Saturday, 9 August 2025

Captain William Cust, St Walfrum, Grantham, Lincs. The Monument with Bust by Henry Cheere of 1749.

 


Henry Cheere seemed to have something of a monopoly in providing the monuments for Naval Officers.

Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy. Captain Phillip de Sausmaurez, in Westminster Abbey, Malloy Monument at Shadoxhust etc.

Killed in action 8 March 1748 at Port Louis, Hispaniola (now the Island of Haiti and Porto Rico)

Captain William Cust, of the Boston, who, with the Rear Admiral's permission, was serving as a volunteer on board the Elizabeth


The family of Captain William Cust, who according to surviving correspondence were deeply affected by his death, channelled all of their feelings of loss into a punctilious concern that the bust upon his monument (erected Grantham, Lincolnshire 1749) should be a good likeness (Silent Rhetoric - Craske Yale 2007). 

Henry Cheere, was made to repeat his terracotta sketches of William's bust more than three times in order to achieve the chosen effect for the funeral monument erected at Grantham. 


On July 18th 1747 Peregrine Cust wrote from the family house in Downing Street to his family in Lincolnshire that he had:"been to see Cheere, the statuary, who has two busts of my late brother, both unlike, he is making a third from Sir John's picture which does not promise to be like.


Notable for the mention of the maquettes or models.













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Admiral Sir Charles Malloy.

Shaddoxhurst, Kent.

Henry Cheere.

1760.














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Sir Thomas Hardy.

Henry Cheere.

It was designed by Sir Henry Cheere in 1737 as a match for that to John Conduitt which is on the other side of the west door.

Still very much in the Gibbsian, Rysbrack tradition.

Westminster Abbey.

Inscribed -

Near the west door of the Choir lieth interr'd the body of Sr THOMAS HARDY Knt. who died the 16 of August 1732 in the 67 year of his life and according to the directions of his will was buried in the same grave with his wife, who died the 28 of April 1720. He was born in Jersey and descended from Clement Le Hardy who removed from France and settled in that island, and was made a Justice (commonly call'd there a Jurat) in 1381, and was succeeded in the same office by his son and grandson: his great grandson Clement was made a Leiutenant Governor, and had the office of Bailiff (or cheif magistrate) of the island, with the Seigneurie de Meleche confer'd upon him for life by Henry the 7, as a reward for the most important service he had rendered him when Earl of Richmond, after the disappointment he had met with in his first attempt upon England, where being separated from the rest of his fleet by a storm he landed privately in Jersey, intending to stay there till he could obtain leave from the French king to come into his dominions, and was shelter'd at the house of the said Clement, who protected him and convey'd him safely to Normandy at the hazard of his own life, notwithstanding a proclamation from Richard the 3 for apprehending the said Earl, had been publish'd in the island; his descendants have on all occasions distinguish'd themselves to the utmost of their power by thier loyalty & fidelity to the Crown.



Photograph by the author, who was getting tired!