Sculptor born in London. From c.1877 to 1880, he served an apprenticeship with a firm of architectural carvers, while in the evenings attending the South London Technical Art School, learning modelling under Jules Dalou and W.S. Frith. Pomeroy attended the RA Schools, 1881–85, winning, in his final year, the Gold Medal and Travelling Studentship. He travelled to France and Italy, studying in Paris under Emmanuel Frémiet and Antonin Mercié. In 1888, as one of several sculptors working under the overall supervision of his former tutor, Frith, Pomeroy executed ‘Australia’, one of four allegorical groups on Doulton & Co’s Victoria Fountain in Glasgow. He exhibited at the RA from 1885; with the Arts and Crafts Society from 1888; and was a medallist at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. He executed sculpture for a number of architects, notably J.D. Sedding, in Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, Chelsea, 1890s, and E.W. Mountford, on Paisley Town Hall, 1890; Sheffield Town Hall, 1890–94; Liverpool Museum Extension and Central Technical School, 1896–1901; and the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London, 1905–06 (the famous gilt bronze Justice surmounting the dome is Pomeroy’s). His portrait statues include Dean Hook, 1900, Leeds; W.E. Gladstone, 1900, Houses of Parliament; and Monsignor Nugent, 1906, Liverpool. His most famous ideal sculpture is probably Perseus (shown at the RA 1898; life-size bronze in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; numerous reductions). He was a Member of the AWG from 1887 (Master in 1908); was elected ARA 1906 and RA 1917; and in 1911 was a founding member of the Society of Portrait Sculptors. Pomeroy resided at 15 Kensington Square from c.1908 until his death and ran studios at 1 Wentworth Studios, Manresa Road, Chelsea, c.1892 to 1905, and 15 Douro Place, Victoria Road, Kensington, 1905–c.1910.
Sources: Beattie, S., The New Sculpture, New Haven and London, 1983; Gray, A.S., Edwardian Architecture, London, 1985; Mapping Sculpture; Stocker, M., ‘Pomeroy, Frederick William (1856–1924)’, ODNB, Oxford, 2004; Who Was Who.
Terry Cavanagh November 2022
Robert Anning Bell, Frederick William Pomeroy, 1908. Painted to mark Pomeroy’s year as Master of the Art Workers’ Guild. (Photo: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
