H. H. Martyn & Co was a wood and stone carving company based in Cheltenham, England. It provided a service for architects and grew to employ more than a thousand people. It decorated the interiors of many famous ocean liners. During the First World War it diversified into aircraft production and was responsible for the establishment of Gloster Aircraft Company. In 1934 the company was sold to Maple & Co.. It continued to win prestigious contracts both before and after the Second World War. At a time of declining demand, the company closed in 1971.
In 1874, Herbert Henry Martyn (1842–1937) left his employer and set up in business with a stonemason colleague. During his lifetime his company grew to employ more than a thousand people. He left because he resented the injustice of his employer in ascribing some of his work to others.[1] Martyn had grown up in poverty but became a skilled craftsman specialising in wood and stone carving with an extensive experience of working in churches and carving memorials and gravestones. In 1888 the company was established as an association of art craftsmen. Together with his business partner Alfred Jeffrey Ems he worked on several churches.[2] In 1900 he established a limited company. At this time, at the age of 30, his son Alfred Willie Martyn (A. W.) was made managing director.[3] A. W.'s goal was to provide a complete service for architects. By then the company had diversified into decorative plaster work, joinery, cabinet making, wrought iron work and casting in bronze and gun metal.[4]
Starting in 1909 with the SS Orvieto and her sister ship SS Otranto, the company took on interior fitting and furnishing work for passenger ships,[5] including the RMS Lusitania and the SS Empress of Asia.
After the outbreak of the First World War, A. W. investigated the possibility of involving the company in the production of wooden airframes, and soon they were active in making fuselages and wings for a variety of aircraft. Much of the work was carried out by women. In 1917 the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company (later known as Gloster Aircraft) was established.[6]
The period immediately after the war proved difficult for the company, but they were fortunate to obtain a contract for the extension of the Lalbagh Palace in India.[7] [8] In the years following the war, commemoration proved to be culturally important, and the company was involved in the creation of many war memorials, including the Cenotaph in Whitehall.[9]
A. W. resigned from the board of both H. H. Martyn and Gloster Aircraft in 1927 after "acute differences of opinion with several of the board members",[10] and in 1934 the business was sold to Maples of London.
Despite the lack of family involvement, many aspects of the business continued to flourish in the following years, although the depression in the 1930s took its toll.[11] Among many other liners, both the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth contained furniture and fittings from Martyns.[12] Numerous decorative contracts ranged from royal commissions to public buildings, universities, cathedrals, offices, country houses and banks, hotels, cinemas, shops and theatres.[13] During the 1930s the Corinthian capitals above the entrance to the Geological Museum, now part of the Science Museum, were carved by Martyns,[14] and they also built the bronze main entrance and the aluminium bronze screens to the reading room for Cambridge University Library.[15] As part of the reconstruction of the Bank of England the bronze figure of Ariel on the dome by Charles Wheeler was cast by Martyns.[16]
Although the Martyns Sunningend factory in Cheltenham was no longer suitable for constructing aircraft in the Second World War, it was involved in the construction of Airspeed Horsa gliders.[17]
After the war, the task of commemoration of the fallen largely consisted of adding panels to existing memorials, but in the case of the Commandos this was not possible, because they were only established in June 1940. The Commando Memorial was created by Scott Sutherland, cast by Martyns,[18] and unveiled by the Queen Mother in 1952. Other notable statues cast by Martyns include the statue of Sir Winston Churchill in the Guildhall, London by Oscar Nemon[19] and the equestrian statue of Robert the Bruce, Bannockburn by Pilkington Jackson which was unveiled by the Queen in 1964. The House of Commons of the United Kingdom was destroyed by German bombing during the war. Martyns created the new Speaker's Chair, the Dispatch Boxes, and the table on which the boxes sit.[20] The pulpit and sounding board in St Paul's Cathedral were carved and built by Martyns, and used for the first time on the occasion of the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965.[21] Two life-size racehorses by John Skeaping were cast by Martyns,[22] Hyperion in 1962 and Chamossaire in 1966. The statue of Hyperion is now located in the grounds of the National Horse Racing Museum, while that of Chamossaire is in Snailwell.
In the years after the war, shipping companies worked to make good the losses of passenger liners they had incurred. There was also the need to refit liners, such as the Queen Mary, which had been taken over for war service. One particularly notable new ship was the RMS Caronia, for which all the decorative metalwork was provided by Martyns.[23] Later work included the iconic spiral staircase on the,[24] and the provision of panelling, ceilings, and fittings on the QE2.[25]
To meet the needs of their customers, Martyns employed sculptors. Robert Lindsey Clark, who started as an apprentice at Martyns and then studied at Lambeth School of Art. He returned to Martyns before 1901 and became their head of sculpture and art director in about 1905. He exhibited widely and was made a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. Walter Gilbert left the Bromsgrove Guild and joined Martyns in October 1918, continuing his prolific output.
Martyns had a sports field consisting of five tennis courts, two football pitches, a cricket ground and a running track. It also had two pavilions, with a bar, recreation and changing rooms. It was an early facility, covenanted to the workforce. In 1971, at a time of declining demand,[26] Maples sold Martyns to a company which closed it down, enabling the latter to profit from the sale of the sports field.[27]
Although the company office was gutted by bombing in 1940, and there was also a purge of material when the factory closed down,[28] a significant collection of material about the company is still available in Gloucestershire Archives.[29]
The following table is derived from Chapter 13 of The Best, and is intended to illustrate the scope of the work carried out by Martyns on ocean liners. As the author admits:
Although Martyns ship work contracts were probably its most extensive activity, and incorporated some of its finest work, research has proved to be difficult because of the short life of many of the ships owing to the war, and also because few records survive. In many cases, even where records exist, only the architect, and not the company or the men producing the work is mentioned.
It is also sad that, although at one time there was an extensive library of photographs showing the work the company had done, it would seem that these too, like many of the ships, have disappeared without trace.[30]
The task of identifying the ships has been further complicated by the fact that ship names were re-used - there were, for example, three ships called the Empress of Britain were built in 1905, 1930 and 1955 respectively. The events of the 20th Century also had an impact on the use of the ships. For example, the Empress of Asia became an armed merchant cruiser in the First World War and a troopship in the Second World War before being sunk by Japanese dive-bombers in 1942.
| Name | Year | Company ! | Work | Architect | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Cunard Line | Panelling, Ceilings and all the Fittings in the after part of the ship | unknown | ||
| 1955 | Cunard Line | unknown | unknown | ||
| 1954 | Cunard Line | unknown | unknown | ||
| 1947 | Cunard Line | All metal work | unknown | ||
| 1938 | Cunard Line | Staircases, Foyers and Entrances | G.Grey Wornum FRIBA | ||
| Queen Mary | 1936 | Cunard Line | Staircases, Foyers and Entrances | Mews & Davis | |
| Lusitania | 1906 | Cunard Line | Some public rooms - probably during a refit | James Millar | |
| Cameronia | 1920 | Anchor Line | Public rooms | unknown | |
| Lancastria | 1920 | Anchor Line | Public rooms | unknown | |
| Empress of Canada | 1960 | Windsor Lounge and the Canada Room | unknown | ||
| Empress of Britain | 1930 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers and Entrances | P.A. Staynes ROI & A.H. Jones FRIBA | ||
| Empress of Japan | 1929 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers and Entrances | P.A. Staynes ROI & A.H. Jones FRIBA | ||
| 1912 | First Class Public Rooms, Smoking Room of Jacobean Character | unknown | |||
| 1912 | Dining saloon, Plaster and Wrought Iron Work, Sussex Room | G.A. Crawley | |||
| 1906 | Dining saloon, possibly more but no documentation | P.A. Staynes ROI & A.H. Jones FRIBA | |||
| 1928 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers and Entrances | P.A. Staynes ROI & A.H. Jones FRIBA | |||
| 1928 | First Class Public Rooms | unknown | |||
| Duchess of Richmond | 1928 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers and Entrances | P.A. Staynes ROI & A.H. Jones FRIBA | ||
| 1927 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers and Entrances | P.A. Staynes ROI & A.H. Jones FRIBA | |||
| Princess Marguerite | 1924 | First Class Public Rooms | unknown | ||
| Princess Kathleen | 1924 | First Class Public Rooms | unknown | ||
| Monarch of Bermuda | 1931 | Smoking Room, Writing Rooms, Library, Lounge, Wing Cafes, Verandah Cafe, Midship Entrances, Sun and 'A' Decks, Forward Entrances and Gymnasium | A. McInnes, Gardner and Partners | ||
| 1931 | First Class Public Rooms | A. McInnes, Gardner and Partners | |||
| 1929 | Main Stairway, Smoking Room, and probably more, but no documentation | A. McInnes, Gardner and Partners | |||
| 1928 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers and Entrances | Robert Whyte | |||
| Lady Drake | 1928 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers and Entrances | Robert Whyte | ||
| Lady Hawkins | 1928 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers and Entrances | Robert Whyte | ||
| Lady Rodney | 1929 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers and Entrances | Robert Whyte | ||
| 1961 | First Class Entrance Halls and Stairways, Spiral Staircase | Casson Conder Partnership | |||
| 1911 | First Class Public Rooms | unknown | |||
| 1924 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers,Staircase, and Entrances | A.N. Prentice FRIBA | |||
| 1924 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers,Staircase, and Entrances | A.N. Prentice FRIBA | |||
| Orontes | 1929 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers,Staircase, and Entrances | A.N. Prentice FRIBA | ||
| Otranto | 1925 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers,Staircase, and Entrances | A.N. Prentice FRIBA | ||
| Orford | 1928 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers,Staircase, and Entrances | A.N. Prentice FRIBA | ||
| Orcades | 1936 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers and Entrances | Brian O'Rorke MA, FRIBA | ||
| Orion | 1934 | Cabins de Luxe, Tourist Class Public Rooms, Entrances and Staircases | Brian O'Rorke MA, FRIBA | ||
| Ormonde | 1917 | First Class Public Rooms, Foyers,Staircase, and Entrances | A.N. Prentice FRIBA | ||
| Orvieto | 1909 | Public Rooms - ceilings and columns | A.N. Prentice FRIBA | ||
| Indarra | 1909 | First-Class Public Rooms | unknown | ||
| Rangitane | 1929 | First-Class Public Rooms | unknown | ||
| Rangitata | 1929 | First-Class Public Rooms | unknown | ||
| Vauban | 1912 | Lamport and Holt | First Class Public Rooms | unknown | |
| Vandyck | 1906 | Lamport and Holt | Public rooms | unknown | |
| Northern Star | 1962 | Shaw, Savill & Albion Line | unknown | unknown | |
| Gothic | 1947 | Shaw, Savill & Albion Line | Nickel Silverwork on Staircase - possibly more | unknown | |
| Vulcania | 1926 | Cosulich Line | First Class Public Rooms | unknown | |
| SS Príncipe Perfeito | 1961 | Companhia Nacional de Navegação | Numerous Public Rooms and the Swimming Baths | unknown |
The following table has been gleaned from The Best. Given the company's origins, it was natural that it would apply its skills to the task of creating the many memorials that were needed after the First World War. Relatively few new memorials were created after the Second World War, but existing ones were extended to commemorate the fallen.
| Name | Heritage Link! | Work | Address | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ayr Royal Scots Fusiliers Memorial | Ayr Royal Scots Fusiliers War Memorial | Sculpted by C. d'O. Pilkington Jackson, cast by Martyns, unveiled on the 12th of June 1960 | Place De Saint-Germain-En-Laye, Between Bath Place and Pavilion Road, Ayr, Scotland | |
| Bradford War Memorial | Bradford War Memorial | Bronze sculpted figures by Martyns can plausibly be attributed to Robert Lindsey Clark | Prince's Way, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD5 0BQ, England | |
| Cambridge American Cemetery | The base and the top of the flagpole were cast by Martyns | Madingley Road, Coton, CB23 7PH, Cambridge, United Kingdom | ||
| Cheltenham, St Peter's Church War Memorial | Cheltenham, St Peter's Church War Memorial | Cross of local stone, bronze laurel wreath | St Peter's Churchyard, Tewkesbury Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL51 9AH, England | |
| Crewe War Memorial | Crewe War Memorial | The bronze statue was sculpted by Walter Gilbert and cast by Martyns | Prince Albert Street, Crewe, Cheshire CW1 2DF | |
| Black Watch Memorial, Powrie Brae | Dundee, Black Watch Memorial | Memorial to all ranks of the Dundee and Angus battalions of the Black Watch who died in the Second World War, created by Scott Sutherland, cast by Martyns. Unveiled on 15th October 1959 | Emmock Rd, Dundee, DD4 9RA, Scotland | |
| Fleetwood Memorial Park Gate | Fleetwood Memorial Park Gate | Park planned by Sir Leslie Patrick Abercrombie RIBA; Gates for park by Martyns | Park Avenue, Fleetwood, Lancashire, FY7 6TP, England | |
| Gloucester War Memorial | Gloucester War Memorial | The bronze figure on the top of the memorial and the panel on the side were made by Martyns. | The Park, Park Road, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, GL1 1LF | |
| Eccleston, St Helens War Memorial | West Derby War Memorial | Created by Walter Gilbert and Louis Weingarner at Martyns | Junction of St Helens Road and Burrow's Lane, Eccleston Lane Ends, Prescot, Liverpool, L34 6JN | |
| West Hartlepool War Memorial | Design by George J. Coombs,Aberdeen. Granite and bronze | Victory Square, Victoria Road, Hartlepool, County Durham, England | ||
| Exchange Flags War Memorial | Liverpool Exchange Flags War Memorial | The memorial was cast by Martyns | 9 Exchange Flags, Liverpool, L2 3YL | |
| Lower Slaughter War Memorial | Lower Slaughter War Memorial | Erected in 1920 by Martyns | In the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Lower Slaughter, Cotswold, Gloucestershire | |
| The Cenotaph | London, The Cenotaph | Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, carved by Martyns | Whitehall, Westminster, London SW1A 2ET | |
| Nottingham, War Memorial | The wrought iron gates for the memorial were designed by T. Wallis-Gordon and constructed by Martyns | Nottingham War Memorial Gardens, Victoria Embankment, Nottingham NG2 2LA | ||
| Pelton Fell Cenotaph | Pelton Fell Cenotaph and memorial gates | Gates by Martyns | Pelton Fell Memorial Park, Station Lane, Pelton Fell, Chester-le-Street, County Durham, DH2 2RL, England | |
| Smethwick War Memorial | Smethwick War Memorial | Stone column, bronze figure and panels, Made by Martyns | Victoria Park, Sandwell, West Midlands, England | |
| Commando Memorial | Spean Bridge, Commando Memorial | Memorial to thee Offficers and men of the Commandos who died in the Second World War, creeated by Scott Sutherland and cast by Martyns. Unveiled on 27th September 1952 | A82 (Fort William to Inverness), Spean Bridge, PH34 4EN, Scotland | |
| Troon War Memorial | Troon, South Beach Esplanade, War Memorial | Created by Martyns | South Beach Esplanade, Troon, KA10 6EJ, Scotland | |
| Walsall War Memorial | Walsall War Memorial | Limestone column, made by Martyns | Bradford Place, Walsall, West Midlands, England |
The following table lists some of the many works described in The Best. It is not intended to be comprehensive.
| Name | Heritage Link! | Work | Address | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bannockburn, Equestrian Statue | Sculpted by C. d'O. Pilkington Jackson, cast by Martyns | Glasgow Road, Whins of Milton, Stirling, FK7 0LJ | ||
| Besford, Church of St Peter | Besford, Church of Saint Peter | H.H. Martyn executed the carved work in connection with the restoration in 1881, together with his partner A.J. Emms. | Besford, Wychavon, WorcestershireWorcestershire | |
| Cambridge University Library | University Library | The bronze main entrance and the screens to the reading room were manufactured by Martyns | Cambridge University Library, West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DR, UK | |
| Victoria Square, Birmingham Statue of Queen Victoria | Birmingham Town Hall, Statue of Queen Victoria | The bronze statue outside the town hall is a replacement for one which had weathered badly. | Victoria Square, Birmingham, B3, England | |
| Cheltenham Church of St Stephen | Cheltenham, Church of St Stephen | H.H. Martyn, in partnership with Alfred Jeffrey Emms, carried out carving work on the nave and stalls | 42 St Stephen's Rd, Cheltenham GL51 3AB | |
| Colchester Castle Park Entrance Gate | Castle Park Entrance | The wrought iron gates at the entrance on Cowdray Crescent were created by Martyns | Colchester Castle, Castle Park, Colchester, CO1 1TJ | |
| Grovelands Park, Inverforth Gate | The gate was created by Martyns | Grovelands Park, The Bourne, Southgate London, N14 6RA | ||
| Hognaston, St Bartholemew's | Hognaston, St. Bartholemew's | The stained-glass windows in the church were made by Martyns | St Bartholemew's, Stonepit Lane, Hognaston, Ashbourne, DE6 1PR | |
| London, Freemasons Hall | the great bronze doors and the masonic shrine were cast by Martyns | 60 Great Queen Street, London WC2B 5AZ | ||
| Bank of England | London, Bank of England | The figure of Ariel on the dome of the building was made by Martyns. | Threadneedle Street, London, EC2R 8AH | |
| House of Commons of the United Kingdom | London,Houses of Parliament | The speaker's chair, the despatch boxes and the table on which they stand were made by Martyns. | House of Commons London SW1A 0AA | |
| India Buildings | Liverpool, India Buildings | Decorative plaster ceilings and bronze entrance doors were created by Martyns | Walter St, Liverpool, L2 0RR | |
| Newmarket, National Horse Racing Museum | The sculpture of Hyperion, winner of the 1933 Derby was sculpted by Professor John Skeaping and cast by Martyns in 1962. It is now located in the grounds of the museum. A statue of Chamossaire which was cast by Martyns in 1966 is in Snailwell. | Palace House Palace Street, Newmarket CB8 8EP | ||
| Balliol College, Oxford | Oxford, Balliol College | Woodcarving and panelling for the hall were carried out by Martyns.] | Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BJ | |
| Swindon Civic Offices | Swindon Civic Offices | Metalwork by HH Martyn | Euclid Street, Swindon, SN1 2JH, England | |
| Thornton Manor | Music room: panelling, glazing, carving | Manor Road, Wirral, CH63 1JB, England |