User:Storye book/editing/Sandbox 77

Museum exhibits
These are 17 six-foot, painted, plaster-cast maquettes for the sixteen bronze barons and two bishops which today stand in the Lords Chamber at Westminster Palace, cast in 1847−1851. These were made by various named sculptors, and represent the men who signed Magna Carta. Each of the fifteen barons and two bishops is named at the base. In 1908 three of the maquettes were displayed in the museum, and two remained on show at the Westgate in 2013. The rest were put into storage in the ground floor room of the north tower in 1987, along with several other museum exhibits, where they were forgotten until they were rediscovered by museum staff in May 2008, when the building was flooded. The City of Canterbury museums department was said to have been attempting to remove them to safety for restoration, but was inhibited by logistics and funding. As of May 2011, ten of the maquettes in the basement had been photographed; the fate of the remaining five was unknown.

The sculptors of the maquettes are as follows: John Thomas who made the maquette of Stephen Langton, as of 2013 in Canterbury Heritage Museum and as of 2021 in The Beaney; Patrick MacDowell; Henry Timbrell; James Sherwood Westmacott; J. Thorneycroft (possibly Thomas Thornycroft); Frederick Thrupp; Alexander Handyside Ritchie; and William Frederick Woodington. As of 2021, three of the maquettes (Stephen Langton, Thomas Robert Fitzwalter by Frederick Thrupp and Sieur de Quincy by James Westmacott) have been restored and are displayed in The Beaney, Canterbury.