Herbert James Maryon

Born 9 March 1874
Died 14 July 1965

Active: 1896 - 1961

Country of birth: England

Country of death: Scotland

Sculptor, principal of art school, art teacher, museum conservator, author

Born in London. He was educated at the Polytechnic (probably Regent Street), then at St Martin's School of Art and Central School of Arts and Crafts. In 1899 he received a one-year scholarship enabling him to take a short apprenticeship in silversmithing and metalwork at the Essex House Guild of Handicrafts run by C.R. Ashbee.

Between 1900-04 Maryon was the Director of the Keswick School of Industrial Art, which was followed by a further year teaching metalwork at the Storey Institute in Lancaster (1905). He then taught modelling, metalwork and casting at University College, Reading from 1907 until after the First World War. During the war, Maryon, together with Dr. Charles Sadler, established a successful training course in machine work for munitions workers at the University of Reading. This entailed the fitting up of milling shops and establishing a teaching curriculum under the supervision of the Ministry of Munitions. On 6 March 1918 Maryon was elected to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers on the strength of this work.

In later years he was Master of Sculpture at Armstrong College (part of the University of Durham, later the Department of Fine Art at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne). Maryon moved to the British Museum before the Second World War where he became a technical adviser and worked on the conservation of the Sutton Hoo treasures. He published books on contemporary sculpture, metalwork and enamelling and was awarded the CBE for his work on Sutton Hoo. Maryon died in Edinburgh. Probate on his personal effects was sealed on 1 November 1965 (no amount given).

This biography includes information from pp. 337-8 of the 1918 volume of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers records digitised by Ancestry as 'Mechanical Engineering Records, 1847-1930. London, UK: Institution of Mechanical Engineers.' The note about Maryon receiving the CBE was submitted by his daughter-in-law, Betty Maryon.

Citing this record

'Herbert James Maryon', 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_1208551459, accessed 01 Jun 2023]