John Bacon was born in
Southwark on 24 November 1740, the son of Thomas Bacon, a clothworker whose family had formerly held a considerable estate in
Somersetshire. At the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to Mr Crispe's
porcelain manufactory at
Lambeth, where he was at first employed in painting small ornamental pieces of china. He was swiftly promoted to modeller and used the additional income to support his parents, then in straitened circumstances. Observing the models sent by different eminent sculptors to be fired at the adjoining pottery kiln determined the direction of his genius: he began imitating them with such proficiency that a small figure of
Peace sent by him to the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts won a prize. Subsequently, its highest awards were given to him nine times between 1763 and 1776. During his apprenticeship, he also improved the method of working statues in
stoneware, an art which he afterwards carried to perfection. Bacon first attempted working in marble around 1763, when he resided in George Yard on Oxford Road near
Soho Square. He exhibited a medallion of
George III and a group of
Bacchanalians that year and a bas relief of the
Good Samaritan the next. During this period, he was led to improve the method of transferring the form of the model to the marble ("getting out the points") by the invention of a more perfect instrument for the purpose. This instrument possessed many advantages: it was more exact, took a correct measurement in every direction, was contained in a small compass, and could be used on either the model or the marble. By 1769, Bacon was working for
Eleanor Coade's
Artificial Stone Manufactory. Bacon was considered the most successful public sculptor in England at the time and the church authorities awarded him the commissions for the next two statues erected in the cathedral, that of
Samuel Johnson in 1795 and of the judge
Sir William Jones in 1799. His widow was his second wife; he left a family composed of six sons and three daughters. His sons Thomas Bacon and
John Bacon Jr. continued his work, and one of his daughters married a Mr Thornton. ==Legacy==