Mary Thornycroft

Mary Thornycroft (née Francis) (1809 – 1 February 1895) was a British sculptor and a member of the Thornycroft family.

The daughter of sculptor John Francis, she was born at Thornham, Norfolk. She studied sculpture under her father, and exhibited at the Royal Academy at the age of twenty-one.

Mary married, in 1840, Thomas Thornycroft, who was a pupil of John Francis and also became a sculptor; they travelled to Italy and lived and worked for a time in Rome. There she became the friend of Bertel Thorvaldsen and of John Gibson. On her return to London she was recommended by Gibson to Queen Victoria, for whom she executed numerous busts and statues, chiefly of the royal children. In the drawing-room at Osborne House there were nine life-size marble statues of the young princes and princesses modelled by her. Besides these she executed a number of busts of private individuals, as well as a few ideal statues. Among the latter is her well-known figure of a ‘Skipping Girl’. She died on 1 February 1895.

She gave lessons in sculpting to Princess Louise, one of Victoria's daughters, who went on to work in her own right.

Thomas and Mary had six children who grew to adulthood, two sons (Hamo and John Isaac), and four daughters (Alyce, Theresa, Helen and Frances). Hamo Thornycroft took up their profession, while daughters Alyce, Theresa Thornycroft, and Helen Thornycroft were all artists. John Isaac Thornycroft became a marine engineer. Mary and Thomas were the grandparents of Siegfried Sassoon, the war poet, through their daughter Theresa, who married Alfred Ezra Sassoon.