Louis Frederick Roslyn (originally Roselieb) (1878–1940)

Sculptor born in Lambeth, south London, baptised Louis Fritz Vai Roselieb on 11 August 1878. His father, George Louis Roselieb (1831–1940) was a carver born in Hanover who moved to England in 1874. He secured employment with Cox and Sons, church furnishers, of Belvedere Road, Lambeth, and in 1876 married Harriet Susan Thompson, the daughter of his foreman. Louis Roselieb studied at the South London Technical School of Art and, from January 1903 to January 1908, the Royal Academy Schools where in 1905 he was awarded the two-year Landseer Scholarship for sculpture. In April 1903, he married Ethel Bleckly (1880–1929). He exhibited at the annual Royal Academy exhibitions, 1904–40, giving his address in 1904 as The Studio, Kupron Works, Bromells Road, Clapham. The Standard Plating and Kupron Works Ltd, as it was known in full, was a company recently set up by his father, producing electro-gilded and plated objects, both utilitarian and artistic. Roselieb’s two seated figures over the entrance to 6–7 St George Street, London (now occupied by Sotheby’s), are inscribed with, in addition to his name and the date 1905: ‘Kupron’. Another example of the work Roselieb produced for his father’s company is the Canterbury Camera Club medal of 1907 (private collection). His first important commission was the statue of King Edward VII for Wandsworth (unveiled at Tooting Broadway in 1911). Although his model had been the one most admired by the Council’s commissioning committee, his name had set alarm bells ringing. Insistent that the memorial be ‘of British work’, the committee called him in to state on record that he was an English subject. Understandably worried that, with the rising tensions between England and Germany, his German name was becoming a liability, he began signing his works with a more English-sounding name. He signed and dated his figures on Imperial House, Kingsway, ‘L.F. Roslyn, Sculptor, 1914’. That he returned to Roselieb for his next public commission, the undated reliefs on Norway House, Cockspur Street (building completed 1915), is presumably related to the initials, R.B.S., with which he now followed his name. He had been elected a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors (RBS) in 1914 and it is understandable that he would revert to his official name for a commission on which he was presumably working at the time of his election. By 1916, the date inscribed under his figures on 70–71 New Bond Street, he was confidently signing himself ‘L.F. Roslyn R.B.S.’. (In 1923, when the RBS divided its membership into Associates and Fellows, Roslyn was one of those elected a Fellow and thereafter allowed to use the post-nominals, F.R.B.S.)  In 1915, still officially Roselieb, he had enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps but not being deemed fit for active service he was assigned to the ‘electro deposition of various metals for use in connection with Aero Engines’. He seems not to have officially changed his name to Roslyn until 1917, the year in which he was transferred to the School of Military Aeronautics and subsequently gazetted as a Temporary 2nd Lieutenant. Following the end of the war, he was one of the most sought-after sculptors for war memorial designs. He produced several models which could be used separately or, should funds allow, in combination. His most popular crowning figure was the Winged Victory, available in three poses: a static pose in which the figure stands with feet together, holding before her in both hands a laurel wreath, as at Greengates, Bradford, 1921; Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, 1922; and Tottenham, north London, 1923; and two active poses in which the figure holds two attributes taken from a choice of a sword (down-turned or raised), a laurel wreath, a palm frond, etc; one showed the figure walking forward, as at Buxton, Derbyshire, 1920; Bexhill, East Sussex, 1920; and Wetherby, Leeds, 1922; the other, sweeping forward, draperies billowing, back foot raised, as if descending from Heaven, as in Blackley, Greater Manchester, 1921; Darwen, Lancashire, 1921; Swanley, Kent, 1922; Basingstoke, Hampshire, 1923; Trinidad & Tobago, 1924; and Kenfig Hill and Pyle, Wales, 1925. There was also a figure of Peace, with one of the above attributes in one hand and, cupped in the palm of the other, a miniature Winged Victory, as at Calverley, Leeds, 1922; Port Talbot, Wales, 1925; and Morriston, Wales, 1928 (where both attributes have been stolen). Other memorial committees opted for the more down-to-earth figure of a serviceman, standing with head bowed, rifle reversed, as at Denholme, West Yorkshire, 1922; Slaidburn, Lancashire, 1923; and Clitheroe, Lancashire, 1923. Roslyn also designed a group of two soldiers: one slumped upon the ground wounded while another stands protectively over him, rifle raised, bayonet fixed; this could be used as a supporting group, as at Oswaldtwistle and Trinidad & Tobago, or crowning the memorial, as at Haslingden, Lancashire, 1924; and Maesteg, Wales, 1926. In Portstewart, Northern Ireland, 1924, just the standing soldier was selected. Alternatively, or in addition, the memorial could be fixed with relief panels either representing combinations of servicemen and women, essential workers, nurses, and mothers with children, as at Darwen; Holyhead, Wales, 1923; and Rawtenstall, Lancashire, 1929; or depicting various symbolic figures, as at Port Talbot.

Bibliography: G. Archer, The Glorious Dead. Figurative Sculpture of British First World War Memorials, Kirstead, Norfolk, 2009, pp. 17–18, 45, 70, 87, 98, 108, 109–10, 111, 112, 113, 114, 210, 213, 218, 247; D. Boorman, At the Going Down of the Sun, York, 1988, pp. 99, 136; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, pp. 333–38; D.A. Cross, Public Sculpture of Lancashire and Cumbria, Liverpool, 2017, pp. xiii, 38, 50, 52, 62, 90–91, 109–11, 123–24; F. Lloyd et al, Public Sculpture of Outer South and West London, Liverpool, 2011, p. 175; Mapping Sculpture; Royal Academy of Art website: ‘Louis Fritz Vai Roselieb’; J. Seddon et al, Public Sculpture of Sussex, Liverpool, 2014, pp. 7–8; Who Was Who (online edn 2007); Wikipedia: ‘Louis Frederick Roslyn’; T. Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, Liverpool, 2004, pp. 139–40, 421.

Terry Cavanagh, October 2024