William Calder MarshallRA ARSA (18 March 1813 – 16 June 1894) was a Scottish sculptor.
Life
He was born at Gilmour Place in Edinburgh, the eldest son of William Marshall a goldsmith with a shop at 1 South Bridge[1] and his wife Annie Calder.[2]
In 1844, he participated in an exhibition held at Westminster Hall to select artists to decorate the rebuilt Palace of Westminster.
It proved to be the turning point of his career, leading to many commissions for public monuments not only for the new Houses of Parliament - for which he made statues of the Lord Chancellors Clarendon and Somers, and of Chaucer[3] but also for Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral. He made the colossal bronze of Robert Peel for Manchester; with figures representing the city, illustrative of manufactures and commerce, and another, symbolising the arts and sciences, at the base of the pedestal.[3]
In June 1864, Calder Marshall was commissioned to make an allegorical group representing Agriculture, one of the four representing various "skills" to be installed on the Albert Memorial. A model was completed within two months. His ideas - unlike those of the other sculptors working on the groups - received a generally positive reception from the Executive Committee overseeing the monument, and the sculpture was completed by April 1868. It shows a female personification of Agriculture, directing the attention of farmers to the benefits of modern technology, symbolised by a steam cylinder and cog, and a retort.[6]
Calder Marshall was the most prolific exhibitor of statuary at the Royal Academy in the Victorian age.
A number of his works were reproduced – often in reduced sizes – in Parian Ware porcelain by Copeland, one representing Sabrina proving especially popular.[3][8]
Martin Greenwood, 'Marshall, William Calder (1813–1894)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved 6 September 2007.
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