12 Facts About Hilary Stratton

Hilary Byfield Stratton FRBS was an English sculptor, stonemason and teacher working in the 20th Century.

Hilary Stratton is best known for his stone carvings and memorials but experimented in other media that included: perspex, copper and resin.

Hilary Stratton's father who in the 1920s had a studio in Chelsea was a major influence on the young Stratton, encouraging him to practice with different materials and when Stratton Jr was just twelve he carved a Portland stone figure of an ancient Egyptian supporting a bowl under his knees.

At the age of just thirteen Hilary Stratton was apprenticed to Eric Gill, a friend of his father in Ditchling, cycling the twenty five miles from home on a Monday and returning on a Friday.

Hilary Stratton's bas-relief carving appears on the War Memorial at South Harting unveiled in 1920 and attributed to Gill.

On completion of his apprenticeship Hilary Stratton studied sculpture at St Martin's School of Art leaving at seventeen years to attend the Royal College of Art, where he studied under Gilbert Ledward and Henry Moore.

In July 1937 Hilary Stratton married Eileen Letitia Despard known as Billie, the niece of the suffragette and Sinn Fein campaigner Charlotte Despard.

Hilary Stratton always maintained a strong attachment to rural Sussex and he opened a studio next to his house at White Turret Cottage in Barns Green from where he worked for the next thirty years until his death in 1985.

Hilary Stratton ran a commercial practice as a stone mason specialising in public memorials that were carved mostly from Portland Stone.

Hilary Stratton had an electrophoretic plating plant installed for working with other materials including: copper, brass, silver and gold.

Hilary Stratton died at his home in Barns Green on 20 May 1985.

Hilary Stratton is buried at the local Parish Church of St Nicolas in Itchingfield, West Sussex.