Figs. 1 – 2: Monument to John Howard (1726 – 90).
1791 – 1795.
John Bacon the Elder (1740 – 99).
Signed [proper right pedestal panel, at base] ‘JOHN BACON. R.A. SCULPTOR. 1795’.
White marble.
Church Floor, Dome Area, South–East Pier.
Inscription:
[Above Relief]
JOHN HOWARD.
[On proper left panel of Base (Fig. 3)]
Fig. 3: Bacon, Howard.
THIS EXTRAORDINARY MAN HAD THE FORTUNE TO BE HONORED WHILST LIVING,
IN THE MANNER WHICH HIS VIRTURES DESERVED:
HE RECEIVED THE THANKS
OF BOTH HOUSES OF THE BRITISH AND IRISH PARLIAMENTS,
FOR HIS EMINENT SERVICES RENDERED TO HIS COUNTRY AND TO MANKIND.
OUR NATIONAL PRISONS AND HOSPITALS
IMPROVED UPON THE SUGGESTIONS OF HIS WISDOM,
BEAR TESTIMONY TO THE SOLIDITY OF HIS JUDGEMENT,
AND TO THE ESTIMATION IN WHICH HE WAS HELD,
IN EVERY PART OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD,
WHICH HE TRAVERSED TO REDUCE THE SUM OF HUMAN MISERY;
FROM THE THRONE TO THE DUNGEON HIS NAME WAS MENTIONED
WITH RESPECT, GRATITUTE AND ADMIRATION.
HIS MODESTY ALONE
DEFEATED VARIOUS EFFORTS THAT WERE MADE DURING HIS LIFE,
TO ERECT THIS STATUE,
WHICH THE PUBLICK HAS NOW CONSECRATED TO HIS MEMORY.
HE WAS BORN AT HACKNEY IN THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX, SEPT IID. MDCCXXVI.
THE EARLY PART OF HIS LIFE HE SPENT IN RETIREMENT,
RESIDING PRINCIPALLY UPON HIS PATERNAL ESTATE,
AT CARDINGTON IN BEDFORDSHIRE;
FOR WHICH COUNTY HE SERVED THE OFFICE OF SHERIFF
IN THE YEAR MDCCLXXIII.
HE EXPIRED AT CHERSON IN RUSSIAN TARTARY, ON THE XXTH. OF JAN.MDCCXC,
A VICTIM OF THE PERILOUS AND BENEVOLENT ATTEMPT
TO ASCERTAIN THE CAUSE OF, AND FIND EFFICACIOUS REMEDY
FOR THE PLAGUE.
HE TROD AN OPEN BUT UNFREQUENTED PATH TO IMMORTALITY,
IN THE ARDENT AND INTERMITTED EXERCISE OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY:
MAY THIS TRIBUTE TO HIS FAME
EXCITE AN EMULATION OF HIS TRULY GLORIOUS ACHIEVEMENTS
Introduction
The statue of the prison reformer John Howard is one of the most important works of sculpture produced in eighteenth–century Britain. Commissioned by a Committee of subscribers, the monument was the first to be erected on the Cathedral floor of St Paul’s, inaugurating a new Valhalla and wide debate over the role of memorials in the building; a debate that remains ongoing. The work was carved by John Bacon, the most successful sculptor of the time, and shows Howard in a classical tunic stepping forward with a large key in his hand to free an implied prisoner, bending a set of fetters beneath his sandaled foot. The artist described the pose as ‘active benevolence’, a theme articulated further through a fine relief panel showing Howard in a dungeon, bringing food and clothing to a prisoner whose chains he has similarly broken. Although the sculptor was never satisfied with the final work, having had his design modified by Committee, it nevertheless set the tone for over a century of monuments that similarly responded sensitively to Wren’s building and decorations.
Howard’s Death and Burial
Howard died at Kherson, in Southern Russia, on 20th January 1790, from a jail fever contracted whilst inspecting the prisons of Eastern Europe. It was the predictable conclusion of a lifetime spent recording the poor condition of jails, first in his home county of Bedfordshire, where he was Sheriff, then all over Britain, and finally throughout Europe. His detailed notes and observations were presented to the public in his book The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, with Preliminary Observations, and an Account of some Foreign Prisons of 1777. In his last decade he expanded his concern for preventing jail fever to a wider interest in the treatment of plague victims as far afield as Constantinople, and he toured quarantine sites for his book An Account of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe, published in 1789. The scroll which appears in the left hand of Bacon’s figure, with the cursive letters ‘Plan for the Improvement of Prisons and Hospitals’ suggests the active nature of Howard’s work, and recalls the detailed suggestions he gave government, judiciary, and prison governors on the avoidance of abuses by gaolers, the housing of prisoners, and safeguarding against infectious disease (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4: Bacon, Howard.
Howard was buried on a local farm near Kherson, requesting that there be no monument, only a sundial over his grave. It was the last of many remonstrances that Howard made against memorials, and specifically in opposition to the desire of friends and supporters to erect a statue or monument to him. At Kherson, his Russian and diplomatic admirers nevertheless took a death mask of the philanthropist and commissioned a portrait medallion for a large obelisk over his grave, incorporating a sundial (Fig. 5). Back in England, where many had predicted that Howard would not return from his dangerous journey, a Committee to honour him was already in position, having formed in London four years previously.
Fig. 6: Memorial to John Howard, Kherson, Ukraine (Antonyahu via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0).
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The Howardian Committee’s Plans for a Statue
The Howardian Committee was formed to erect a statue in 1786 in response to a florid letter in the Gentleman’s Magazine (May 20, 1786) by the scholar Rev. John Warner, signing himself ‘Anglus’. Warner was aware that the chief obstacle to honouring Howard in his lifetime would be Howard himself, who had only once, around 1789, and very unhappily, sat for a portrait by Mather Brown (Fig. 6) and had vehemently refused any further attempts to even sketch him.
Fig. 6: Mather Brown, John Howard, oil on canvas, feigned oval, circa 1789, version of an untraced three–quarter length portrait, NPG 97 (© National Portrait Gallery, London; CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Warner suggested that Howard’s trip to the Lazarettos in Milan and Naples meant that he was long enough out of the country for his admirers to “avail ourselves of the opportunity, which in all probability we can ever have till he rest from his God-like labours, of doing ourselves honour, in doing, to speak humanly, a solid and a solemn one to him”. His suggestion that the magazine should collect subscriptions was enthusiastically supported by John Croaker Lettsom, a physician and philanthropist. Lettsom rehearsed an argument that although virtue is its own reward, as Howard would doubtlessly insist, the act of erecting a monument by admirers is a virtuous one as it would “excite emulation in virtuous pursuits, and induce spectators to go and do likewise” (Lettsom, p.153–4, 157).
Over the summer of 1786 a stream of letters was published in support of the scheme by reformers, writers and scholars, whilst artists including John Flaxman offered to interview friends of Howard in order to draw a likeness from their memories. Many correspondents were keen to suggest that this was a new kind of memorialisation, one in which the subject modestly did not wish to be memorialised, and embodied true “God–like” virtues rather than lofty positions: “Statesmen are the corruption, and heroes the destroyers, of the human species; but Mr HOWARD is, in the noblest and most unequivocal sense of the word, their preserver” (Samuel Parr in Lettsom, p.160) Another correspondent compared Howard to Jesus.
A Committee was formed, bank accounts were established, and a printed call for subscriptions for the statue to “The friend to every clime, a patriot of the world” was distributed to the newspapers. The range of subscribers, from artists and politicians to charitable organisations, demonstrated the range of support that the scheme had, amassing over £500 in a matter of weeks. There were a number of suggestions for a suitable site, including a new hospital crescent designed by George Dance, but in 1786 an anonymous subscriber (later identified as the classical scholar Richard Porson) seems to have been the first to suggest that the statue ought to be “erected as a monument in St Paul’s, if permission for that purpose can be obtained from the curators” (Gentleman’s Magazine, 1786, p.630)
There had been a few published voices of concern, amongst the enthusiasm, about the adverse effect the project would undoubtedly have on Howard when he returned. In October 1786, however, the Committee could be in no doubt about this, when Howard wrote to a friend from quarantine in a Venice Lazaretto, registering his “great concern” at “what is going forward in London”. Howard had read about the planned statue in the newspapers and in letters from friends and, in a fumigated letter of 23 October, wrote that the project “mortifies, humbles, and distresses me”. Howard pleaded that he was merely a “miserable alloy, of Folly and Sin”, that he was an inappropriate choice for a church statue because he was a Dissenter, and also had “peculiarities in diet” (Howard was a vegetarian, who had written a tract on ethical eating). Mainly, though, he was a private man who had a “dislike to shew and parade” (BL MS 26,055).
Howard’s subsequent letters to friends became less modest and more militant in opposition, denying he knew the protagonists, and pleading with real friends to stop the scheme, which “vexed” and “distressed” him. He wrote with instructions that he was only to be given a plain marble slab in his local church in Cardington when he died and with a simple inscription (Howard to Dr Price, Oct 1786, ibid.). Finally, in a letter addressed to the Committee, the prison reformer chose his words carefully when he described their statue as a “punishment” to him (Howard to the Committee, Dec 15, 1786, ibid.).
Howard’s refusal to accept the honour is recorded on the St Paul’s inscription, as a further sign of his saintly calling. Some of those involved in the scheme were less sympathetic to his stance: Samuel Jackson Pratt, who had published an opportunistic poem entitled The Triumph of Benevolence in connection with the project, suggested they should ignore Howard’s “deep affectation of such false and mischievous delicacy” and commission a statue anyway (Pratt to Nichols, ibid.). Nichols still hoped that Mr Howard would see the distinction “between the request of an individual and the collective voice of the community” (quoted in Gentleman’s Magazine, v.33, Feb 1850, p.179).
Regretfully, however, the Committee recognised that Howard would not let it happen, and a pause was necessary. At the meeting of the subscribers at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in August 1787, who now numbered 609 people and had amassed £1492 7 6, a plan was made to produce a commemorative medal instead, with other funds being either returned or diverted into prison reform charities. A subcommittee including the publisher Alderman John Boydell, Sir Joshua Reynolds and the poet William Hayley commissioned a design with a Britannia on one side, a prison on the other, and a Latin inscription. In 1788 donations were given to societies for the relief of people imprisoned for small debts (Fig. 7).
Fig. 7: Design for John Howard medal, British Library Archives and Manuscripts, MS 26,055 (photo by author).
The medal, however, was never executed, as in January 1790 news of Howard’s death reached London. In March the subscribers met again, with Boydell in the Chair, in the London Coffee–House, where they considered “the propriety, and most effectual means, of carrying into Execution the original idea of erecting a statue or monument to the memory of Mr Howard, suitable to the greatness of his character, and the dignity and gratitude of the British Empire” (British Library Archives and Manuscripts, MS 26,055). With many subscribers still in place, and many more who could be persuaded to re–subscribe, the Committee moved quickly, and on 19 April 1790 they made a pivotal decision, agreeing unanimously that “a monument in St Paul’s Cathedral would be the most honourable mark of respect to the memory of Mr Howard, if permission for placing in there can be attained” (ibid.).
A Monument at St Paul’s
The choice of St Paul’s, over Westminster Abbey, was made for Howard’s monument, “as the situation in that Church is precisely adapted to the greatness of his character, and the dignity and gratitude of the British Empire” (26 April 1790, British Library Archives and Manuscripts, MS 26,055). A key figure in facilitating the approach was Rev John Pridden, an antiquary and Minor Canon of St Paul’s who intimated to the Committee that “it was not improbable but upon a proper application permission might be granted” (April 19 1790, ibid.). Pridden was no doubt aware that there were strenuous voices within the Chapter, notably that of Dr Richard Farmer, in favour of introducing monuments and other decoration, subject to close regulation. Farmer, indeed, had felt that in its current, undecorated state, St Paul’s was “the most beautiful stone quarry in Europe” (Nichols p.644). The Committee were, to some degree, pushing at an open door, and Boydell, Warner, Lettsom, and Mr Deputy Nichols, printer of the Gentleman’s Magazine, were asked to make the necessary applications. Nichols later wrote that he found the Dean, George Pretyman Tomline, and every other St Paul’s dignitary in the process more than ready to accede to the proposal.
It was clear, however, that there was not, as yet, a proper form of application, as St Paul’s currently had no monuments on the Cathedral floor and had refused enquiries in the past. Boydell met the Bishop of London, Beilby Porteus, and Dean Tomline, neither of whom were sure if they had the right to grant permission. They referred the Committee to the Trustees of the Fabrick, who were equally uncertain if the rights lay with them or the Dean and Chapter. Boydell took the matter up with the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Moore, who promised to take the opinions of the Bishop of London and the Lord Mayor, William Pickett.
By March 28, 1791 it had clearly been decided where final arbitration lay, as the subcommittee were able to report with pleasure that “the DEAN AND CHAPTER of St Pauls have granted permission for placing a monument to Mr Howard in their Cathedral Church; a favour the more valuable, as it is the first instance in which it has been conferred” (BL MS 26,055). Furthermore, in another sign of the desire of St Paul’s to distinguish itself from Westminster Abbey, the Dean and Chapter decreed that “no fee should be required for its admission” (Lettsom, p.214). They also requested that any design be first approved by a Committee of Royal Academicians, who were to be the arbiters of public taste “in order to prevent any monument being introduced that might not correspond with, or contribute to, the ornament of the building”. Given this “most desirable situation”, the Committee proposed that the tribute to Howard should be a large monument, and renewed calls for liberal subscriptions and resubscriptions. They were also able to announce their decision that “Mr Bacon [is] to be the artist employed to erect the monument” (ibid., p.215).
Monument Commission
No competition had been held for the commission, nor did the Committee record why they had chosen John Bacon. The fact that he had previously carried out work in Coadestone for Dr Lettsom’s home in Camberwell cannot have been a hindrance, and Lettsom described Bacon as a man of “piety and amiable manners” ( ibid., p.150). However, Bacon was also the most widely–known and prolific sculptor of his day. His professionalism and the pleasing and accessible nature of his designs had won him dozens of monumental commissions, including one to the philanthropist Thomas Guy (Guy’s Hospital), where the hospital founder is seen raising a sick and cadaverous man to his feet, in a composition not unlike that which Bacon utilised on the relief on the Howard monument (Figs. 8 – 9).
Figs. 8 – 9: Bacon, Monument to Thomas Guy, marble, 1779, Guy’s Hospital Chapel, London (Luca Borghi via Himetop, CC BY-SA 3.0); Howard.
Like Howard, Bacon was also a Dissenter and believed in the Christian mission of sculpture. As such, he was a good fit for this important new commission. At the subscribers’ meeting in March 1791 he reported that, at the request of the Dean and Chapter, he had already accompanied the Surveyor of the Fabric, Robert Mylne to the Cathedral to look at possible positions. However, with his typical business acumen he reported that he could not offer any views on this until he knew the sum to be expended.
In May 1791 members of the Committee, now under the chairmanship of the brewer Samuel Whitbread, announced that they had met at St Paul’s with a Committee of artists from the Royal Academy, headed by Reynolds, to “fix upon a spot” for the Howard monument (British Library Archives and Manuscripts, MS 26,055). Following the Howard decision, Reynolds had been instrumental in gaining permissions to erect another statue in St Paul’s, to Samuel Johnson, and the purpose of the Committee was to advise on how the two statues would best stand in relation to each other. Bacon and Reynolds were joined by the architects William Chambers and George Dance, the painter Benjamin West, and Joseph Nollekens, the only other sculptor. From the Cathedral, Mylne, and two Canon Residentiaries, Dr Farmer and Dr John Jeffreys were present. They alighted upon the South–East recess of the dome for Howard, a prominent position where it remains today.
Monument Design and Execution
Figs. 10 – 12: Bacon, Howard.
Bacon attended a subsequent meeting to “communicate his ideas” and proposed that the monument should consist of a figure seven feet eight inches high of Howard offering assistance to a figure of a prisoner, upon a seven–foot high pedestal with “proper emblems and inscriptions” (Fig. 10). The size was grand, but necessary to the grandeur of the space, and these dimensions became the standard for figures throughout the following century. Bacon’s design seems to have been very close to his Thomas Guy, reflecting the fact that he was fundamentally a narrative sculptor, using relatively simple recurring conceits to communicate the virtues of a deceased figure. Bacon was to be paid £1800, of which £500 would be immediately available, and the figure was to be executed with “all convenient dispatch”. At the same meeting Samuel Whitbread revealed that he had an “original cast of Mr Howard”, a copy of the death mask taken in Kherson, which he agreed to make available for a print to be taken for admirers, and which was the basis for Bacon’s depiction of Howard’s features (ibid.).
The Committee were so pleased with the honour of being responsible for the first modern monument in St Pauls that they resolved that the pedestal should mark the date of the Dean and Chapter’s decision (a resolution that was not carried through). Other subscribers also felt that this was a momentous moment, and one that called for a rethinking of the practice of commemoration as a whole. The former Prime Minister, the Marquess of Lansdowne, penned a four–page printed pamphlet which he sent to the Committee, and published. It carried suggestions for how St Paul’s could avoid being “disfigured or misapplied in the manner of Westminster Abbey”. It had become a truism amongst critics that the Abbey had become overcrowded, and with monuments to unworthy figures, in a manner that defaced the medieval building and the practice of commemoration.
Lansdowne argued that the Howard monument could inaugurate a new era in which monuments were not just erected by families and individuals who paid for a plot, but were selected by public bodies who would only choose figures who could “answer the purpose of rewarding past or exciting future virtues”. He suggested that St Paul’s only admit monuments voted by the King, Parliament, the East India Company, the Royal Society, or by other regulated professional or artistic societies. He also recommended that the Royal Academy be involved in making a plan for future monumental positions in St Paul’s. All of these recommendations were either prescient or influential, as they can be seen applied to a degree throughout the following decades: St Paul’s, much like the contemporary Panthéon in Paris, was not to be a collection of family tributes. Lansdowne lauded the decision that the first honour be given to a Dissenter, as there should be no restrictions against tributes paid to goodness. Howard had put himself in danger to benefit “every country and every age” (ibid.).
The other major focus of Lansdowne’s tract was aesthetic, and trod on more controversial ground that also effected the design of the Howard monument. Lansdowne argued that allegorical monuments had had their day, and that the tributes in St Paul’s should only consist of single–figure statues. Where a person was deserving enough, a simple reminder of their living appearance should be enough to excite feelings of emulation. He argued that this would also take up less room, and be cheaper than large, multi–figure allegories, and hoped that sculptors would develop a competitive market in the single statue figure, and thus begin to advance the art form in response to demand. This struggle between allegory and portraiture, with implications of Popery and Protestantism, the Continent and the Island Nation, respectively, was to structure aesthetic debate for the next century, however it soon became more precisely topical.
On 6 June 1791, at the London Coffee–House, Bacon presented his two–figure model to the Committee, and it was unanimously approved. However, in late July Reynolds and the Committee of artists met again at St Paul’s, and this time took aim at the design, insisting that it should only be a single figure, in order to balance with the Johnson statue. They argued that the design of Wren’s Cathedral was based upon simplicity, and hence the arrangement of the monuments should also be simple and balanced. Bacon, who unfortunately arrived late to the meeting, objected when he arrived that he could not delineate Howard’s character without a second figure. This defence was dismissed, and West must have been especially irritating to the sculptor when he expressed a similar line to Lansdowne that a public character needed no further delineation than their own features and a simple inscription. Bacon had long had a troubled relationship with the Royal Academy, who often characterised him patronisingly as a commercial sculptor, and had refused him entry on two early applications. The Howardian Committee agreed with the artists and Bacon was compelled to submit a new design. He accordingly presented one with a single figure and a “basso–relievo of a prison scene”, a smaller piece, and hence priced at only £1365. He had also to submit his work to “the approbation of the Royal Academy” (ibid.).
The artists’ intervention may have also been a show of aesthetic muscle by the Academy. Reynolds had long harboured plans with the late Dr Richard Farmer to decorate the interior of St Paul’s, and he clearly felt the Academy should dominate in these decisions. In the previous weeks, Reynolds had even attempted to have the Dean and Chapter reverse the allotted positions of the Johnson and the Howard, giving Johnson the more prominent spot. Reynolds had been rebuffed by the Howardian Committee, however, who had also extracted a promise from Bacon that the Howard statue would be finished and unveiled before the Johnson. Bacon, who had also been commissioned to carry out the Johnson, had the unenviable task of attempting to respond to competitive demands from both bodies, whilst managing the responses of Academicians and Dean and Chapter. Bacon arranged meetings between the Academicians and the Dean and Chapter to approve his design, and scrupulously reported back.
Bacon’s new design was an attempt to maintain the active benevolence of his original design with only a single figure, hence the introduction of the fetters, the striding pose, and the key and scrolls. The more obvious narrative story of Howard’s energetic charity is now relegated to the pedestal relief, which is well–executed, classical and elevated, but still a standard prison scene, not unlike the popular James Gillray print of John Howard of 1798, The Triumph of Benevolence (Fig. 13).
Fig. 13: James Gillray, published by Robert Wilkinson, John Howard (‘The Triumph of Benevolence’), stipple and line engraving, published 21 April 1788, NPG D13059 (© National Portrait Gallery, London; CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
The design must have taken on broader significance for some of the key Committee members, notably Samuel Whitbread, and the brothers Granville and William Sharp, all of whom were closely associated with the campaign to abolish slavery; Granville Sharp was later commemorated in Westminster Abbey in a monument by Francis Chantrey (1816). The imagery of their campaign and own monumentalisation was often focussed upon the breaking of chains, notably in the famous ceramic plaque (date?) ‘Am I not a Man and a Brother?’ produced by another early subscriber to the Howard statue, Josiah Wedgwood, and quoted on Sharp’s memorial. Perhaps of more fundamental importance to commentators was the religious nature of the statue. The theologian Samuel Dean had suggested that there ought to be a legend on the bas–relief saying “‘I was sick and in prison, and you visited me’ because it would have declared what was strictly true, that this trait of the philanthropy of Mr Howard sprang from a Christian motive” (ibid.). Indeed, there was little doubt amongst the protagonists of the commission that Howard was “God–like”, a term frequently used in their descriptions, and the stress on the active nature of his work was clearly meant to echo the current focus in the Cathedral on St Paul as an engaged and practical saint, carrying out God’s work through action, an appropriate hero in an age of increasingly active Christian philanthropy and missionary activity, in response to the Evangelical agenda.
Bacon seems, however, to have been already adapting the statue towards an active Christian iconography through his borrowing from the imagery of St Paul in the earlier Cathedral decoration. The prison scene echoes Francis Bird’s scene of St Paul and the Gaoler of Philippi on the West Front, notably the block and chain, although it is even closer to James Thornhill’s painted dome scene of St Paul and the Viper above the statue, the wobbly and bent fetters echoing the wriggling snake (Figs. 14 – 16).
Figs. 14 – 16: Francis Bird, St Paul and the Gaoler of Philippi, c.1712 – 13, St Paul’s Cathedral, west front; James Thornhill, St Paul and the Viper, St Paul’s Cathedral, c.1715 – 20; Comparison to the monument.
Bacon’s decision to show Howard all’antica reflects the contemporary belief in the correct, timeless, nature of classical garb, although here it also chimes with the representation of the Greek St Paul in the scenes from his conversion and earlier career.
An agreement was signed on 3 February 1792, and it took two and a half years for Bacon, who had numerous other commissions under hand, to bring the statue close to completion. On September 16, 1794 he informed Nichols that he was about a month from finishing, and also that the editor of the European Magazine had asked for a drawing to be made of both St Paul’s statues, in order to introduce them in the journal.
On 23 April 1795, when a meeting of the Committee was held, Bacon reported that the final work had been approved by the Royal Academy, and he requested the final instalment of £500. At the same meeting Samuel Whitbread Jr, the son of the principal subscriber, submitted an inscription for consideration, which was unanimously accepted, and now adorns the pedestal. The inclination of the Committee had earlier been towards a Latin inscription – on the grounds that it would be intelligible to educated people of all nations – but this had given way to a simpler but still eloquent English summary of the reasons for the tribute – the care for mankind, the Christian charity, the modesty, and the desire to stimulate emulation – available to English–speakers of all classes, who had not had the benefits of a classical education (Fig. 17).
Fig. 17: Bacon, Howard.
On 9 February 1796 Whitbread Jnr called upon Bacon and found that “everything is finished”. The Committee was quickly convened two weeks later and resolved to give “their unanimous thanks to Mr Bacon for the masterly manner in which he has executed their intentions”. It also thanked the Dean and Chapter “for the liberal magnanimity with which they have admitted this monument into their Cathedral, a favour the more valuable as it is the first instance in which it has been conferred”, and ordered that notices be placed in the morning and evening papers, and that the monument, finally, be “opened to the publick” (ibid.).
Monument Reception
The monument was publicly revealed on 23 February 1796, and an engraving of it was published in the Gentleman’s Magazine (Fig. 18).
Fig. 18: Statue of John Howard, British Library Archives and Manuscripts, MS 26,055 (photo by author).
The statue appears from this, originally, to have been placed on a now–absent curved base which raised the relief up to a more comfortable viewing height, and Howard’s portrait raised further into the plain panel of Wren’s wall. Bacon was asked by Nichols to explain to readers the concept of the statue, which he did through his concept of “active benevolence”. However, he was still bitter about the intervention of the Royal Academy:
It was my earnest wish to have made this monument a groupe of two figures: Mr Howard raising up a prisoner from the ground; which, from a natural inflexion of the body, and engagement of the arms with the distressed object, towards whom the tender expressions of the countenance would all have been directed; and this, with the sentiments of gratitude in the prisoner, would more forcibly have impressed the character of benevolence on the subject of the monument. And I cannot omit my acknowledgments to the c[ommi]ttee for their concurrence with my wishes, and their approbation of the model of the groupe. But, as it was thought by those to whom it was left to decide on the subject, that a single figure would be necessary for the sake of uniformity with Dr Johnson’s statue, which had a correspondent situation, the Committee directed a bas–relief on the pedestal to complete the design. This represents a scene in a prison, where Mr Howard, having broken the chains of the prisoners, is bringing provisions and clothing for their relief (Lettsom, pp.224–5).
Several newspapers reported on the statue, but one note of criticism (of the type Bacon feared) was sounded by the Oracle:
Mr Howard – the statue in St Pauls is very excellent, but such is the fate of arbitrary allegory, that its allusion, clear and certain in the mind of the designer, is not always understood by the public eye – Some women contemplating it a few days since, one of them asked who it was? To which the other replied, Some poor prisoner wrongfully hung in chains, as you see they lie at his feet’ (April 22, 1796) (Fig. 19).
Fig. 19: Bacon, Howard.
In addition to some disappointed feelings, Bacon soon found that the Committee had not successfully gathered all the subscriptions to pay him in full, and in a humbly worded letter on March 9, 1797, noted that “there is £300 deficient”. It appears that the Committee members all increased their subscriptions in an attempt to pay Bacon, although in July there was still “£173 still wanting” (British Library Archives and Manuscripts, MS 26,055). The Committee wound up its activities that year, and it seems unlikely that Bacon, who had already agreed to subscribe £50 to the statue he was making, ever received his full payment.
The statue itself is, notwithstanding, a testimony to the skill and sensitivity that made Bacon the most successful sculptor of the age. He later referred to it in a letter to his son as “our work” suggesting that John Bacon Jr was also already involved in the design and execution (quoted in Bowdler and Saunders 2004, p.275). (Bacon Jr would go on to make a number of St Paul’s monuments in his own right, as well as to help his father on his subsequent commissions).
The Monument
The portrait of Howard, who was regarded by contemporaries as unprepossessing in looks, is unidealized, with a large nose and tightly closed mouth, the incised eyes carrying something of the determined stare of a committed man. The gentle action of the figure’s pose is accentuated by the varied folds of his chiton and curly hair, and their echoing of the serpentine ramble of Wren’s rinceau on the wall behind. Elements are differentiated by varied surface texture – the striations of the fictive (and real) stone block contrast with the smooth finish of the fictive metal chain, all of its rings carved in the round in a display of carving virtuosity (Figs. 20 – 28).
Figs. 20 – 28: Bacon, Howard.
As often in Bacon’s work, the most pleasing element is the bas-relief, in which a smaller version of the same classicised Howard is carved in high relief against an almost decorative brick wall. The six figures are presented in gradations of size and relief, from the Donatello-esque low relief of the distant gaoler and bread-and-wine carrier to the praying classical prisoner in high relief in the right foreground. Typically, Bacon’s style is gently classical, whilst remaining simple and easily comprehended, with quiet Christian references, for example in the bread and wine, which allude to the Eucharist (Figs. 29 – 34).
Figs. 29 – 34: Bacon, Howard.
The statue was soon joined by that of Samuel Johnson, and the two works have tended to be considered in relation to each other ever since, although they represent very different characters (Figs. 35 – 36).
Figs. 35 – 36: Bacon, Howard, Samuel Johnson.
Bacon, however, was pleased when fellow artist J.F. Rigaud admired both and said that he “could not help thinking that one figure seemed to be going about what the other was projecting” (ibid.). Another comic story, by the poet and art critic Allan Cunningham, had it that an unnamed “distinguished foreigner” assumed that Johnson was St Paul, and Howard was St Peter – a common confusion, he suggests, owing to the large key brandished by Howard (Cunningham 1830, p.238). However, it seems unlikely that the pious Bacon included the iconography unwittingly; the inclusion of both a key and a rock no doubt suggested additional saintliness, and St Paul’s active piety and both saints’ New Testament writing were the subject of frequent discussion in sermons at the Cathedral in this period and beyond. (Fig. 37)
Fig. 37: Bacon, Howard.
Writing in 1830, Cunning was polite about the quality of the statue, which he thought as good as any other of the age; a muted approval shared by E.M. Cummings in 1840 who called it “plain but expressive” (Cummings, p.20). Howard’s admirers were more effusive. In 1850, his biographer W.H. Hepworth called it a “noble monument” to the “first great worthy of England”; a “handsome figure, tolerably faithful”; and “illustrated by emblems of his noble deeds” (Hepworth, pp.58, 400).
In 1850 the Gentleman’s Magazine published many original documents from the Nichol family collection relating to the monument, and there was revived interest. Writing in 1859, William Daniel thought the monument was “peculiarly interesting” amongst the heartless heroes of the Napoleonic Wars that came after him (Daniel, p.139). Indeed, were it not for the Napoleonic Wars that threatened British survival, Howard may have inaugurated a very different type of pantheon to that which emerged. In 1801, Lettsom wrote that he wished that there were more monuments to philanthropists, and was delighted to see Howard “placed in a temple devoted to the service of the God of peace” (Lettsom, p.142). He hoped the statue would be joined by monuments to philanthropists Jonas Hanway, founder of the Marine Society, and William Hetherington, founder of the Charity for the Blind. In the event, neither was commemorated in St Paul’s, and the Cathedral turned increasingly to the commemoration of warriors. Not until a century later, when monuments were erected to Edward Vansittart Neale, George Williams, and Florence Nightingale, did St Paul’s recover something of its earlier purpose as a Valhalla to peaceful, Christian, benevolence.
Although the monuments to Howard in Kherson have had a troubled history, being destroyed during the Napoleonic invasion, then rebuilt, then destroyed by the Nazis and rebuilt again, the St Paul’s monument has remained an icon of campaigns for prison reform, just as its supporters argued that it would. In January 1926, the bicentenary of Howard’s birth was celebrated by a memorial service next to his monument in the cathedral.
Bibliography
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