as a student, and removed at the same time from the city to a lodging in Wardour Street. A colossal head of Ossian was the first of his works to attract attention. In 1769 he received from the hand of Reynolds the first gold medal for sculpture awarded by the Royal Academy. His subject was a bas-relief representing 'Æneas escaping from Troy.' He further increased his reputation by a statue of Mars. This work obtained for its artist the gold medal of the Society of Arts, and his election (in 1770) as an associate of the Royal Academy. It attracted the attention also of the Archbishop of York, and so led to a commission for a bust of the king for the hall of Christ Church, Oxford. From that time Bacon's career was one of unbroken prosperity. He was successful in fifteen out of the sixteen public competitions in which he took a part. Amongst his works may be mentioned the monuments to Pitt in the Guildhall and in Westminster Abbey; to Dr. Johnson, and to Howard, the philanthropist, in St. Paul's; to Blackstone at All Souls College, Oxford; the bronze statue of George III, and the two groups and colossal figure of the 'Thames' in Somerset House; and the monument to Mrs. Draper (Sterne's Eliza) in Bristol Cathedral. Bacon wrote the article 'Sculpture' for Rees's 'Cyclopædia.'
Bacon was, to a great extent, a self-taught man. It was said that he had no knowledge of the antique, or power of producing work of a classic character. But this charge he was able to refute by a sculpture which his brother artists mistook for a genuine fragment of antique skill. It was true, however, that his natural bent was not towards classic art. He had no imagination, and little fire of genius; but he had good sense and a quickened commercial instinct, which led to a just apprehension of what was wanted to be done. These qualities, with a delicacy of handling which he owed perhaps to his early employment in the potteries, gave to his works, according to the ideas of his time, a certain quality of simplicity and good taste.
Bacon died in the prime of life from inflammation of the bowels, at his house in Newman Street, on 4 Aug. 1799. He was buried in Whitfield's Tabernacle. His grave bore the following epitaph, written by himself:— 'What I was as an artist seemed of some importance while I lived; but what I really was as a believer in Jesus Christ is the only thing of importance to me now.' He was twice married: (1) to a Miss Wade in 1773, who died in 1776: and (2) with undue haste, as his enemies represented it, to Martha Holland, immediately on the death of his first wife. He left 60,000l. to be divided among his five children.
Bacon was agreeable in person, suave in manner, and a methodist of high doctrine and blameless life. His biographer, Cecil, a humble admirer, considers him to have exhibited in all essentials a pattern of excellence. Allan Cunningham's more disparaging view was considered by Bacon's relations to have been coloured by personal prejudice.
[Cunninghain's Lives of the Painters; Memoir by Robert Cecil, M.A.; Jewitt's History of the Ceramic Art in Great Britain; Chaffers's Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain; Redgrave's Dictionary of English Artists; Nollekens's Life and Times.]
BACON, JOHN, F.S.A. (1738–1816), spent nearly the whole of his working life in the first-fruits department of the office of Queen Anne's Bounty, and is now remembered by church antiquaries for his improved edition of Ecton's 'Thesaurus,' a detailed account of the valuations of all ecclesiastical benefices which were charged with first fruits and tenths. His first appointment in that branch of the office was as junior clerk to the deputy remembrancer, and he rose to become the senior clerk in 1778 and the receiver in 1782. With these offices he combined the duties of treasurer to the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy. He obtained the leasehold interest, under the dean and chapter of St. Paul's, of the manor of Whetstone, or Friern Barnet, and when the Land Tax Redemption Act authorised them to effect a sale of their landed property, he purchased the reversion of the manor-house and the whole of their estate in the parish of Friern Barnet. A description of the house and the curiosities which it contained may be found in Lysons's 'Environs of London,' ii. 22. He died in the manor-house 26 Feb. 1816, and was buried in a small vault on the outside of the church. His tombstone in the churchyard records his second son and his son's wife; his only daughter, Maria, was married to Sir William Johnston, of that ilk, Aberdeenshire. His edition of the 'Liber regis, vel thesaurus rerum ecclesiasticarum' was published in 1786, and some severe, but not unjustifiable, comments were made at that time in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' on the omission of any mention in the title-page or the preface of the previous compilation of John Ecton.
[Gent. Mag. lxxxvi. pt. i. 276 (1816); Cansick 's Epitaphs of Middlesex, iii. 123; Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, ix. 5-7.]
BACON, JOHN (1777–1859), sculptor, was the second son of John Bacon, R.A.
