Anthony Welsh

Born 13 February 1823
Died 18 September 1891

Active: 1861 - 1891

Country of birth and death: England

Stonemason, marble merchant, sculptor

Born in Leeds. Welsh may have started work as a railway clerk and then trained as a stonemason in his twenties. His son Anthony Hunt Welsh (born 1853 in Lancashire, died 24 March 1897, Bridlington) joined the family business as a marble mason by 1871 when he was 18. Anthony Senior was married twice, first to Caroline Hunt from 1850-76 and then to Charlotte Eusden from 1878-91. He was an active member of the congregation at St John the Evangelist's Church, Leeds where he was people's warden for over thirteen years c.1863-76.

Between about 1851 and 1870 Welsh worked in partnership with the sculptor and stone mason Dennis Lee. Together they developed and patented "improvements in means or machinery for preparing or polishing marble" (patent no. 1505, 21 June 1860). The firm was very successful for a period and around 1861 was employing about 46 men and boys. However on 3 July 1863 their patent lapsed due to a failure to pay £50 Stamp Duty. Lee and Welsh created a number of busts, statues and funerary monuments in the Leeds area which are listed in Roscoe (2009). They also supplied plinths and cleaned statues for the Leeds Town Hall Committee. The partnership between the two men was dissolved on 22 June 1870.

Sometime in the late 1860s Dennis Lee retired to Guernsey and Welsh continued in business under his own name. There are descriptions of goods and services offered by the firm given in the business record for Anthony Welsh.

In 1888 he restored a statue of Queen Anne by Andrew Carpenter (c.1677-1737) that was originally erected at the Moot Hall in Briggate and then occupied a niche in the corridor of Leeds Town Hall. Welsh's restoration appears to have included creating a red granite pedestal on which an inscription about the maker and history of the statue was recorded.

This record includes information submitted by Jayne Jackson, a descendent of Anthony Hunt Welsh.

Wealth at death: £4,865 7s. 6d.
Resworn probate £5,293 3s. 9d. December 1892
Probate date: 9 October 1891

Citing this record

'Anthony Welsh', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib5_1206638748, accessed 03 Oct 2023]

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