Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Mullins, Edwin Roscoe
MULLINS, EDWIN ROSCOE (1848–1907), sculptor, born in London on 22 Aug. 1848, was a younger son and sixth child in a family of five sons and three daughters of Edward Mullins of Box, Wiltshire, solicitor, by his wife Elizabeth Baker. After being educated at Louth grammar school and Marlborough College (1863–5), Mullins was trained in the art schools of Lambeth and the Royal Academy, and subsequently under John Birnie Philip [q. v.]. In 1866 he went to Munich, where he studied under Professor Wagmüller, and in 1872 gained a silver medal at Munich and a bronze medal at Vienna for a group entitled ‘Sympathy.’ In 1874 he returned to London and became a constant exhibitor at the Royal Academy and other galleries. He devoted himself preferably to ideal work, which was marked by simplicity and restraint. The best of his works of this kind was probably ‘Cain: My punishment is greater than I can bear’ (New Gallery, 1896). The bronze statue of a ‘Boy with a top’ (R.A. 1895) was shown at the International Exhibition at Brussels in 1897; while other works possessing both charm and simplicity were the marble figure of a girl personifying ‘Innocence’ (R.A. 1876), ‘Rest’ (Grosvenor Gallery, 1881; acquired by Miss Hoole), ‘Morn waked by the Circling Hours’ (Grosvenor Gallery, 1884), ‘Autolycus’ (R.A. 1885), a bronze group entitled ‘The Conquerors’ (R.A. 1887), ‘Love's Token’ (R.A. 1891), and ‘The Sisters’ (1905).
Mullins also possessed considerable powers of portraiture. He exhibited at the Royal Academy busts of, among others, Dr. Martineau (1878), Mr. W. G. Grace (1887), Rt. Hon. C. T. Ritchie (1889), and Sir Evelyn Wood (1896). He also executed statuettes of Gladstone (1878), Val Prinsep, A.R.A. (R.A. 1880), Sir Rowland Hill, and Edmund Yates (1878), a marble effigy of Queen Victoria for Port Elizabeth (1900), a bronze equestrian statue of the Thakore Saheb of Morvi (1899), and statues of General Barrow (marble, 1882) for the Senate House of Lucknow, of Henry VII (stone, 1883), for King's College, Cambridge, and William Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet (1887), for Dorchester. His most curious work was the circus-horse in Brighton cemetery, executed in 1893 as a memorial to Mr. Ginnett, a well-known circus-owner.
Mullins embellished many prominent London buildings by carvings, panels, and other effective decorative work. He executed the carvings for the buildings of the Fine Arts Society, Bond Street (1881), a pediment for the Harris Free Library, Preston, representing ‘The Age of Pericles’ (1886), and the frieze, representing the entry of Charles II into London, for the drawing-room of the Grocers' Hall (1892).
In 1889 Mullins published ‘A Primer of Sculpture.’ He died at Walberswick, Suffolk, on 9 Jan. 1907. His remains after cremation at Golder's Green were buried at Hendon Park. He married on 4 June 1884 Alice, daughter of John Pelton, J.P., of Croydon, and had issue three sons and one daughter.
[The Times, 14 Jan. 1907; Spielmann's British Sculpture, 1901; Encyc. Brit. 11th edit. art. on Sculpture; Century Mag., July 1883; Portfolio, Aug. 1889 (art. by Sir Walter Armstrong); Builder, 21 Jan. 1888; Art Journ. 1907; private information from Mr. W. E. Mullins.]