Ivan Mitford-Barberton
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Ivan Mitford-Barberton (1896–1976) was a sculptor, writer and authority on
heraldry Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch ...
.


Early life and education

Mitford-Barberton was born in Somerset East, in
Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when i ...
, in 1896. He was a descendant of several 1820 Settler families. His grandmother was the naturalist,
Mary Elizabeth Barber Mary Elizabeth Barber (5 January 1818 – 4 September 1899) was a pioneering British-born amateur scientist of the nineteenth century. Without formal education, she made a name for herself in botany, ornithology and entomology. She was also ...
. He did his schooling at St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown. In 1912 his family moved to Kenya, where he encountered African and Arab subjects that later formed an important theme in his work. From 1915 to 1918 he served as a soldier in East Africa. From 1919 to 1922 he studied at the Grahamstown School of Art, and from 1923 at the
Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...
in London, under
Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...
and
Derwent Wood Francis Derwent Wood (15 October 1871– 19 February 1926) was a British sculptor. Biography Early life Wood was born at Keswick, Cumbria, Keswick in Cumbria and studied in Germany and returned to London in 1887 to work under Édouard Lantér ...
. He returned to Kenya in 1927 and set up a studio there. Mitford-Barberton was an active member of the South African Society of Arts and taught art at the
Michaelis School of Fine Art The Michaelis School of Fine Art was founded in 1925, and is the Fine Arts department of the University of Cape Town. The school's current director is Associate Professor Kurt Campbell. There are three research institutions associated with the sch ...
in
Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
.


Works

He designed the monument of Jock of the Bushveld in Barberton, a place that was co-founded by his ancestors. The bronze statue of a leopard in
Hout Bay Hout Bay ( af, Houtbaai, meaning "Wood Bay") is a harbour town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is situated in a valley on the Atlantic seaboard of the Cape Peninsula, twenty kilometres south of Cape Town. The name "Hout Bay" can ...
, where he lived, is his work. The sculpture of Peter Pan at the
Red Cross Children's Hospital Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa was opened in 1956 through public subscription as a memorial to soldiers lost in the Second World War. The suggestion that the memorial take the form of a children's hospital w ...
in Cape Town was done by Mitford-Barberton In the 1930s he designed parts of the exterior and the interior decoration of Mutual Building, in Cape Town, the then highest building in Africa (excluding the Pyramids of Giza). The exterior is equipped with a granite frieze and with nine figures. Mitford-Barberton designed the stucco reliefs that were placed in the pediments of the neo-baroque public buildings of Tongaat and Maidstone in Kwa-Zulu Natal. These reliefs were an emulation of the eighteenth-century work in the Cape of the noted sculptor
Anton Anreith Anton Anreith (; June 11, 1754 – March 4, 1822) Ancestry24.com
was a sculptor and woodcarver ...
and his colleague, the architect
Louis Thibault Louis Michel Thibault (28 September 1750 – 15 November 1815), was a French-born South African architect and engineer who designed numerous buildings in the Cape Colony. He was South Africa's first trained architect and brought with him a ...
. Where Anreith and Thibault modelled Palladian figures drawn from classical mythology, Mitford-Barberton designed groupings of plantation workers, and allusions to the Saunders family, founders of the Tongaat Sugar Company. Mitford-Barberton also undertook freestanding sculptures for public spaces and garden features on the Tongaat estate. Miford-Barberton created the sculpture of the
Settler A settler is a person who has human migration, migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a ...
family at the
1820 Settlers National Monument The 1820 Settlers National Monument, which honours the contribution to South African society made by the British 1820 Settlers, overlooks Makhanda in the Eastern Cape. It commemorates the Anglo-Africans, as well as the English language, as much a ...
in Grahamstown. From 1947 to 1961, Mitford-Barberton was a member of the
Royal Society of British Sculptors 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 ...
, 1957-1961 a Fellow of the Society and a member of the Theosophical Lodge Cape Town. Mitford-Barberton was a prominent figure in the field of
heraldry Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch ...
. In 1947, the Cape Provincial Administration commissioned him to prepare a display of municipal coats of arms for the visit of King
George VI George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until Death and state funeral of George VI, his death in 1952. ...
. Shortly afterwards, the administration asked municipalities to have their arms checked, and if necessary, re-designed, by Mitford-Barberton, to improve heraldic quality. As a result, he designed dozens of municipal coats of arms, some of them in collaboration with H. Ellis Tomlinson (in England). In 1956, he addressed the Institute of Town Clerks of Southern Africa on the subject. He was a founder member of the Heraldry Society of Southern Africa in 1953. He was a member of the
Heraldry Council The Heraldry Council is part of the South African heraldic authority, established in Pretoria in June 1963, in terms of the Heraldry Act. It is the governing and policy-making body for the Bureau of Heraldry and consists of the National Herald ...
from 1963 to 1972. Ivan Mitford-Barberton wrote several books on the history of his family and the 1820 Settlers. He was married twice and had five children, three sons and two daughters.


Publications

* * with Violet White * *


Notes and references

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Further reading

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External links

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Ivan Graham MITFORD-BARBERTON
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitford-Barberton, Ivan 1896 births 1976 deaths 20th-century sculptors Alumni of St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown Cape Colony people Ivan People from Somerset East South African heraldists South African people of British descent South African sculptors University of Cape Town academics White South African people