IRON &amp;lt;;.\TKS AN !) KAILINV-S. 195 



patron, lor Oueen Anne docs not seem to have given I .iin commissions, and sonic of the work 

 for H utipton Court appears to lie by other hands. Nor does she seem to have been anxious to pay 

 his accounts which were disputed. His work at St. Paul s, magnificent as it is, does not appear to have 

 been given him freely, and the. ironwork there was shared with two other smiths. Wren apparently 

 never liked him, and never mentions him, and there were again difficultly witli the accounts. Tijon, 

 disappointed and poor, quitted the country about 1710 or 1711, leaving his wife to coll.-ct a balance due 

 lor work at St. Paul s. A living descendant informs me that he died abroad, broken-hearted, leaving 

 two sons. He came over accompanied probably by assistants, seeing the larvr amount of work he acci in- 

 plished in the first year, and that he would not have found craft-men here at once capable ol embossing. 

 Some may have been of his own name, for there are records of the burial of a Mrs. Ann Tijon, died ijoS, 

 and of a Mr. Tijou without initials, w c.o die.l 1701), in St. Martin s Church, where his daughter was 

 married to the celebrated artist Lagncrre. Me describes himself in his book as &quot; ot London,&quot; and his 

 works were thus no doubt in St. Martin s parish, where the name still lingers. His death probably took 

 place in Paris, lor a smith, Louis Fordrin of that city, became possessed of the engraved copper plates 

 and issued reprints from them in his own name, claiming to be designer and executant. He must have 

 had Tijou s drawings as well, for he made good use of them. 



I ijou was the greatest designer and worker in iron who has appeared in Hngland. Whether, as 

 a foreigner, his memory should be perpetuated is a matter for others to decide ; but French authorities 

 class his work as English. In the meantime the greatest possible injustice has been done to his memory. 

 Among the statues on the exterior of the new Victoria and Albert Museum is one to a person named 

 Hnntington Shaw, from Nottingham, who is put there to represent Brit is! i smithcraft. Nothing what 

 ever is known of him except that in Hampton Church there is a marble tablet to his memory, which formed 

 part of a large and fantastic monument twelve feet high, erected in the churchyard against the wall of the 

 church by Benjamin Jackson, Onecn Anne s Master Mason at Hampton Court, apparently as a labour 

 ol love, for he was sole executor. Shaw died in 1710, aged fifty-one, and the inscription ended, &quot; he was 

 an artist in his way,&quot; as recorded by Lvson, leaving half the tablet vacant to commemorate his widow. 

 The church was burnt and the monument destroyed, except the tablet, winch was scraped, cleaned and 

 fixed, inside the church in 183.5. The vacant space was then tilled up by the addition of the following 

 words, &quot; he designed and executed the ornamental ironwork at Hampton Court Palace.&quot; The Board 

 of Education should be perfectly aware that theie is not a particle of truth in this assertion, as an official 

 enquiry \vas made on their behalf [313, ^^- S;, which failed to tind any mention of Mich a ptison, and 

 placed beyond all doubt that Tijou was alone responsible for all the important work there. There is 

 no mention anywhere of Huntington Shaw, and Nottingham was not, and never has been, a school of 

 artistic smithing. As far as is known he may equally well have been a stone-mason or wood-carver. 

 Anyhow, if Tijou is not to be honoured, and 1 believe we have his portrait if it should be required, there 

 are many other great English smiths, his contemporaries, who deserve to occupy the position accorded 

 to this entirely mythic smith. J. STARKIE &amp;lt;IAKI&amp;gt;NKR 



220. THE CLOSED GATES OF TRAOUA1R. 



