Issued: 14 September 2018
On 25 September a new bronze statue of Dr John Radcliffe will be unveiled in front of the Radcliffe Observatory building at Green Templeton College.
John Radcliffe (1653–1714) was the most successful physician of his day, doctor to William and Mary and to Queen Anne. At his death in 1714 the bulk of his fortune was left to his Trustees for charitable purposes. In the years that followed the Trustees commissioned three of Oxford's finest buildings in John Radcliffe's name: the Radcliffe Camera; the Radcliffe Infirmary; and the Radcliffe Observatory.
To celebrate the tercentenary of Radcliffe's death in 2014, the Ashmolean, funded by the Radcliffe Trust, commissioned Martin Jennings to make a larger-than-life-size-bronze sculpture of Radcliffe to stand in front of the Observatory (known as 'the Tower of the Winds).
Martin Jennings (b. 1957), who works in Oxfordshire, is one of Britain's most eminent and best-loved sculptors. His recent work includes sculptures of John Betjeman at St Pancras Station; George Orwell commissioned by the BBC to stand outside Broadcasting House; Mary Seacole at the St Thomas' Hospital, London; and Charles Dickens in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth. John Radcliffe will be the first major statue by Martin Jennings in Oxford.
ENDS
FURTHER INFORMATION
For media access please email:
Nick Parrott
Green Templeton College
01865 274 787
