Stone carver born in Leeds, Yorkshire, the son of Benjamin Plows (1812–1865), a journeyman stonemason. By 1851, the family had moved to London and were in residence at 11 St Margaret’s Place, Westminster. By the date of the 1861 census, 7 April, William Plows was married, with a two-year-old son, Thomas, and lodging with his parents; he now described himself as an ornamental stone carver. On 12 May, Thomas was baptised along with his new-born brother, George Henry, at St Stephen’s, Rochester Row. At about this date, the family firm may have been responsible for the ornamental carving in Lady Frances Waldegrave’s new wing (1860–62) at Strawberry Hill, Twickenham (Cherry and Pevsner, citing J.M. Crook, refer to the carver only as ‘Plows’). Following his father’s death in 1865, William took over as head of the family firm. In 1865–66 he secured the contract for the architectural carving on Henry Jarvis’s new Vestry Hall for St Mary’s Newington (later the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark’s Town Hall), Walworth Road, south London, and in 1869, the architectural carving on Edwin A. B. Crockett’s new offices and showrooms for the City of London Real Property Company in Mark Lane, City of London. By 1871, Plows was living in and trading from Brixton, south London. In 1875, the Builder reported that a ‘Mr T. Plows, of Brixton’ had ‘satisfactorily executed’ the whole of the carving for Thomas Dudley’s Junior Naval and Military Club, Pall Mall. This may refer to Thomas Plows, William’s brother, but as there seems to be no other evidence for Thomas’s involvement in the family firm, the ‘T.’ is possibly a misprint. William Plows died on 7 March 1885 and the firm continued under his son, George Henry’s management, as G.H. Plows. By 1889 it had become Plows, Foxton & Co, of Ferndale Road, Brixton, and by 1891, John Richard Foxton.
Ancestry website sources: 1. Benjamin Plows: (i) West Yorkshire … Church of England Baptisms … Pontefract, St Giles and St Mary 1812, (ii) England censuses 1841, 1851, 1861, (iii) Brompton … Cemetery Registers … 1865 Nov 25-1866 Apr 04; 2. William Plows: (i) West Yorkshire … Church of England Births and Baptisms … Leeds, St Peter 1836 (ii) England censuses 1871, 1881; 3. George Henry Plows: (i) Civil Registration Birth Index … 1861 Q2, (ii) Westminster … Church of England Births and Baptisms … St Stephen, Rochester Row 1847–1868
Bibliography: The Builder: (i) 30 April 1864, p. 314 (engr. p. 315), (ii) 24 April 1869, p. 326 (engr. p. 327), (iii) 2 January 1875, p. 10 (engr. pp. 11–12); T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, p. 277; B. Cherry and N. Pevsner, London 2: South (The Buildings of England), New Haven and London, 1983, p. 549n; Illustrated London News, 30 September 1865, p. 323 (engr. p. 324).
Terry Cavanagh, November 2025