Henry Jenkins & Son

Henry Jenkins moved from Broadhempston to Torquay and was an apprentice in a marble firm around the 1850s. By 1865, he had become a marble mason with a small firm on Lower Union Street with six employees. He described himself as a ‘Statuary and marble mason’ meaning a sculptor.

Henry had five sons. The eldest, Frank Lynn Jenkins, inherited his father’s skills and took them to new heights. He studied art in Weston-super-Mare, then London and became an international prizewinning sculptor. He developed an innovative style of painted low relief plaster panels and won commissions to decorate restaurants and hotels. He became Chairman of the Art Workers guild in 1901. 

Gilbert Jenkins, Henry’s fourth son, became a leading architect and worked with his father on prestigious projects. He designed their new marble works on Lymington Road in Torquay.

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H. T. Jenkins & Son Marble Works, Torquay, c. 1900. Workers survey a marble block for faults before loading it into the frame or gang saw (to the right) which was powered by overhead belts (colourised). 

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It was Henry’s third son Walter who took over the business which was to become one of the most renowned specialist marble companies in Britain, eventually employing 400 people, many of them Italians. They worked on projects such as the grand marble staircase at Oldway Mansion, Paignton and the Queen Victoria memorial outside Buckingham Palace.

The business survived through World War I and supplied work for the Cenotaph in Whitehall. They also acquired the quarries at Ashburton and Ogwell from the Blacklers which helped them maintain one of the finest stocks of high grade marble in England. 

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H.T. Jenkins & Son War Memorial 

The First World War was devastating for the Torbay marble industry. It forced the closure of retail outlets and contracted the market for decorative marble interiors. Not all the local businesses survived through this period. On an individual level, many workers in the industry fought and lost their lives. This memorial painted by G. Sanguinetti remembers the workers from H.T. Jenkins & Son. It was given to the Museum in 2008 by the War Memorials Trust.

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Jenkins & Son are responsible for many sumptuous marble building interiors and monuments around Britain and abroad including the Canadian National Vimy War Memorial in France. The company traded under the name Walter W. Jenkins & Co. Ltd until 1995.  

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