page_title: John Webb Singer
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: John Webb Singer / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of bronze statue of Charlie Robbins, Frome Servicemen Memorial, Frome, Somerset; cast by Singer &amp; Sons, 1922
context_page_description: John Webb Singer was an English businessman who created a substantial art foundry in Frome, Somerset, known for its statuary and ecclesiastical products. He had assembled immense collections of antique jewellery, rings, wine glasses, snuffboxes, stamps. He took a prominent part in both local and national politics, serving on the Local Board and its successor the Urban District Council, founding the Frome Art School and helping to create the Frome Literary and Scientific Institution. He worked with the leading bronze sculptors of his day.
  Note: A number of misapprehensions as to Singer's statuary output exist both in books and on the web. The following works have no connection with Singer's art foundry in Frome: Eros in Piccadilly Circus, the lions in Trafalgar Square or Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
context_section_description: After the death of J W Singer in 1904 at Knoll House in Gentle Street, his two sons, Herbert and Edgar took charge of the firm, under the continuing and colourful chairmanship of William Bull.  The statuary work continued, including noteworthy castings: Thornycroft's "Gladstone" in the Strand, Pomeroy's "Justice" on the Old Bailey, Fehr's fantastical Welsh Dragon on the top of Cardiff's City Hall and eight large lions for the Cecil Rhodes Memorial in Cape Town, South Africa.  150 lion's head bronze mooring rings, designed by Gilbert Bayes, were installed in 1910 along the Thames Embankment beside the County Hall. Other works include "Hampden" in Aylesbury (1912) marking the Civil War, and gates at the Bowes Museum and Cliveden.
  Church work fell away during this period, fashions were changing.  In 1914 Singer & sons amalgamated with a rival, Spital & Clark of Birmingham.  Herbert and Edgar Singer took back seat positions on the board, still chaired by William Bull, knighted in 1905, MP for Hammersmith.  Statuary production was put on hold; the company struggled.
  In July 1915, after Lloyd George became Minister of Munitions, contracts were won to support the war effort. New equipment was brought in.  From July 1916 to December 1918, the work force grew to 700 men and women.  The firm produced 1.6 million shell cases plus 71.5 million .303 cartridges plus gun mountings, parts for aeroplane engines, fuze body stampings and submarine mines, 23,400 tons of metal.
  After WWI, with a reduced staff, orders for metal stampings, wrought iron work, war memorials, ecclesiastical metalwork and statuary resumed. All kinds of bronze work were in demand from home and abroad: statues, wreathes, emblems, friezes, tablets, as well as entrance doors and revolving doors for the Hong Kong  & Shanghai Bank in Shanghai, lift enclosures for flats in Brook Street, London, lighting standards for Reading Bridge and the gates for Africa House in Kingsway, London. Two of the largest commissions were Fehr's 1924 Shanghai Allied War Memorial (the Angel and all of the other bronzes were removed by the Japanese in 1943) and friezes for the Scottish National War Memorial (1927) at Edinburgh Castle by Alice Meredith Williams.  Among the many monuments Singer & Sons created were Thornycroft's "Peace" in Luton, Fehr's Keighley memorial with its rare depiction of a sailor and the simple infantryman at Trowbridge by Bentham, typical of many war memorials cast by Singer & Sons: "beauty of design, appropriateness and excellence of execution".
  During the 1920s, Singer & Sons lost some trade and craftsmen to a new business, Morris Art Bronze Foundry in Lambeth. From May 1927 the statuary and art metalwork side of Singers was gradually transferred to London, along with some craftsmen, under a financial arrangement, to create the Morris Singer Company, which moved to Basingstoke in 1967.
  During WWII, the factory switched to making war material.  The firm took over the old Cockey gas works at Welshmill to produce metal brass rods for making fuse bodies. Jim Garrett, as an apprentice, observed:
  I went to work at Singers, that would have been about 1943...The siren would go, and we all had to move somewhere else in case they dropped a few bombs, or something.  But, in the event, it didn't happen, so they abandoned that idea, because it stopped the production.  Making shell-noses...for the army.
  Metal stampings continued in Frome.  The company was absorbed by the Delta Metal Group in 1956.  In 2000 production was relocated to Handlemaker Road in Frome and the old site was sold for housing.  The factory now concentrates on water sprinklers for fire protection in the ownership of Tyco.
caption: Charlie Robbins: detail from Frome's Servicemen Memorial, cast by Singer & Sons
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 11.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2019:03:27 22:51:56", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1038", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5438", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:03:27 23:26:11", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:03:27 23:26:11", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "915241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "331919/62500", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "43/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "95", "EXIF SubSecTime": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "80", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1414", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2126", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "4252061/16384", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "4252061/16384", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "4", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "142", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "3391723", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[70, 300, 4, 28/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "70.0-300.0 mm f/4.0-5.6"}