Biographies

Percy Portsmouth (1870 – 1960) We don’t have much information about him, except that he taught sculpture at the Edinburgh College of Art in the early part of the twentieth century. His work was praised in in March of 1910. At some point hs seems to have settled in Rushden, Hertfordshire. The following two bits of information come from the Rushden church web pages: The New Age http://alephzero.tripod.com/small/church.htm Youngloves was the home of Percy Portsmouth the sculptor. During the Second World War he kept a dismantled aeroplane in his barn. He said that should the Germans invade he was going to rebuild it and fly to Ireland. People living in a neighbouring house have seen a man with heavy sideburns, wearing a smock in the garden. This is how Percy dressed when he was alive! The sculptor Percy Portsmouth lived in Youngloves in the 1950s. His patron was the Duke of Wellington and he did commissions for the Wellesley family and a sculpture of Ramsey McDonald. He retired here from the Chair of Sculpture at Edinburgh. His wife Kate started the WI. He made this statue in the church in the 1960s.