THE death of the prominent Scottish sculptor, William Kellock Brown, occurred “with startling suddenness” on Tuesday, February 20, 1934, the Glasgow Herald reported. He had been taken ill while walking on Cambridge Street, bound for his studio on Renfrew Street, after having arranged some of his works for an exhibition at the Glasgow Art Club. He was in his late seventies.

Summarising his distinguished career, the Herald said he had carried out “many important commissions in beautifying large public buildings in Glasgow, including insurance offices, libraries, and colleges, with statuary groups.” His notable works had included a life-sized bronze statue of David Livingstone; and the work pictured here - the Thomas Carlyle Memorial in Kelvingrove Park, completed in 1916. “In this case the sculptor chiselled the effigy out of a great block of grey granite, the vividly modelled head of Carlyle seeming to emerge out of the granite block. There is no modelling of the limbs, merely an arm sketchily treated, but the strong features are rendered with much dignity of expression.”