Sculptor born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the son of Edward Whiffen, a grocer, and his wife, Jane. Nothing is known of his training. He exhibited infrequently at the Royal Academy, showing eight works – six imaginative subjects, one portrait bust and one portrait medallion – in seven appearances over 27 years (1889–1916); he also showed once with the Royal Society of British Artists and twice in the Autumn exhibitions at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. By the early 1890s he was employed by Norbury, Patterson & Co Ltd, carving the sculpture for W.D. Caröe’s Adelphi Bank in Castle Street, Liverpool (completed 1894). His work here comprises five allegorical statues between the second-floor windows – Peace, Charity, Plenty, Justice and Fortitude – plus decorative friezes and, in the main entrance arch, decorative spandrels. In 1895 he married Mary Ann Adams at St Anne’s Church, Lambeth, and although the couple were still living in Cheltenham with his parents at the time of the 1901 census, by the early 1900s they had moved to 89 Altenburg Gardens, Battersea, south London. In 1905 Whiffen was initiated into the Freemasons. Around this time he was engaged by the architect W.H. Romaine-Walker to carve a series of statues he had designed, some white, some polychrome, for the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, Westminster. In 1920, Whiffen became a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. At the Society’s division into Associates and Fellows in 1923, he was elected an Associate. In 1927, however, his membership was cancelled for non-payment of subscriptions. Edward Gleichen, in his usually reliable 1928 survey of open-air statuary in London, credits Whiffen with the carving of the three Portland stone figure groups in the First World War memorial arch designed by J.R. Scott over the main entrance to Waterloo Station (arch dedicated 1922), an attribution generally accepted, even though contemporary architectural magazines credit the carving solely to Farmer & Brindley. But as it was normal practice for the firm to allocate the decorative carving to their employees while sub-contracting the figure sculpture, there is no reason to doubt Whiffen’s involvement. He died on 5 March 1929, aged 61, and was buried in Battersea New Cemetery, Morden.
Ancestry website sources: Gloucestershire … Church of England Baptisms … Cheltenham, 1867; England censuses 1901, 1911, 1921; London, Church of England Marriages and Banns … St Anne, South Lambeth (1895); England, United Grand Lodge of Freemason Registers … Membership Registers, London … (1905); England and Wales National Probate Calendar … 1929
Bibliography: T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Liverpool, Liverpool, 1997, p. 15; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, pp. 107–09; E. Gleichen, London’s Open-Air Statuary, London, 1928, p. 206; London Remembers; Mapping Sculpture; Taking Stock – Catholic Churches of England & Wales: ‘Mayfair (Farm Street) – The Immaculate Conception’.
Terry Cavanagh, February 2026
