Overall height: 24cm (8.5in)
Electroform (copper on plaster). Standing figure of General Frederick Sleigh Roberts. Mounted on a marble base base applied with a silver presentation plaque inscribed ‘From the / President & Committee of the / Lord Roberts Memorial / Workshops’. Maker’s mark of James Dixon & Sons Ltd, Sheffield. Plaque hallmarked Sheffield 1926.
Field Marshal Lord Roberts, VC, campaigned for more to be done for ex-servicemen, especially those who had been disabled. He took a keen interest in the Workshops and became one of the Trustees. Following his death in 1914, while visiting troops in France, it was decided to expand the workshops and to name them after him. By 1920 there were eleven Workshops around the country producing a wide variety of goods.
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Sydney March (1876–1968) was the second of nine children, eight of whom became artists. Three of the March family became sculptors, Sydney, Elsie (1884-1974), and Vernon. The other five artists were Edward (1873-1941), Percival (b.1878), Frederick (b.1881), Dudley (1881-1962), and Walter (b.1889). The ninth sibling was a sister, Eva. Originally from Yorkshire the March family moved to London around the turn of the century when Sydney enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools and where he was awarded the first prize medal for a model of a statue or group. Between 1906 and 1932, he exhibited thirteen times at the R.A., primarily portrait busts, statuettes, and equestrian statues. The March family established their own sculpture studio at Goddendene, Kent, in 1901. Sydney also worked with the art founders Elkington, and was responsible for royal portraits, including Queen Victoria, Queen Alexandra and George V, as well as his series of British Boer War commanders, Roberts, Kitchener, Buller, French, Bade-Powell and Byng.