Sculptor born in Codsall, Staffordshire, son of a journalist. He entered Wolverhampton School of Art in 1907 and won a national royal exhibition to the Royal College of Art in 1912. He studied there under Edward Lantéri until 1917. The architect, Herbert Baker, procured him his first commission, a wall tablet in memory of Rudyard Kipling’s son John, for Burwash Church in Sussex. Wheeler’s first joint commission with Baker was for the Madonna and Child (1924), part of the Winchester College War Memorial. This led on to many other collaborations with the architect, the most impressive of which was their joint participation in the rebuilding of the Bank of England (1927–45). In the course of this massive undertaking, Wheeler travelled to Italy and Greece in search of inspiration. He was elected ARA in 1934, though considered at that time something of a rebel. He chose the Ariel of the Bank as his diploma work. Immediately before the outbreak of the Second World War, he was commissioned to produce the Jellicoe Fountain for Trafalgar Square. The companion Beatty Fountain was the work of William McMillan, who had been a fellow student of Wheeler’s at the Royal College. In 1940, Wheeler was elected RA, and in 1956 he succeeded Albert Richardson as President, for a 10-year period to 1966. It was during his presidency that the controversial decision was taken to sell Leonardo’s cartoon of The Virgin and Child with the infant St John, subsequently purchased for the National Gallery. From 1944 to 1949 Wheeler was President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors (having been elected an Associate in 1926 and a Fellow in 1935). He also played a leading role in the foundation of the Society of Portrait Sculptors, and became its first President in 1953. After the Second World War, he contributed sculpture to Edward Maufe’s extensions to the Royal Navy War Memorials at Chatham, Plymouth and Portsmouth, and to the same architect’s Mercantile Marine Memorial on Tower Hill. His other public sculptures include Mary of Nazareth, churchyard of St James’s Church, Piccadilly, London (1925); Sea Piece, outside Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Wirral (1947–49); John Cabot, Bristol Council House, College Green, Bristol (1951); Madonna and Child (‘The Lancashire Madonna’), exterior niche, Lady Chapel, Manchester Cathedral (1958); Thomas Paine, Thetford, Norfolk (1963–64); and Lady Wulfruna, steps of St Peter’s Church, Wolverhampton (1972–74). Two of Wheeler’s sculptures were purchased under the Chantrey Bequest for the Tate Gallery: Infant Christ (bronze, purchased 1924) and Spring (bronze, purchased 1930).
Bibliography: H. Baker, Architecture and Personalities, London, 1944; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Kensington and Chelsea with Westminster South-West, Watford, 2023, pp. 10, 13, 90, 288; R. Cocke, Public Sculpture of Norfolk and Suffolk, Liverpool, 2013, pp. xiv, 146–47; S. Crellin, ‘Wheeler, Sir Charles Thomas (1892–1974)’, ODNB (online edn), 2004; S. Crellin, The Sculpture of Charles Wheeler, Farnham, 2012; Mapping Sculpture; D. Merritt and F. Greenacre, with K. Eustace, Public Sculpture of Bristol, Liverpool, 2011, pp. xxxi, 77–78; E. Morris and E. Roberts, Public Sculpture of Cheshire and Merseyside, Liverpool, 2012, pp. 151, 155, 160–61; G.T. Noszlopy and F. Waterhouse, Public Sculpture of Staffordshire and the Black Country, Liverpool, 2005, pp. 47–48, 190–91; Royal Academy of Arts website: Sir Charles Wheeler PRA (1892–1974)’; The Times, 24 August 1974, p. 12 (obituary); P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of the City of London, Liverpool, 2003, pp. xxvi, xxvii, xxviii, 3, 10, 11–12, 13, 14–18, 19, 20–23, 137, 142, 144, 229–30, 278–79, 287, 300, 301, 410, 412–15; P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Volume 1, Liverpool, 2011, pp. xxxix, xl, 46, 54, 56, 86, 162, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 219, 270, 291, 300–04, 364; C. Wheeler, High Relief. The Autobiography of Sir Charles Wheeler, Sculptor, Feltham, 1968; T. Wyke, Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, Liverpool, 2004, pp. 59–60.
Philip Ward-Jackson, 2011; revised, Terry Cavanagh, January 2025
