The Coade Stone Bust of Caracalla, dated 1792. revisited

 

The Coade Bust of Caracalla.

Inscribed 1792.

60 x 49 cm (23 ½ x 19 ¼ in.).

https://www.tomasso.art/artworkdetail/885959/20448/12-coade-caracalla

I was first made aware of this bust in early January this year.

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Since my previous posts of January 26 and February 16 of this year I have discovered that the bust is currently with the dealers Tomasso Brothers of London and Leeds - here are the links - 

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/01/coadestone-bust-of-caracalla-indented.html

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-bust-of-caracalla-at-foundling.html

The intention of this post is to illustrate the history of the reproduction of the bust of Caracalla in England in the 18th and into the 19th Centuries.

The genesis of these posts was a conversation with Lars Tharp regarding the surprising lack of any works by Roubiliac at the Foundling Hospital given his links with the Foundling and the St Martin's Lane Academy.

This dovetailed neatly with researches into the use of variations of the socle used uniquely by Roubiliac in the mid 18th century until his death in 1762 which was inspired by conversations with Dino Tomasso which led to researches into a marble bust of Laocoon now firmly attributed to Roubiliac (see the illustration below).

This form of socle was continued by various manufacturers of porcelaine, terracotta, Coade Stone and glazed earthenware into the 19th century.

A squatter version of this type of socle also appears on the Coade stone busts of Nelson and Raleigh on the Orangery at Bicton, Devon and the bust of John Wesley ( Wesley Chapel, Broadmead, Bristol).

As yet nobody seems to have made the link between the plaster busts of Caracalla and Marcus Aurelius at the Foundling Hospital and the Roubiliac versions (as seen in the posthumous contents of the Roubiliac workshop Langford's 4 Day sale catalogue of May 1762).

I will take the liberty to publish the Tomasso brothers excellent photographs here.

.......................

The Bust of Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester,

Engraving by WC Edwards (1777 - 1855) after Roubiliac.

c. 1820.

The Engraving included here to illustrate the use of the squat version of the Roubiliac late type socle.

The BM say the bust pictured is by Francis Chantry after Roubiliac, but the socle suggests to me that this might be an engraving of the original Roubiliac bust from the Roubiliac Sale - Day 2. Lot 21. Plaster Bust and copied by Chantry.

The Marble bust of Lord Leicester (in Roman dress) at Holkham is a copy by Chantry which uses a turned socle.

Roubiliac was responsible for the busts of Lord Leicester (with wig) and his wife Ladfy Margaret Tufton on the monument in the church at Tiitlleshall, Norfolk.

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-tittleshall-monument-with-marble.html

W C Edwards was known as a silhouettist from an entry in Jackson’s ‘Dictionary’. This records him as the artist and engraver of a print silhouette depicting Sir Thomas William Coke of Holkham

Edwards was a line engraver by trade, he was based in Norfolk in the early 19th century. The silhouette print is inscribed “From a Drawing made at Holkham by W. C. Edwards, in 1824”

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0822-1429

The Busts of Lord Leicester at the the Roubiliac Sale.

Day 1. Lot 87. Bust unfinish'd of Marble.

Day 2. Lot 21. Plaster Bust, Lot 27.

Day 3. Lot 90. A whole length of the Earl of Leicester in his robes plaster.(see image below)

Day 4. Lot. 55. Mould in plaister The Earl of Leicester in modern dress. 

Lot 56. Ditto Mould - Earl of Leicester in Roman dress.

Lot 57. A small figure ditto.

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The Busts of Caracalla and Marcus Aurelius at Holkham, Norfolk.

This bust of Caracalla and the Marcus Aurelius are almost certainly a product of the Cavaceppi workshop in Rome although they lack the eared support on the socle frequently used by him.

Caracalla was bought in Rome  in 1749.by Matthew Brettingham and sold to Lord Leicester for £30.

 His account book notes carriage and custom house fees for a "modern coppye of ye" bust of Caracalla in November 1747.

 Brettingham, who kept an account book when he was in Rome, listing thirteen statues and twenty-one busts sent to Holkham.

 see - “Matthew Brettingham’s Rome Account Book 1747-1754,” Walpole Society 49 (1983):

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The Foundling Hospital Plaster Bust of Caracalla.

Here attributed to the workshop of Louis Francois Roubiliac (d. 1762) in St Martin's Lane.

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The Blashfield Terracotta Bust of Caracalla.

Mid 19th Century.

John Marriot Blashfield (1811 - 82).

Height: 70cm, 27 1/2″ - Width: 55cm, 21 2/3″.

The height of the bust without the socle is 51 cms.

It has been claimed in the past that Blashfield had obtained moulds from Coade but the dates of the disposal of the objects from the Coade manufactory in 1843 .

Blashfield appears to have commenced manufacture of terracotta with James George Bubb (1781 - 1861) as an assistant in 1839 at Canford in Dorset. Bubb had previously worked as a sculptor with Messrs Coade.

I will attempt to obtain better photographs and details of any marks in due course.

With the excellent dealers Jamb of the Pimlico Road, London in September 2025.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1456802126448472&set=pb.100063560954873.-2207520000&type=3

https://www.jamb.co.uk/

For a reasonable overview of the history of Messrs Blashfield and terracotta see -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marriott_Blashfield

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The Tomasso Brothers Marble Bust of Laocoon.

Attributed to Roubiliac.

Note the use of the less squat version of the form of the Roubiliac type socle used here.

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/05/marble-bust-of-laocoon.html

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The Final Disposal of the contents of the Coade Manufactory at Lambeth in 1843.

by Rushworth and Jarvis.

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For Coade Blashfield etc. see Papers Read at the Royal Institute of British Architects - Page 262 - 1867.

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For more on the  history of Blashfield and his relationship with Mintons see -

https://www.academia.edu/43667339/John_Marriott_Blashfield_1811_1882_A_neglected_pioneer_of_decorated_ceramic_floor_tiles

Frances Vandewall and her mother Mary Ingram.

Bonham's Old Master Paintings 25 September – 2 October 2024 - Lots 212 and 213.

Portrait of Frances Vandewall, née Ingram, later Mrs George Augustus Killigrew, 

and her mother Mary Ingram nee Bellers.

by William Hoare of Bath (near Eye, Suffolk 1707-1792 Bath).

inscribed 'Mrs Vanderwall' (verso).

pastel.

61 x 45.7cm (24 x 18in).

framed: 83 x 67cm.

Literature.

N. Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online edition, no. J.395.1342., ill.

 

The sitter, was the daughter of draper Joseph and Mary Ingram of Cheapside, she married Joseph Vandewall (b.1714) in 1737. Joseph died in 1739 at French Ordinary Court in the hospital of Crutched Friars. 

for much more on Samuel Vandewall and the Vandewall family see

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014/02/samuelvandewall-1719-1761-and-his-wife.html

Frances later married Captain George Augustus Killigrew (1717-1757) in 1753.

Frances Vandewall and Captain George Augustus Killigrew obtained a marriage licence on 27 June 1753 in London.

    

Her will was perhaps proved on 4 April 1765 at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. She may be the Frances Killigrew, widow of Argyle Buildings, Middlesex, whose will was proved 4 April 1765 but could also be the Frances Maria Killigrew, widow of St Marylebone whose will was proved 2 May 1753.

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/29809/lot/212/william-hoare-of-bath-near-eye-suffolk-1707-1792-bath-portrait-of-frances-vandewall-nee-ingram-later-mrs-george-augustus-killigrew-in-a-blue-dress-and-pearl-necklace-framed-83-x-67cm/

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Mary Ingram (1689 - 17.

Inscribed 'To Mrs Ingram/ Cheapside/ all paid' (verso).

 William Hoare of Bath (near Eye, Suffolk 1707-1792 Bath).

pastel.

61.1 x 47.8cm (24 1/16 x 18 13/16in).

framed: 82.9 x 66.9cm.

Literature.

N. Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online edition, no. J.395.1341, ill

Bonham's Old Master Paintings 25 September – 2 October 2024  Lot 213.

Mary Bellers was the daughter of the social reformer John Bellers cloth merchant proponent of the “Colledge of Industry.”and Frances Fettipace of London.

The sitter was married to Joseph Ingram (d.1741), a Cheapside Linen Draper 25 July 1710. son of William Ingram, salter at the Bull and Mouth  Quaker Meeting Gracechurch Street

........................

In his will, dated 8 March 1741, Joseph Ingram left the Hoxton property and any other real estate to his wife Mary (appointed executrix), with an annuity to his sister in law Christabell Ingram (bequeathed originally by his father). 

Bequests to his sons Thomas, Samuel and Robert Ingram and his daughter Frances Vandewall, whose marriage settlement he confirms.'

Date of Death: 21 July 1751 at Coln  St Aldwin, Gloucestershire

 Cause of Death: an inflamation

 Burial: 30 July 1751 at Friends burial ground near Bunhill Fields.

https://wills.qfhs.co.uk/az/wtext/ingram_004.html

.......................................

Highlights of Will of Mary Ingram

 £100 to her daughter Frances Vanderwall.

She confirms the marriage settlement made upon her marriage to Joseph Vanderwall, now deceased.

 She leaves all her estate at Hoxton to her son Thomas Ingram as well as all the property left her by her father John Bellers in Wilts, Oxfordshire and Berkshire, her properties in Pennsylvania and West New Jersey, and her leasehold estates at Coln Saint Aldwin.

 She leaves £4000 to her son Samuel Ingram.

 She leaves a £10 annuity to Susanna, the widow of Benjamin Clerk, and Christobell Lund, the wife of Benjamin Lund, both being the daughters of her late husband’s brother Robert Ingram.

 She also leaves an annuity of £10 to Ann Tarbox, the wife of Joseph Tarbox of Winchmore Hill.

 She leaves the rest of her estate to her sons Thomas and Samuel Ingram, whom she names as her Executors.

 Codicil - She leaves her daughter Frances Vanderwall £800, in addition to the legacy in the will.

Transcript available on line - https://wills.qfhs.co.uk/az/wtext/ingram_005.html

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/29809/lot/213/william-hoare-of-bath-near-eye-suffolk-1707-1792-bath-portrait-of-mary-ingram-nee-bellers-in-a-brown-dress-white-bonnet-and-fichu-framed-829-x-669cm/

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Will of Mary Ingram, Widow of Joseph Ingram of Cheapside, London

 Will 14 July 1749 with Codicil 18 July 1749   Probate 2 August 1751

https://wills.qfhs.co.uk/az/wtext/ingram_005.html

................................................

1737. The marriage of Joseph Vandewall (d.1739) who was Samuel Vandewall's older brother (d.1761) to Frances Ingram daughter of Joseph Ingram of Cheapside, Draper, 

Amongst those at the wedding were the apothecary Silvanus Bevan, Joseph Moore, and many of the Ingram family.

 

1739. – 5 Nov. His older brother Joseph (b. 1714) dies of fever at French Ordinary Court. Crutched Friars, He leaves to his dear wife Frances his personal estate and the reversion of an estate at Greenwich “settled on testator” by his father in law Joseph Ingram on his Marriage.

 

1740. Samuel Vandewall inherits Ravensbourne House and the Copperas works at East Greenwich next to the Ravensbourne at Deptford Creek and also property in Peckham, South London from Joseph Moore, his grandfather on his mothers side. The Gentleman’s Magazine in its usual mercenary manner reports the death of Joseph Moore and estate of £30,000, an immense amount of money at the time. See Public Records Office, Kew London, Will of Joseph Moore. Prob 11/705.

........................

The Will of Joseph Vandewall, Merchant of Crutched Friars, City of London.

 The Will 2 November 1739, Probate 6 November 1739.

 https://wills.qfhs.co.uk/az/wtext/vandewall_004.html

Thomas King Marble Mason of Bath Part 2

 

First draft.

Thomas King (1741 - 1804). Marble Mason

The following paragraphs adapted from -

https://www.bathabbeymemorials.org.uk/sculptor/t-king

https://gunnis.henry-moore.org/henrymoore/sculptor/browserecord.php?-action=browse&-recid=1553&from_list=true&x=10

For an useful overview of the Monumental Masons in Bath in the 18th and 19th Centuries by Kim Jordan.

https://historyofbath.org/images/ProceedingsPDFs/PROCEEDINGS%2008%202019-20.pdf

Thomas King (1741-1804), was the founder of one of the most prolific west country firms of monumental masons, he was the son of Henry King, a clockmaker of St Dunstan-in-the-West in the City of London. His son continued the business into the 19th century.

Thomas was apprenticed on 26 March 1752 to Charles Saunders? a London mason, but settled in Bath soon after completing his apprenticeship which would have been for seven years. 

I can find no record of a Charles Saunders - but William Saunders fl.1743 - 54 was a London mason who worked on the reconstruction of Leicester House (Biog Dictionary British Sculptors pub Yale 2009) with an address in Windmill Street.

He married Elizabeth, the daughter of Thomas Paty of Bristol on 6 May 1779 at St Augustine the Less, Bristol. 

The Paty family were architects and masons, responsible for Royal Fort, The Bristol Exchange, Bristol Bridge and many monuments. The Paty family was a prominent multi-generational dynasty of masons, surveyors, and architects based in 18th-century Bristol, originating from Somerset stonemasons and carvers who established workshops in Bristol at the Horsefair and Limekiln Lane.

For an introduction to the Paty family and to be treated with caution (generated by AI) see - https://grokipedia.com/page/william_paty#biography

King maintained cordial relations with the Paty family and was left £250 in his father-in-law’s will. When his brother-in-law, William Paty, died, clients were instructed to forward outstanding debts to King. see - (Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, 4 April 1801).

King had three children, Thomas and Charles, who entered the business, and Mary, who did not marry during his lifetime.

 

The firm produced a large number of small, wall monuments, often incorporating coloured marbles in an elegant oval, rectangular or inverted shield frame. Most were sold to clients from stock. 

Thomas used the customary range of neoclassical motifs: urns, sarcophagi, willow trees, mourning women, crumpled scrolls held by cherubs and broken columns.

Thomas Gainsborough’s account at Hoare’s Bank records a payment of 18 guineas made to Thomas King in May 1771, perhaps for a picture frame (Gunnis).

 

King also worked on bespoke commissions, such as his first memorial to James Quin with a portrait medallion of the actor of 1769. 

His memorial to Robert Walsh in Bath Abbey has a relief of a broken Ionic column clad with yew on an oval ground of streaked grey marble. It has been suggested that this was the first time the broken column, a traditional symbol of Fortitude, was employed alone on a monument. 

Richard Warner, in his History of Bath, 1801, considered the monument the ‘most remarkable for happiness of design in the whole Abbey’.

His memorials for Venanzio Rauzzini and Sir Nigel Gresley are framed with deep swathes of fabric brought together with three knots.

 

King died a prosperous man and left his widow a number of properties in Bath, including offices, a garden and a yard ‘now in my own occupation’ at Beaufort Place, Walcot. His three children received generous bequests. 

He is buried at Woolley, where a modest tablet, for which he earmarked 20 guineas in his will, bears the epitaph: 

‘Many Years an eminent statuary in the parish of Walcot, who after sustaining a long and painful illness with exemplary fortitude and resignation, calmly departed this life December the 5th, 1804, in his 63rd. year.

The will of ‘Thomas King, Gentleman of Walcot, Somerset’, PROB 11/1427, proved July 1805.

............................

Thomas King, Statuary, nr. Walcot Turnpike. London Road, Bath.

 Thomas King senior served his apprenticeship with the Mason’s Company of London then established his business in Lansdown, Bath in the early 1760’s. 

Later he set up a marble yard and workshops at Snow Hill at the junction with London Road by the Walcot Turnpike. It was sufficiently significant to be recorded on Harcourt Masters’ 1794 map of the city.

 

..................

Some refs to King in the Bath press -

 

Bath Chronicle - 16 February 1786 - Thomas King statuary - marble chimney pieces £6 to £60. Monuments 8 guin to 50 guin.

 Bath Chronicle - 13 April 1786 - Goods: marble chimney pieces, fitted for sale etc at Thomas King's, statuary nr Walcot turnpike.

 Bath Chronicle - 8 Jun 1786 - Goods: For sale marble - chimney pieces. Small monuments for inspection enq T King, statuary nr Walcot turnpike.

 Bath Chronicle -  27 March 1794 - Bath turnpike roads - general meeting of Trustees at the Guildhall on 5 April at 12 noon. To consider removal of present tollbar on London Road at or near Mr King's marble yard in Walcot.

............................

William Reeves foreman to Thomas King.

see my previous post

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/03/reeves-of-bath-statuary-and-monumental.html

Bath Chronicle - 18 October 1792  - Wm Reeves, marble mason carver etc, many years foreman to Mr King, has opened a yard in James Street, Kingsmead. Monuments, chimney pieces etc.

Premises at 6 & 7 King Street (presumably old King St) from 1792 to 1826 were used by William Reeves probably as his residence

The Kings and the Reeves were the most successful monumental masons in the late 18th and early to mid 19th centuries with the Biggs and Lancashires offering competition in the heyday of the trade.

The Greenways and Thomas King.

There is an indenture of 20 September 1791, when Thomas King, the statuary of Walcot, with Mr.Charles Harford, gent., as his trustee, conveyed to John Greenway in trust for Francis Greenway, mason, of Walcot (not the transported Australian architect), who would have been only thirteen at the time], ‘part of a pasture of 2a 22p called Upper Tyning [Walcot], being all those plots on the west side of an intended building called Mount Pleasant and all those two messuages thereon erecting at the cost of Francis Greenway.

Reeves of Bath, Statuary and Monumental Mason.

 

William Reeves .

Bath Chronicle - 18 October 1792  - Wm Reeves, marble mason carver etc, many years foreman to Mr King, has opened a yard in James Street, Kingsmead. Monuments, chimney pieces etc.

Thomas King, marble Mason of Bath, Part 1. - with a few notes notes on James Quin and his monument with a portrait relief in Bath Abbey and his portraits.

 

The Monument to the actor James Quin (1693 - 1766).

Inscribed by Thomas King.

Quin retired to Bath and spent his last fifteen years lodging in the house of Mrs Simpson at 3, Pierrepont Street. Quin was fond of the city, often referring to it as 'a fine slope to the grave'.

I suspect that the relief was adapted from the mezzotint engraving by Faber after Thomas Hudson.

The monument was put up in 1769.

Bath Abbey.

He retired to Bath and spent his last fifteen years lodging in the house of Mrs Simpson at 3, Pierrepont Street (East side). Quin was fond of the city, often referring to it as 'a fine slope to the grave'.

James Quin was ‘privately interred in the Abbey on 25 January 1766. His monument was erected three years later in 1769 on ‘a pillar at the south-eastern end of the nave”. It was probably moved in the 1860's to its present position.

For a succinct life of Quin see - 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Quin

The epitaph in verse on the monument was written by Garrick. Quin's will displayed a generous nature, and among numerous bequests was one of fifty pounds to "Mr Thomas Gainsborough, limner."

..................................

Garrick, Johnson and Boswell and the Quin monument in Bath Abbey.

https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img30665

see also

https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/taxonomy/term/968

................................

Some portraits by no means exhaustive ---

Quin - Mezzotint 1744.

Faber after Thomas Hudson.

British Museum

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1902-1011-1829

The Mezzotint trimmed.

British Museum.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1902-1011-1830

...........................

The Portrait of Quin by William Hogarth.

Said to be Quin by Bartolomeo Nazzari (1699 - 1758).

James Quin by Thomas Gainsborough.

with a bust of Shakespeare

c. 1763.

Handel is supposed to have stayed with Quin in Pierpoint Street in 1749 (Sloman).

of Tangential interest ................

The bust of Shakespeare is not an immediately recognisable version - it resembles loosly the bust in the Royal Collection and it also resembles a version drawn by Samuel Wale at the Folger Shakespeare Library

Marble Bust of Shakespeare.

They say John Cheere but I think this is unlikely - there art no known busts inscribed either by John or his brother Henry Cheere

Royal Collection.

https://www.rct.uk/collection/36980/william-shakespeare-1564-1616

The Royal Collection Gainsborough sketch of Quin.

https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/11/collection/405949/james-quin-1693-1766

This painting was acquired for only six guineas with other unfinished works from the studio sale in 1797 of Gainsborough's nephew and assistant, Gainsborough Dupont. It is a sketch for a full length portrait (now in the National Gallery of Ireland - above) painted during Quin's retirement in Bath and exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1763. 

Quin was one of the leading actors of the generation before David Garrick, though the two were friendly rivals on the London stage for at least a decade. 

Quin excelled in larger-than-life stage presence and powerful declamation: Garrick was considered the better Richard III, Quin the better Falstaff. Smollett's 'Humphrey Clinker' of 1771 contains an extended literary portrait of Quin during his Bath retirement as a sort of real life Falstaff. Gainsborough's sketch shows similarly the lively bonhomie of a 'big personality'.

.......................................

Portrait of Quin suggested as by Hudson.

https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img34657

.................................

Quin as Falstaff

Mezzotint by James McArdell.

British Museum.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0822-7731

................................

Quin as Falstaff by Boitard.

https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img30664

Quin as Falstaff.

William Duesbery - Derby Porcelaine.

The figure was also produced by the Bow Factory (V&A).

James Quin appeared as Falstaff between 1746-1747.

Image here courtesy Christie's.

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Monument to James and  Anne Sutton. 

After 1788.

Devizes.

......................

There is an indenture of 20 September 1791, when Thomas King, the statuary of Walcot, with Mr.Charles Harford, gent., as his trustee, conveyed to John Greenway in trust for Francis Greenway, mason, of Walcot (not the transported Australian architect), who would have been only thirteen at the time], ‘part of a pasture of 2a 22p called Upper Tyning [Walcot], being all those plots on the west side of an intended building called Mount Pleasant and all those two messuages thereon erecting at the cost of Francis Greenway.

An Anonymous 18th Century Plaster bust suggested here as the Pugilist Jack Broughton.

    Mid-18^th Century Life Size Plaster bust of a Pugilist?

Perhaps Jack Broughton (1703 – 89) - The Father of English Boxing.

 Proposals for Erecting an Amphitheatre for the Manly Exercise of Boxing, by John Broughton, Professor of Athletics (London, 1743).

 https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2021/02/bust-of-moor-by-francis-harwood.html

An Engraving of a Bust of Isaac Newton

From Benjamin Martin's General Magazine of 1755.

Benjamin Martin (1705 - 81).

Truly a Man of the Enlightenment.

Benjamin Martin, was an English science teacher, instrument maker, and popular science author, he died on Feb 9, 1782, at the age of 75-77. 

Son of John Martin he was raised on a farmat Broadstreet, Worplesden, Surrey and apparently had little access to formal schooling, but he read voraciously, and by the time he was in his mid-twenties, he had started a school in Sussex, and he was soon writing textbooks of a sort for use in his and other similar kinds of schools.

In 1729 he married Mary Lover of Chichester, and at the time of his marriage was described as a merchant of Guildford. The couple had two children, a daughter, Maria, and a son, Joshua Lover Martin, who joined his father in the 1770’s to form the firm of B. Martin and Son.

Martin was tradeing at South St., Chichester, Sussex (1736-40).

In 1742, he moved to Reading, on the Thames near London, and there he published two substantial quartos.   Micrographia nova (1742), about two new microscopes he had invented, one a pocket reflecting microscope. 

The other was A Course of Lectures in Natural and Experimental Philosophy (1743).  

He published Benjamin Martin's General Magazine of Arts and Sciences from1755 until 1764.

Benjamin Martin ended up with a large workshop in Fleet Street which produced instruments under his name; made improvements to the microscope and wrote extensively in the field of natural philosophy.

 

Hadley Quadrant & Visual Glasses, Two doors from Crane Court, Fleet St. (1756-9), resident in Fleet St. (1756-82), 

He was Four doors East of Crane Court (1760), 

The New Invented Visual Glasses, Fleet St. (1761) & 171 Fleet St. (1767-77), London.

A very close neighbour to Martin in Fleet Street was Benjamin Rackstrow on the Corner of Crane Court on the North side of Fleet St. see -

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/02/john-cheere-hoskins-hoskings-and-oliver.html

and very close to the building of the Royal Society in Crane Court.

The Young Gentleman and Lady’s Philosophy (second edition, London: 1772). 

The essay is written in the form of  conversations between Cleonicus, home from College for the summer, and his sister, Euphrosyne, whose lively interest in the natural sciences (“philosophy”) is impeded by her lack of access to instruction on the topic. 

She has formed the plan of getting her brother to help her, and in a series of dialogues, Cleonicus introduces her to astronomy and physics, using sketches, models, and experiments. Although she frequently suggests that a new subject may be too difficult for her, her intelligence and his organized and factual instruction consistently produce firmly rooted understanding on which she builds. 

This work is a rare publication in England in the 18th Century that speaks out for women’s education, arguing that if they were given the opportunity to study the sciences, they could excel.

https://specialcollections.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2017/08/21/eclipses-from-the-ellery-yale-wood-collection-of-childrens-books-and-young-adult-literature/

                                                        Cleonicus and Euphrosyne.

With the bust of Newton over the door.

                                     The drawing by Sam.Wale and engraved by Grignion.

He was very successful in his day but since his teaching drove his book sales, that source of income ran low.

By the early 1780s, he was bankrupt.  In 1782, he was dead, possibly the result of a botched suicide. 

He left no money, but he had an extensive collection of instruments, which generated a thousand pounds at the bankruptcy auction.

https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/benjamin-martin/