Biography of Samuel Baldwin -1645

1613. St Laurence's Church, Stroud [Map]. Monument to Thomas Stephens by Samuel Baldwin.

Originally on the east wall of the south aisle, but moved to the north side of the window on the same wall when a east end gallery was erected in 1787, the Stephens memorial in Stroud Parish Church reveals a figure in a doctor of law's gown kneeling before a lectern. The inscription on the tablet is in Latin and Paul Hawkins Fisher translated the verse as follows:

Died Stephens by the law? The

law alas; kills all—

That law which doom'd our

sinful race to die.

But Stephens lives: another

law, Christ's law withal,

Gives him a crown and im-

mortality.

Stephens, of the Middle Temple, London, and attorney General to Prince Henry and Prince Charles, hought Lypiatt Manor and estates in 1610 from John Throckmorton. He was the third son of Edward Stephens of Chavenage and East- ington and uncle of Nathaniel Stephens, M.P. for Gloucester- shire, who consented to the execu- tion of Charles I (and thus created the Chavenage legend of the coach driven by a beheaded coachman which drew up at the door of Chavenage after the death of Stephens). During the Civil War Thomas Stephens' son John supported Parliament and Lypiate was garrisoned by Col. assey's troops until they were captured by Sir Jacob Astley i came from Cirencester in 1642.

Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Volume 83 Pages 148-149. A 'Forgotten Sculptor' of Stroud' by I. E. Gray 1964, Vol. 83, 148-149. The Society and the Author(s).

A ‘FORGOTTEN SCULPTOR' OF STROUD

Among the records at Berkeley Castle there is an 18th-century copy of a receipt for £80, dated 5 July 1615, from Samuel Baldwin of Stroud, ‘carver', to the executors of Henry, Lord Berkeley, for ‘a tomb made by him and to be placed in the chapel adjoining the parish church of Berkeley in memory of the said Lord Berkeley and his first wife."

This adds a trifle to our knowledge of Samuel Baldwin, described by Ida M. Roper (Monumental Effigies of Gloucestershire and Bristol (1931), p. 361) as ‘an almost forgotten sculptor of Stroud'. Besides the fine monument in Berkeley church, Miss Roper attributed to Baldwin the effigies of Dame Joan Young (d. 1603) in Bristol Cathedral? of Thomas Stephens (d. 1613) in Stroud church and of John Seaman and his wife (d. 1623, 1625) in Painswick church.

I should like to suggest also that there are strong resemblances between the effigy of Henry, Lord Berkeley and that of William Kingston (d. 1614) in Miserden church, which may thus have been another of Baldwin's works. He may further have been the sculptor of a second Miserden monument, the mural effigies of Anthony Partridge (d. 1625) and wife; compare Miss Roper's detailed description of this (p- 351), the mutilated Seaman monument at Painswick (pp. 359-60), and the Stephens monument at Stroud (pp. 371-2). Yet another mural monument of about the same date in the same area, that of Henry Bridges (d. 1615) in Avening church (illustration in Bigland, 1, P- 94) should be compared with the Partridge monument, the Stephens monument (illustration in Roper, facing p. 371) and the Seaman monument (illustration in St Clair Baddeley, 4 Cotteswold Manor, facing p. 185). All four are characterized by figures kneeling on cushions at reading-desks on which are books, under canopies supported by classical columns.

It is certainly of interest that local talent was responsible for the execution, if not the design, of a number of noteworthy Gloucestershire monuments of the early 17th century. The fact that Baldwin was employed by patrons as exalted as Lord Berkeley and as far away as Bristol makes one wonder whether some of the contemporary monu- ments in Gloucester Cathedral may not be also his work. Monuments in the cathedral of about the right date are those to Bishop Godfrey Goldsborough (d. 1604), Thomas Machen (d. 1614) and wife (d. 1615), the well known mural monuments to Elizabeth Williams (d. 1622) and Margery Clent (d. 1623) in the Lady Chapel—both pretty evidently by the same hand—and Alderman John Jones near the South door (d. 1630, but monument built in his lifetime). Except for Bishop Goldsborough's tomb, where the strap-work decoration does not seem characteristic of Baldwin, any or all of these, so far as I can judge, might well be by this sculptor.

In Smith's Men and Armour, 1608, Samuel Balden of Upper Lyppiatt, ‘joyner', is doubtless identical with the sculptor, and this seems to imply that he carved in wood as well as in stone and alabaster. His will, which would be of interest, has not been traced in the indexes to either Gloucester or P.C.C. probates.

Samuel Baldwin, called ‘stone-cutter' in the burial register and ‘carver' on his tombstone in St Nicholas's Church, Gloucester (recor- ded by Fosbrooke) died on 27 August 1645. Unless this was a son, it seems that the carver of monuments moved to Gloucester in later life.

Irvine Gray.