Henry Fawcett

THE FAWCETT MEMORIAL
The bronze statue of the late Mr. H. Fawcett,
erected in the Salisbury Market-place, opposite an
establishment where his father, now in his 95th
year, carried on business many years ago, and only
about a stone's throw from the house in which the
deceased statesman was born, was unveiled by the
Earl of Pembroke on Wednesday afternoon in the
presence of a large assembly, estimated at 5000 or
6000 people. Mr Fawcett is represented in the atti-
tude of speaking, the right hand being slightly
extended, while the left holds a walking-stick. The
sculptor, Mr H. Richard Pinker, of Kensington, has
produced an excellent likeness of the deceased
statesman. Mr. Moore, of Thames Ditton, has
executed the bronze work. The statue, which weighs
nearly a ton, is 9ft. in height, the pedestal, which is
of granite, being 11ft. 6in. high, and its weight is
about 18 or 19 tons.
  The Mayor and Corporation having taken their
places on a platform which had been erected for
that day's ceremony, the Mayor (Mr. F. Griffin)
made a few introductory remarks, after which Dr.
Roberts, an old personal friend of Mr. Fawcett,
delivered a speech, in which he bore testimony to
the ability and integrity of that gentleman. He
mentioned that the subscriptions amounted to £900,
and the cost of the statue, including that of the
pedestal, and other expenses, would be met by the
sum in hand. After Dr. Roberts's address the
statue was unveiled amid loud cheers, by the Earl
of Pembroke.
  The Earl of Pembroke then delivered an address,
in the course of which he drew a comparison between
his father, Lord Herbert of Lea, and Mr. Fawcett,
saying that the two men had many very rare quali-
ties in common. They had the same devotion to
duty, the same passionate sympathy for the weak
and the oppressed, the same determination to do
what they could with their lives in their generation,
the same innocent geniality towards all classes of
men, and the same hearty enjoyment of all the
pleasures of life.
  A luncheon subsequently took place in the
Council-house, where a toast list was gone through,
the speakers including the Mayor, the Dean, Lord
Edmond Fitzmaurice Mr. Leslie Stephen, Mr. E. H.
Hulse, M.P., the Mayor of Aldeburgh (father-in-law
of the late Mr. Fawcett), and others. Lord E. Fitz-
maurice spoke of Mr. Fawcett as having been one of
his most intimate and personal friends. Mr. Leslie
Stephen observed that he wrote the biography of
Mr. Fawcett with a desire to do him honour, and
wrote it with the strongest possible conviction that
the way to do him honour was to speak the plain
truth.

In May 1887 the Hampshire Telegraph stated that a statue of the late Postmaster General, Mr Fawcett, was to be unveiled in Salisbury's Market Square. "The work was executed by HR Pinker and has been on view at the Royal Academy. It is to be erected by Messrs Pinker, builders of Havant."
Thus stonemasons John and Charles Pinker erected the statue of Henry Fawcett at Salisbury having been sculpted by their brother Henry Richard Hope Pinker (1849-1927). Henry became primarily a portrait sculptor who achieved considerable recognition. He made a statue of W. E. Forster which is on display in the eastern Victoria Embankment Gardens, towards Temple in London. He also made statues of John Hunter (1728 - 1793), Roger Bacon (c.1214 - c.1294), Thomas Sydenham (1624 - 1689), Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882), all of which can be found in Oxford.
Click on the following names for other works available on the web:
Benjamin Jowett,
Henry George Liddell,
James-Martineau,
Henry Fawcett.
It is amazing what information one can now find on the web. For example if you click here you will find that in 1906/7 he was involved as a witness in a court case and it states "Henry Richard Hope-Pinker of 22 Avonmore Road, Kensington, sculptor [who executed bust of 5th Duke]". According to the 1881 national census he was a sculptor living at 15 Hammersmith Road in London. He left a will in 1927. Henry had a great-nephew who was the Queen's former gynaecologist, Sir Douglas George Pinker, who died in 2007.

Obituary
MR. HOPE-PINKER.
SCULPTOR AND CRAFTSMAN
Professor Thomas Okey writes:-
   The art of portrait sculpture is the poorer
by the death of Mr. Henry Richard Hope-
Pinker which took place at his Kentish home
on Tuesday last. Hope-Pinker son of a
master mason of Brighton, was a typical
craftsman of the old traditional school, and,
apart from his Academy training, had learned
his art under the priceless discipline of the
workshop. He was his own carver, as were
the masters of the great ages from Greek to
Medieval and Renaissance times, and wrought
direct on to the stone without the inter-
mediary of the clay model. His fine portrait
of Professor Karl Pearson, cut from life straight
into the marble and exhibited at the Royal
Academy in 1894, may be cited as an example
of his method - a method which he always
impressed on young students as the correct
one, and bade them never to touch clay.
   Hope-Pinker felt himself fortunate in the
sex and in the eminence of his sitters. Charac-
teristic examples of his work are to be seen
at Oxford, amongst which may be mentioned
the portraits of John Hunter, Francis Darwin,
Jowett, Martineau, Dean Lidell, and Sir
Henry Acland, and the statue of Frair Bacon -
a masterpiece. Cambridge possesses his Sir
George Humphrey, and Londoners may be
referred to his W.E.Forster on the Thames
Embankment and the reproduction of his
Martineau and Lidell in the National Portrait
Gallery. Monumental sculpture from his hand
are the statues of Queen Victoria at George
Town. Demerara, of Henry Fawcett in
Salisbury Market-place, and of Lord Reay in
India. Ideal groups of sculpture he exhibited
in the Royal Academy from time to time.
   Born in 1849, Hope-Pinker was a veteran
in his craft. A member of the Art Workers'
Guild since 1885, he was elected Master of the
Guild in 1915. To his friends and fellow-
craftsmen Hope-Pinker was known as a man of
rare simplicity and sincerity of spirit, and his
integrity of mind and hand is evident in all
his work. he may be said to have died chisel
and mallet in hand, for a few hours before his
death, I found him in his studio vigorously
at work on a sepulchral monument to his late
wife, and discussed with him the scheme of
decoration and form of inscription. A Uni-
tarian in faith, Hope-Pinker was of those who
maintain the fabric of the world, and in the
handiwork of their craft is their prayer.

When one searches one's family tree one has to be aware that names can often be spelt differently and transcribed to the computer incorrectly from written records. Handwriting can be very imprecise. Hence for plaque number 92 it was found that Dr Middleton's middle name "Bogle" had been transcribed as "Boyle" in one of the census reports. Thus it was found that Pinker had been corrupted to Linker and an auction house was selling a plaster bust of Henry Fawcett, height 18", under the name Henry Linder rather than the correct sculptor's name: Henry Pinker.