Summary
One of a pair of statues of Triton sculpted by John Thomas in 1849.
Reasons for Designation
The 1849 statue of Triton at the Esplanade in Lowestoft is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* for its attribution to John Thomas, a prolific architectural sculptor and architect, who has a number of listed sculptures, memorials, and buildings to his name, many of which are listed at high grades;
* for its artistic merit, classically inspired and composed in the round to be observed from every angle.
Historic interest:
* having been commissioned by Sir Samuel Morton Peto as part of the first phases of the transformation of the town into a coastal resort.
Group value:
* as part of a sculptural pair alongside the Grade II listed Statue of Triton at Royal Plain.
History
The medieval town of Lowestoft underwent a dramatic expansion over the course of the C19. In the first half of the century, a harbour had been created alongside a man-made waterway connecting it to Lake Lothing. Sir Samuel Morton Peto (1809-1889) recognised the town's potential development for industrial and leisure purposes and as a port for Norwich. Peto employed the architect John Louth Clemence (1822-1911) to assist him in developing a master plan for a resort focused along Lowestoft's South Beach. Peto was a highly successful contractor for railways and public works, remembered particularly as a railway pioneer and identified by Brunel as the largest contractor in the world. By the mid-1860s Peto was entangled in the collapse of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway company which resulted in his bankruptcy. Despite Peto's departure, South Lowestoft flourished and continued to develop as a resort.
The statues of Triton form part of the earliest phase of Peto's transformation of Lowestoft. They stand at either end of the Royal Green, one at Parade Road South and the other at Royal Plain and were erected in 1849. As originally conceived a row of semi-detached villas stood between the two statues, all of which were cleared following bomb damage in the Second World War. Triton, a God of the sea and child of Poseidon, is depicted bearing a horn of plenty illustrative of the town's maritime prosperity. The plinth on which the statue stands is a later replacement. Restoration work was undertaken in 1985.
They were commissioned by Peto and sculpted by John Thomas (1813-1862), an architectural sculptor, ornamental mason and architect. Left an orphan at the age of thirteen, Thomas was apprenticed as a stonemason and was chiefly engaged in the stone-carving and the letter cutting of gravestones. At the end of his apprenticeship, about 1831, he joined his much older architect brother, William, in Birmingham, and from his office he designed and executed a gothic monument in Huntingdon. This caught the attention of Sir Charles Barry who engaged him to execute the Pugin-designed stone-carving of the Edward VI Grammar School in Birmingham. In the later 1830s, he worked chiefly as a stone-carver for Edward Blore and for the North Midland Railway, but in 1841 Barry again sought him out for the Palace of Westminster where he was appointed Superintendent of stone-carving in 1846 where he may have encountered Peto as the contractor for the superstructure of the Palace. Royal patronage followed in 1848 with the commission from Prince Albert for large bas reliefs of 'Peace' and 'War' at Buckingham Palace, followed by further work at Windsor, and a sculptural programme for the Sultan's Palace at Constantinople. Peto also commissioned Thomas for the sculptural adornments of his Suffolk home at nearby Somerleyton Hall. Thomas has many listed statues and memorials to his name, and contributed sculptures to many highly-graded listed buildings, including monumental lions for Robert Stephenson's Britannia Railway Bridge across the Menai Strait (1846-1850, Grade II), the Atlas Fountain at Castle Howard (1850, Grade I), Leeds Town Hall (1853-1858, Grade I), and Prince Albert’s Dairy at Windsor (1858, Grade II*).
Details
One of a pair of statues of Triton sculpted by John Thomas in 1849.
MATERIALS: The statue and its plinth are built of York Stone.
DESCRIPTION: The statue depicts the sea god Triton bearing an inverted cornucopia from which spills fruit and vegetables. It stands on the capital of a circular shaft rising from an octagonal base. The plinth is not original.
