Sculptor, medallist, painter and teacher, born 12 August 1918 at Norton, Derbyshire, but raised in Sheffield, Yorkshire. At the age of 14 he won a scholarship to Sheffield College of Art, beginning as a painter, but soon moving over to sculpture. In 1938 another scholarship took him to the Royal College of Art (RCA), firstly, under Richard Garbe (1938–40), and then, following army service in the Second World War, under Frank Dobson (1946–47). In 1946 he won the RCA Silver Medal for sculpture and, in the following year, the Rome scholarship in sculpture, which facilitated three years’ study at the Accademia Britannica. He lived in Rome with his wife, Joan (an engraving-and-illustration student whom he had met at the RCA and married in 1944). The couple returned to England in 1950 and Wain-Hobson began a 15-year stint teaching part-time at the RCA, rising to senior lecturer; he also taught part-time at the then Regent Street Polytechnic and Kingston School of Art. He showed at the Royal Academy, 1947–59, and had work included in the Festival of Britain, 1951. In 1953 he was awarded a runner-up prize in the international ‘Unknown Political Prisoner’ competition. In 1968, he was appointed head of the Fine Art Department at Manchester Polytechnic (becoming Dean of the Faculty of Art and Design in 1978); he retired in 1983 and moved to Wilmslow, Cheshire. During his later years, poor health led to his abandoning sculpture and returning to the less physically demanding discipline of painting. His public commissions include, for St James’s Hospital, Balham, Recovery, a bronze figure of a male nude with upstretched arms (unveiled 7 December 1953; relocated in 1988 to St George’s Hospital, Tooting); for Grimsby Institute, Grim and Havelock, a two-figure group in fibreglass, unveiled 19 May 1973, vandalised in 2006, and restored and re-erected in Freeman Street Market, Grimsby, in June 2024; and for the Shakespeare Centre, Stratford-upon-Avon: on the exterior wall, an abstract bronze relief (‘a visualisation of the influence of Shakespeare emanating from his plays and encircling the world’) and inside the building, an over-life-size bronze figure of William Shakespeare (both unveiled 22 April 1964). Wain-Hobson died 12 February 2001 at Macclesfield, Cheshire.
Bibliography: BBC News – Hull & East Yorkshire: (i) ‘Grimsby artists’ plan to resurrect vandalised “Grim” statue’ (31 August 2022); (ii) ‘Grimsby’s Grim and Havelock statue to go on show before restoration’ (20 May 2023); (iii) ‘Grimsby’s Grim and Havelock statue restored’ (29 March 2024); (iv) ‘Grim and Havelock statue back after 18 years’ (4 June 2024); D. Buckman, Artists in Britain since 1945 (2 vols: A–L, M–Z), Bristol, 2006; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, pp. 319–21; Guardian, 10 April 2001 (obit.); Independent, 7 March 2001 (obit); Mapping Sculpture; G.T. Noszlopy, Public Sculpture of Warwickshire, Coventry & Solihull, Liverpool, 2003, pp. 54–55, 57–58; Douglas Wain-Hobson website.
Terry Cavanagh, August 2025