Percy Portsmouth RSA 02/02/1874-19/10/1953

Percy Portsmouth was born at Reading on 2^nd February 1874 and started his career by serving a five years' apprenticeship as an engineer. He began to study art at University Extension College under Walter Crane and Morley Fletcher. After a brief period in Paris and Brussels, he returned to London where he continued his training under Professor Edouard Lantéri.

Lantéri, a sculptor in the classic tradition, exercised a potent influence over a whole generation of students and Portsmouth carried that tradition to Edinburgh when he was appointed teacher of modelling at the School of Art at the Mound. He was elected A.R.S.A. in 1906 and R.S.A. in 1923. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. In 1929 he retired and his later years were spent at Rushden, in Herts.

Mr. Portsmouth's technical accomplishment and high standard of craftsmanship are admirably shown in his Diploma work, "The Captive." Other examples, in Scotland, are the 1914-18 War Memorial at Thurso, the memorial to the late Rt. Hon. Lord Glentannar in Aboyne Church and, among his later works, a "Madonna and Child" at St. Mary's Church, Rushden. As a recreation he painted in both watercolour and oils but seldom exhibited these works. 

He married Miss Kate Emma Pope who pre-deceased him in 1941. He died 19^th October 1953 at Hitchin, Hertfordshire.

RSA Obituary, transcribed from the 1953 RSA Annual Report