“Cromwell” (1861) by Matthew Noble (1861)

Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Manchester —> Sculpture —> Matthew Noble —> Next]

Oliver Cromwell

Matthew Noble (c.1817-1876)

1861

Marble, on a square marble pedestal

According to Terry Wyke, "Noble produced at least three Cromwell busts" (39). Not just but two of these seem to have gone to the Reform Club in London (see Wyke 39). Cromwell was also a hero to the Liberal Radicals of Manchester at this time, and this version was presented to the Council in 1874 "as part of a campaign to erect a statue of Cromwell in Manchester" (information plaque). As Terry Wyke says, placing the bust here was therefore "more than a simple act of public commemoration" (xi). [Continued below]

Related Material

Earlier bust in the Reform Club

Oliver Cromwell

Thornycroft's statue of Cromwell outside Parliament

Photograph, text, and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee

[Since copyright in the photograph has been assigned to Manchester City Council, it should not be reproduced without their permission. Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Noble was much favoured by those commissioning sculpture in Manchester at this time, and the bust, which was signed and dated 1861, and shown at the International Exhibition in London in 1862, was well regarded. An Art Journal commentator who had seen a clay model of it in Noble's studio in 1861 was greatly impressed by it: "The reading of the head is to some extent new, but it is permeated with that energy, decision, and mental power which were so characteristic of its subject" (qtd. in Wyke 39). The campaign paid off: Manchester did acquire a bronze statue of Cromwell” by Noble (1875) which now stands high on its rough-cut granite pedestal in Wythenshawe Park, on the southern outskirts of the city.

Bibliography

Information plaque beside the statue.

Wyke, Terry, with Harry Cocks. Sculpture of Greater Manchester. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004.

Last modified 27 March 2012