Sir Francis, a celebrated sculptor, was born in 1782, at Norton, near Sheffield, where his father cultivated a small property of his own. His father died when he was eight years of age; and his mother having married again, his profession was left to be chosen by his friends. In his sixteenth year he was on the point of being apprenticed to a lawyer in Sheffield, when, having seen some wood-carving in a shop-window, he requested to be made a carver instead of a solicitor, and was accordingly placed with a Mr Ramsey, wood-carver in Sheffield. When in this situation, he became acquainted with Mr Raphael Smith, a distinguished draftsman in crayon, who gave him lessons in painting; and Chantrey, eager to commence his course as an artist, procured the cancelling of his indentures, and went to try his fortune in London. Here he first obtained employment as an assistant wood-carver, but at the same time devoted himself to portrait painting and modelling in clay. His first imaginative work was the model of the head of Satan, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1808. He afterwards executed for Greenwich Hospital four colossal busts of the Admirals Duncan, Howe, Vincent, and Nelson; and so rapidly did his reputation spread that the next bust which he executed, viz. that of Horne Tooke, procured him commissions to the extent of L12,000. From this period he was almost uninterruptedly engaged in professional labour. In 1819 he visited Italy, and became acquainted with the most distinguished sculptors of Florence and Rome. He was chosen a royal academician, received the degree of A.M. from Cambridge, and that of D.C.L. from Oxford, and in 1835 was knighted by William IV. He died, after an illness of only two hours' duration, on the 25th November 1841, and was buried in a tomb constructed by himself in the church of his native village. The works of Chantrey are far too numerous to receive particular notice. The principal are the statues of George III. at London, of George IV. at Brighton, of Pitt in Hanover Square, of Watt in Westminster Abbey and Glasgow, of Roscoe and Canning at Liverpool, of Dalton at Manchester, &c. He also executed the statues of Blair and Lord Melville in Edinburgh. Of his equestrian statues the most famous are those of Sir Thomas Munro at Calcutta, and the Duke of Wellington in front of the London Exchange. But the finest of all Chantrey's works are his inimitable delineations of children. The figures of two children asleep in each other's arms, which formed a monumental design in Litchfield Cathedral, are unmatched for beauty, simplicity, and grace. So is also the statue of Lady Louisa Russell, represented as standing on tiptoe and fondling a dove in her bosom. Chantrey was a man of warm and genial temperament, and is said to have borne a striking resemblance to the usual portraits of Shakespeare. He bequeathed his valuable collection, and his whole fortune, after the death of Lady Chantrey, to the Royal Academy, for the encouragement of British sculpture and painting.