Emanuel Edward Geflowski

Born 1834
Died 11 August 1898

Active: 1857 - 1898

Country of birth: Poland

Country of death: Great Britain

Sculptor, architectural carver

Born Warsaw, Poland. He was the son of Ozias Geflowski, a clerk. His brother was the sculptor, Maurice Geflowski who worked in Shrewsbury between c.1871-1891 and died there in 1911. Emanuel came to England in the 1850s and was baptised in Cirencester on 17 March 1857. Two years later, on 10 May 1859, he married Adèle Chevalier, daughter of Victor Eugène Adolphe Chevalier (born c.1817 in Paris), a mercantile clerk living in Manchester.

The Geflowskis initially settled in Liverpool where Emanuel set up in practice as a sculptor and architectural carver. He employed Robert Glassby senior as his assistant (see separate entry). In 1864 Geflowski's fortunes changed significantly. On 3 March he was initiated as a Freemason at the Mariner's Lodge, Liverpool, about five months later he was naturalised as a British citizen (12 July 1864), and then on 15 September 1864 he was declared bankrupt. Geflowski remained a debtor for almost three months, but was discharged on 2 December. A decade later (26 November 1875) he was awarded a patent (no 3900) for "improvements in cancelling or defacing postage stamps."

Geflowski was the subject of a controversy relating to the commissioning of a statue of Sir William Fairbairn, the engineer, businessman and philanthropist for Manchester Town Hall. The appointing committee initially selected the more established sculptor, Thomas Woolner but this decision was over-ruled and Geflowski, despite being relatively unknown, was given the project. (It is possible, but unproven, that his father-in-law had influential connections on the committee through his work as a mercantile clerk.) Emanuel completed the more than life-size statue carved in marble on a granite plinth to schedule in 1878.

Geflowski's other known works include: a bust of Lieutenant Colonel George Philips Bousfield (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool); a portrait of Edwin Waugh (Salford Art Gallery); a portrait roundel for the Gothic tabernacle commemorating Walter Fergus Macgregor (d. 1863) in St. George's church, Heyworth Street, Liverpool; a posthumous bust of Dr. Richard Formby for the Royal Liverpool Infirmary; two busts of James Scott and James Winter Scott for the church of St. James the Great, East Tisted, Hampshire (signed and dated, 1886); a bust of Robert George Wyndham Herbert, owned by the Royal Historical Society of Queensland (1884); a statue of Queen Victoria, commissioned by the Chinese Community of Singapore to commemorate the jubilee, (unveiled in 1881); and a marble statue of Queen Victoria for Kingston, Jamaica which was commissioned for the Diamond Jubilee (unveiled on 22 June 1897).

Ecclesiastical sculptures formed an important part of Geflowski's oeuvre, and amongst his known works are: the reredos at the chapel of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester (1860); arcaded entrance, stone vault and elaborate reredos for the Coulston Chantry Chapel, St. Peter's Cathedral (Catholic), Lancaster (the chapel was founded in 1856, his work is currently undated but may have been carried out while he was living in Manchester or Liverpool); the carved stone reredos for the church of St. John the Baptist, Cirencester (1867-8 for George Gilbert Scott Junior); figure carving on the elaborate reredos for St. Laurence, Stroud (architect George Gilbert Scott, additional carving by Emanuel's brother Maurice Geflowski, 1872); an extensive series of carvings for All Soul's Chapel, Oxford comprising some 36 statues of apostles, prelates and Lancastrian notables, and 82 smaller statuettes (October 1873-October 1875, architect Sir George Gilbert Scott); ten figures for the Great Screen, Winchester Cathedral; carving on the painted and gilded reredos, Holy Trinity, Watermoor, Cirencester (1880); and choirstall carvings, Church of St Michael and All Angels, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion (c.1890).

David Verey and Alan Brooks (see below) also attribute extensive architectural carving at Holy Trinity, Watermoor to Geflowski on behalf of George Gilbert Scott. However, this would be surprising because Geflowski was aged 13-17 years when the church was being built (1847-51), and places him in Britain several years earlier than previously recorded. Other uncertain attributions are the two reredos in the chapel and Chancel of the church of All Saint's, Barton-upon-Irwell, near Manchester by Augustus Welby Pugin. Clare Hartwell and Matthew Hyde (see below) quote Dr. O'Donnell's suggestion that these are the work of either Geflowski or Richard Lockwood Boulton.

In 1882 Geflowski was initiated into the Polish National Lodge of the Freemasons (his membership of the Mariner's Lodge in Liverpool had been suspended following his bankruptcy) and in 1892 he became Master of the Lodge. Between 1887 and 1893 Geflowski was a customer of the moulder and figure maker Fernando Meacci who piece moulded or cast in plaster a number of the sculptor's busts and statuettes. Emanuel Geflowski died at 24 Wilbury Road, Hove, Sussex. One of his daughters, Marie (c.1864-1932) was probably associated c.1901 with the Hyacinth Portrait Company, 108 Buckingham Palace Road and also modelled a bust of Queen Victoria which was cast by Mappin Brothers of Sheffield (advertisement in the 'The Sketch', London, 13 April 1901, p. i).

See Naturalisation Papers: Geflowski, Emmanuel Edward, from Poland. Certificate 4448 issued 12 July 1864. Piece reference, National Archives, HO 1/116/4448; an image and details of the statue in Singapore at http://www.publicart.sg/?q=Geflowski-Queen-Victoria (both accessed 13 January 2012); an image and details of the statue of Queen Victoria in Kingston, Jamaica at http://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/victoria-monuments/205/statue-of-queen-victoria; dates for Scott's work at Holy Trinity, Cirencester https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1025128 (last two sites accessed 8 September 2018); David Verey and Alan Brooks 'Gloucestershire I: The Cotswolds', Pevsner Architectural Guides, New Haven and London, 1999, p. 256; Clare Hartwell, Matthew Hyde, and Nikolaus Pevsner, 'Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East', New Haven and London, 2004, p. 650.

Wealth at death: £155 14s. 10d.
Probate date: 25 August 1898

Citing this record

'Emanuel Edward Geflowski', 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_1206733454, accessed 22 Mar 2023]