This post came about by reearches into the business of Benjamin Rackstrow and his partner the midwife Catherine Clarke
at Fleet Street
Kenwood House and Hoskins and Oliver.
The antechamber outside the library at Kenwood originally contained three plaster sculptures in the three niches. The sculptures were made for Lord Mansfield by James Hoskins (d. 1791) and Samuel Oliver (fl. 1769-74.
THey had set up business together running a plaster shop between c.1770, until 1774.
Hoskin had been apprenticed to John Cheere (1709-87) in 1747 and held the post of 'moulder and caster in plaster' to the Royal Academy.18
Their original invoice of 25 November 1771 states -
To three Large Antyke Figures Vizt Flora Teis [Thetis] and a
Muse -£50. 8. 0.
To selves and Assistants going with them to Kenwood £1. 1. 0.
Total £51. 9. 0.
..........................
William Wynn.
The trade card in Banks Collection
(Banks,106.33) which advertises "William Wynn Statuary... Late Apprentice to Mr.
Rackstrow. Takes off Gentlemen & Ladies Faces from the Life, with the
greatest ease & safety & forms them into Busts, to an exact Likeness.
Likewise makes all sorts of Figures, Busts, Vases, &c. for Halls, Stair
Cases, Dining Rooms, &c. in Plaister [sic] of Paris, to represent either
Marble, Stone, or Bronzes &c. Likewise Mends, Gilds, Paints & Bronzes
Old figures &c. N.B. Leaden figures, Vases &c. for Gardens made &
mended."
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Banks-106-33
*Benjamin Rackstrow, ‘The Crown and Looking-Glass’, the
lower end of the paved stones, St Martin’s Lane, London ?1720s-1737?, ‘Sir
Isaac Newton’s Head’, the corner of Crane Court in Fleet St 1738-1748 or later,
197 Fleet St by 1768-1772. Cabinet maker, sculptor, picture framemaker, figure
caster etc.
Benjamin Rackstrow (d.1772) led a varied career, from
picture frame making to sculpture and to opening a museum of waxwork figures.
He is presumably the Benjamin Rackstrow who married Hannah Bonruc or Bourne at
St Luke Old Street, in 1733, and who had a son William by Sarah (his second
wife?) in 1737, baptised at St Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet St, and three further
children between 1740 and 1744. He was made free of the Joiners’ Company in
July 1737 (information from Robert B. Barker, quoting Guildhall Library MS
8051/4, f.56 verso), probably to meet requirements for working within the
bounds of the City at his new premises in Fleet St.
Rackstrow issued his first trade card, perhaps in the 1720s,
from St Martin’s Lane, advertising ‘all sorts of Cabinet Work, Looking-Glasses,
Coach-glasses, Window Blinds, Picture-frames &c. after the newest fashion
and at the most Reasonable Rates. He likewise cleans and repairs all sorts of
Cabinet work, Exchanges New Glasses for Old ones and makes Old ones
fashionable, NB. He also cleans Pictures in the best manner and takes off
Busto’s, Basso Reliev’s, and Figures of any Size in Wax, Metal, or Plaister of
Paris’ (repr. Heal 1972 p.153). He issued a further impressive trade card,
dated 1738 and engraved by Henry Copland, from the corner of Crane Court in
Fleet St, calling himself a cabinet and picture framemaker, and advertising a
very similar range of services to before, also offering to hang bells after the
new manner (repr. Heal 1972 p.154). In a publication of 1748 he described
himself as a ‘figure maker and statuary’ (Miscellaneous observations, together
with a collection of experiments on electricity).
As a picture framemaker, we know very little of his
activity. As a sculptor we know a little more, including the supply of a figure
of the piping Faunus to Lady Luxborough in 1742, ‘three bustos and a group’ in
1748 for Arbury in Warwickshire, a statue of George II for Weaver’s Hall,
Dublin, in 1749-50, and two busts in 1752 and a figure of Edward VI to the
Ironmongers’ Company (Gunnis 1968 p.314; Roscoe 2009). From a court case in
1759, we learn that Rackstrow stocked a little figure of Shakespeare, about 12
ins high, which he sold for about 12s (Proceedings of the Old Bailey). He
exhibited a coloured plaster figure and busts at the Free Society of Artists in
1763. His former apprentice, William Wynn, statuary, advertised from
Shakespeare’s Head, Henrietta St, Covent Garden, in 1758 (Public Advertiser 31
May 1758; see also trade card, Banks coll., 106.33).
In later life, Rackstrow was known for his museum of waxwork
figures and other curiosities which he maintained on his premises in Fleet St;
these exhibits included life-size anatomical models (see Richard Altick, The
Shows of London, 1978, pp.55-6; see also Matthew Craske, ‘ “Unwholesome” and
“pornographic”: a reassessment of the place of Rackstrow’s Museum in the story
of 18th-century anatomical collection and exhibition’, Journal of the History
of Collections, vol.23, 2011, pp.75-99).
In his will, made 14 October 1769 and proved 1 June 1772,
Benjamin Rackstrow, of St Dunstan-in-the-West, Temple Bar, left much of his
estate to Catherine Clarke, including his busts, skeletons and moulds. His
moulds, casts, figures and busts, from the antique, were sold shortly
thereafterwards (Daily Advertiser 25 September 1772).
Sources: Information kindly provided by Robert B. Barker,
2011, on Rackstrow’s freedom and posthumous sale, and on William Wynn’s
advertisement.
