Thornycroft was born at
Great Tidnock, near
Gawsworth, Cheshire, the eldest son of John Thornycroft, a farmer. He was educated at
Congleton Grammar School and then briefly apprenticed to a surgeon. He moved to London where he spent four years as an assistant to the sculptor
John Francis. In 1840 he married Francis' daughter,
Mary, who was also a sculptor. In 1843 he exhibited
Medea about to Slay her Children at the exhibition held at
Westminster Hall, held to choose sculptors to make works for the new
Houses of Parliament. It led to a commission to make two bronze statues of barons who signed the Magna Carta for the
House of Lords. For the
Great Exhibition of 1851 Thornycroft made an over-life-sized plaster
equestrian statue of
Queen Victoria which was much admired by the queen herself and by
Prince Albert. He made several memorials to Prince Albert following his death in 1861. The first to be completed was an equestrian sculpture at Halifax, He went on to create similar works for Wolverhampton and Liverpool. The one at Liverpool, commissioned in 1862 but not completed until five years later, she is shown standing on a column, encouraging a young merchant who stands at her side, while a crouching figure brings her corn, and another, bearded and wearing a turban, offers a box of jewels.
George Gilbert Scott, the designer of the memorial thought the concept was "too complicated and artificial". The figures are shown in a chariot with
scythed wheels, drawn by two horses. In later life Thornycroft worked with his elder son
John Isaac Thornycroft (who was to become a shipbuilder) on designs for steam launches, In 1875, together with Mary and another son,
Hamo Thornycroft, he designed the ''
Poets' Fountain'', near
Hyde Park Corner, London. Other works by Thornycroft are in the
Old Bailey and in
Westminster Abbey, London. One of his pupils was
Thomas Duckett Junior. Through his daughter,
Teresa, he was the grandfather of the poet
Siegfried Sassoon. Thornycroft died in
Brenchley, Kent, and was buried in
Chiswick Old Church,
Middlesex. His
estate was over £11,046. ==References==