Bournville St Francis John Pool tympanum

Anthony John John Poole,

FRBS The Royal Society of Sculptors is a British charity established in 1905 which promotes excellence in the art and practice of sculpture. Its headquarters are a centre for contemporary sculpture on Old Brompton Road, South Kensington, London. It ...

, Hon. FRBSA, (born Handsworth,

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, 17 December 1926 – died Bishampton,

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

, 2 September 2009) was a British freelance sculptor and winner of 2

Otto Beit medal The Royal Society of Sculptors is a British charity established in 1905 which promotes excellence in the art and practice of sculpture. Its headquarters are a centre for contemporary sculpture on Old Brompton Road, South Kensington, London. It ...

Early life

Poole grew up in

Hall Green Hall Green is an area in southeast Birmingham, England, synonymous with the B28 postcode. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. Historically it lay within the county of Worcestershire. Politics Hall Green is ...

, Birmingham, attending Hall Green Infants and Junior School, Stratford Road. At the age of 12 he gained a place at Moseley Road Junior School of Art, and went on to study

Industrial Design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...

at the

Birmingham School of Art The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Faculty of Arts, Design a ...

. At the age of 17, in the Studio of

William Bloye William James Bloye (8 July 1890 – 6 June 1975) was an English sculptor, active in Birmingham either side of World War II. Life Bloye studied, and later, taught at the Birmingham School of Art (his training was interrupted by World War ...

, he learnt the art of letter carving in the style of

Eric Gill Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cra ...

. In December 1944, Poole was called up for service in the

Coldstream Guards The Coldstream Guards is the oldest continuously serving regular regiment in the British Army. As part of the Household Division, one of its principal roles is the protection of the monarchy; due to this, it often participates in state ceremonia ...

and the Parachute Regiment during World War II. As a lieutenant he served in France and in Germany as a liaison officer during the Nuremberg trials. He was subsequently recruited as an officer in the Parachute Regiment

7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion The 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion was an airborne infantry battalion of the Parachute Regiment, formed by the British Army during the Second World War. The battalion was raised in November 1942 by the conversion of the 10th Battalion, ...

, serving in Egypt and Palestine.Obituary
in ''The Independent''

Works

His first major commission was "The Sower", an heroic-size figure, carved out of Belgian granite in 1959, for Cannock Library in Staffordshire. Thirty of his major commissions were in and around Birmingham, his most notable being "The Rotunda Relief" at Lloyds Bank (1963). A ciment fondu mural for the Lloyds Banking Hall in the newly built Rotunda in Birmingham, which was subsequently

Grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

listed by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

. However, since that building was renovated, it has been hidden from view, with only a small part visible, on the top floor of a retail unit. Birmingham Cathedral has a font and cover in bronze, as well as memorials to Ambrose Brown and Dr

William Small William Small (13 October 1734 – 25 February 1775) was a Scottish physician and a professor of natural philosophy at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where he became an influential mentor for Thomas Jefferson. Early life William Sm ...

of the

Lunar Society The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 ...

, all by Poole. He was associated with the Cadbury family, particularly Sir

Adrian Cadbury Sir George Adrian Hayhurst Cadbury, (15 April 1929 – 3 September 2015) was an English businessman who served as the chairman of Cadbury and Cadbury Schweppes for 24 years. He was also a British Olympic rower. Cadbury was a pioneer in raising ...

and with the Church of

St Francis of Assisi Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a Mysticism, mystic Italian Catholic Church, Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most vener ...

Bournville Bournville () is a model village on the southwest side of Birmingham, England, founded by the Quaker Cadbury family for employees at its Cadbury's factory, and designed to be a "garden" (or "model") village where the sale of alcohol was forbidd ...

, where his tympanum, "The Canticle to the Sun", font, aumbrey, sanctuary lights, and Cadbury memorials can be seen. In 1969 he won the Otto Beit medal for Sculpture for his "Risen Christ" at St. Dunstan's Church, King's Heath and then again in 1974 for his "Last Supper" carving on the Altar and Ambo in St. Helen's Cathedral in

Brentwood, Essex Brentwood is a town in the Borough of Brentwood, in the county of Essex in the East of England. It is in the London commuter belt, situated 20 miles (30 km) east-north-east of Charing Cross and close by the M25 motorway. In 2017, the popula ...

. He is the only sculptor to have received two Otto Beit medals.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poole, John English sculptors English male sculptors 1926 births 2009 deaths 20th-century British sculptors People from Handsworth, West Midlands British Army personnel of World War II Coldstream Guards officers British Parachute Regiment officers