (1879–80). In 1881, he was appointed curator of the Royal Academy’s new ‘School of Modelling from the Life’ and also, in 1890, curator of its new ‘Day School of Sculpture’; he remained in post until 1903. Montford came to share a studio with his son, Paul Raphael Montford (1868–1938), and they worked together on decorative schemes for architecture, in particular Battersea Town Hall (1892–93). Montford executed statues of Charles Darwin (1897) for Shrewsbury, and of John Milton (1903–04) for St Giles Cripplegate in the City of London. His bronze sculptures entitled Hymn to Demeter and Threatened Reprisals were shown at the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition at White City. Montford exhibited at the Royal Academy for the last time in 1910.
Bibliography: S. Beattie, The New Sculpture, New Haven and London, 1983, pp. 34, 61, 64; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, pp. 299, 300–01, 302, 303, 304; Mapping Sculpture; G.T. Noszlopy and F. Waterhouse, Public Sculpture of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire, Liverpool, 2010, pp. 107–09; Royal Academy of Arts website: ‘Horace Montford (1840–1919)’; M.H. Spielmann, British Sculpture and Sculptors of To-day, London, 1901, p. 34; P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of the City of London, Liverpool, 2003, pp. 354–56; P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Volume 1, Liverpool, 2011, pp. 192–94.
Philip Ward-Jackson, 2011; revised, Terry Cavanagh, December 2024
