Bust of Kelvin for the Smithsonian Institution

Abstract

THE presentation of the bronze bust of Lord Kelvin, by the late Herbert Hampton, to the Smithsonian Institution, is to take place on October 8 at Washington, D.C. The English-speaking Union has arranged a luncheon at the Hotel Willard, Washington, in honour of the occasion, at which Dr. C. G. Abbot, Secretary of the Smithsonian, will receive the bust. Mr. V. A. L. Mallet, counsellor of the British Embassy at Washington, will transfer the bust on behalf of the English-Speaking Union of the British Empire to the English-Speaking Union of the United States. Dr. W. F. G. Swann, of the Bartol Research Foundation, acting as the American Union's spokesman, will then officially make the presentation to the Smithsonian Museum, and Dr. Abbot will reply. The bust was dispatched from England on September 23. It is to receive a prominent position at the Smithsonian Institution, and it is hoped that it will form the nucleus of a permanent exhibit to be collected indicative of Lord Kelvin's contributions to various branches of science on both sides of the Atlantic. The late Herbert Hampton, the famous sculptor and friend of Lord Kelvin, made this bust from life in 1902, five years before Lord Kelvin's death. It has never been cast before, although it was used as a model for the bas-relief on the Queen Victoria Memorial at Ipswich. The plaster cast was carefully preserved by the sculptor's widow, from which a bronze has now been cast for the Smithsonian. Hampton was well known for his public memorials and portrait busts of celebrated people. His works include five memorials to Queen Victoria, statues of King Edward VII and King George V, the well-known figure of the Duke of Devonshire in Whitehall, the Marquess of Salisbury (at the Foreign Office) and Lord Hardinge (at Bombay).