Sculptor, modeller in terracotta and teacher, born in 1865 in Knutsford, Cheshire, the eldest child of Henry Spruce (a slater, later a builder). By the age of 15, Spruce was working as a terracotta modeller. Some sources state that he first worked at a local tile factory, but by the time he married, aged 23, in June 1887, he was living in Burn Street, Burmantofts, then a suburb of Leeds, close to Wilcock & Co’s pottery, which would become the Burmantofts Company in 1888 and Leeds Fireclay Co Ltd in 1889 (but which continued to be generally known as ‘Burmantofts’). Spruce evidently became principal modeller at Burmantofts, although at which date it is uncertain. By 1887, he was also working as a portrait sculptor, showing in that year a terracotta portrait bust of E.R. Crosse at the Liverpool Walker Art Gallery Autumn Exhibition. In 1888, the only child of Spruce and his wife, Lizzie, a daughter named Phyllis, died at 5 months. In the years 1891 to 1893 Spruce was both a student and a teacher of clay modelling at Leeds College of Art. Here, according to Mapping Sculpture, ‘he entered a number of modelling examinations, winning prizes in the National Competition and a free studentship from the school’. In 1898, he was a founder member of the Leeds Savage Club (based on the London club founded by Richard Savage in 1857). The membership, comprising mostly artists, architects, writers and musicians, promoted a bohemian way of life and, punning on the founder’s name, adopted a Native American theme, with the president referred to as ‘Chief’ and their meetings as ‘Pow-wows’. Spruce was secretary (‘Scribe’) for some years and ‘Chief’ in 1910. In 1897, he showed a portrait bust of fellow founder member, the painter Mark Senior, at Leeds City Art Gallery’s Spring Exhibition and in the following year, Senior showed a three-quarter-length painted portrait of Spruce playing a violin, at the Royal Academy (private collection; purchased at Christie’s, London, 2012). Spruce’s work for Burmantofts includes terracotta figures and reliefs on the (former) News Room, Leicester (designed by Goddard & Co, 1898); a terracotta relief of St George killing the Dragon over the entrance to the (former) Passmore Edwards Public Library, Southwark, south London (designed by C.J. Phipps and Arthur Blomfield Jackson, 1897–98); faience relief panels within the Blackpool Tower Building (designed by Maxwell & Tuke, 1894); four semicircular faience reliefs representing the arts over the ground-floor windows of the Midland Hotel, Manchester (designed by Charles Trubshaw, 1903); and terracotta relief sculptures on the commercial building (later the Yorkshire Bank) at the corner of Briggate and Duncan Street, Leeds (designed by Percy Robinson – a Savage Club member – c.1904). Spruce had five works accepted for the annual Royal Academy exhibitions between 1906 and 1915, comprising four imaginative subjects and, in his final appearance, a bronze portrait bust of Edward Allen Brotherton, a former Lord Mayor of Leeds (now in the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds). He also showed a bust entitled A Blind Man at the 1908 Salon in Paris, where he had evidently gone to further his art studies, setting up as an independent sculptor on his return to Leeds. This is borne out by the 1911 census in which he described himself as a ‘Sculptor, designer & modeller for architectural decoration’, working on his own account. His largest independent commission was the tomb monument for Sam Wilson (a former Savage Club member) at Lawnswood Cemetery, Leeds (1918). His last commission was probably the sculptural decoration for the war memorial at Bailiff Bridge, Calderdale, West Yorkshire (designed by Walsh & Maddock; erected 1921). Spruce died in 1922 and was buried in Beckett Street Cemetery, Leeds.
Ancestry website sources: England censuses 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911, 1921; West Yorkshire … Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1813–1935 … Burmantofts, St Stephen, 1887; Leeds … Beckett Street Cemetery, 1845–1987 … Burials – Anglican. Ref LC/CEM (B)/1/5, Numbers 78001–97840, 1900–1930.
Bibliography: T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Leicestershire and Rutland, Liverpool, 2000, pp. 106–08; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, pp. 215, 216; H. Dyson, ‘Edward Caldwell Spruce (1866–1922) and the Savage Club’, Oak Leaves (Oakwood and District Historical Society), part 9 (Autumn 2009); Find a Grave website; Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog: ‘The Leeds Savage Club – A Brief History’; Mapping Sculpture; Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions: ‘A Chronicle, 1769–2018’; Tile Gazetteer – Lancashire; Wikipedia: ‘Edward Caldwell Spruce’; T. Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, Liverpool, 2004, pp. 134–36.
Terry Cavanagh, December 2025
