Royal Academy almost every year till 1880. The subjects were sometimes classical, sometimes modern, but more frequently religious. He modelled several isolated subjects from Bunyan's ‘Pilgrim's Progress,’ as well as a series of ten bas-reliefs. He exhibited in 1860 a statue of John Bunyan, and in 1868 a pair of bronze doors with ten subjects from the book, which were purchased by the Duke of Bedford and presented to the Bunyan Chapel, Bedford. The plaster models for these doors were presented by the sculptor to the Baptist College, Regent's Park, in 1880. Another pair of doors, with bronze panels illustrating George Herbert's poems, were exhibited with other works by Thrupp, including sixty terra-cotta statuettes, a marble bust of Wordsworth, and some bas-reliefs, at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in the winter of 1887–8, and the doors were afterwards accepted by Dr. Westcott as a gift to the divinity school at Cambridge, where they were placed in the library. Thrupp executed the monument to Lady Coleridge at Ottery St. Mary's, Devonshire; the reredos representing the Last Supper in St. Clement's, York; and the monument to Canon Pearson [see under Pearson, Hugh Nicholas] in Sonning Church, Berkshire, in 1883. His last work was a plaster bust of Mr. E. Vivian, which he presented to the Torquay School of Art in 1888.
Late in life, on 11 July 1885, Thrupp married Sarah Harriet Ann Frances, eldest daughter of John Thurgar of Norwich and Algiers, who survived him. He spent the winter of 1885–6 in Algiers, making studies of the Arabs and their costume. The following winter was passed at San Remo, and he visited the Pyrenees in the spring. In 1887 he left the Marylebone Road and bought a house at Torquay. In 1889 he visited Antwerp, Brussels, and Cologne. The years 1892–4 were spent in negotiations for the ultimate disposal of the large number of works in marble and plaster, with about 150 small studies in terra-cotta, and numerous drawings, which remained on his hands. By the intervention of the dowager countess of Northesk, it was ultimately arranged with the mayor and corporation of Winchester that his works should find a home in that city, and in 1894 he sent on loan, as a first instalment, four marble statues—‘Eve,’ ‘The Prodigal Son,’ ‘Hebe,’ and ‘Boys with Fruit’—and twenty works in plaster. The Thrupp gallery, in the ancient abbey buildings in the public garden adjoining the Guildhall, was inaugurated on 8 Nov. 1894. Thrupp bequeathed all his property, including his remaining works, to his wife, but in accordance with his wishes they will be presented to the city of Winchester; they remain meanwhile at Torquay.
Failing eyesight, followed by paralysis agitans in 1893, compelled him to abandon active work. He died at Thurlow, Torquay, of influenza and pneumonia, on 21 March 1895, and was buried on 26 March in the Torquay cemetery. Joseph Francis Thrupp [q. v.] was his nephew.
In addition to his work as a sculptor, Thrupp designed and engraved in outline illustrations to ‘Paradise Lost.’ He also illustrated in lithography ‘The Ancient Mariner’ and ‘The Prisoner of Chillon,’ and drew a series of views of Ilfracombe on the stone. He was a rapid and accurate draughtsman with pen or pencil, but had little sense of colour and did not paint except in monochrome. His modelling was rapid and sure when he had overcome the initial difficulties.
The sculptor's half-sister, Dorothea Ann Thrupp (1779–1847), the eldest daughter of Joseph Thrupp by his first wife, Mary Burgon (d. 1795), born in London on 20 June 1779, contributed under the signature ‘Iota’ to some of the juvenile magazines edited by Caroline Fry, and wrote several hymns: one, ‘A little ship was on the sea,’ a great favourite with children. Besides some little manuals, including ‘Songs by the Way’ and ‘Thoughts for the Day’ (1836–7), she published translations from Pascal and Fénelon. She died at Hamilton Place, St. John's Wood, in November 1847.
[Athenæum, 30 March 1895; Torquay Directory, 27 March 1895; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues; information from Mrs. Thrupp and from C. J. Bruce Angier, esq. For Dorothea, see Julian's Dict. of Hymnology; Garret Horder's Hymn Lover, p. 447; notes supplied by Miss Fell Smith.]
THRUPP, JOHN (1817–1870), historical writer, born on 5 Feb. 1817, was the eldest son of John Augustus Thrupp (1785–1844) of Spanish Place, Manchester Square, London, the eldest son of Joseph Thrupp of Paddington Green, by his first wife, Mary Burgon. Frederick Thrupp [q. v.] was his father's half-brother. After education at Dr. Laing's school at Clapham he was articled in 1834 and admitted a solicitor in 1838; he practised at Bell Yard, Doctors' Commons. Shortly after his publication in 1843 of his volume of ‘Historical Law Tracts,’ his father died and left him a competency. Henceforth he devoted more and more time to archæology and chess, in both of which pursuits he shared his enthusiasm with Henry Thomas Buckle [q. v.] He had to give up chess in 1856, but
