Catalogue for the auction of
Cricket, Football & Sporting Memorabilia

To be held on Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday
6th, 7th, 8th & 9th August 2026

William Gilbert Grace. Gloucestershire, London County & England 1870-1904. Very large and imposing, head and shoulders, bust of Grace sporting a forked beard and wearing a cricket shirt by artist William Henry Tyler SC (fl. 1880-1893). The plaster of Paris bust, produced in 1888, stands on a joined plinth and overall measures approx 32” tall, width: shoulders 24”, back to front 13”. Inscribed to back of bust ‘W. Tyler. SC. 1888’. The bust might well have been treated with shellac, for protection and to enhance its patina. Sold with excellent provenance in a copy of as letter, dated December 1957, sent by Leslie Gutteridge, cricket dealer of London, to G. Neville Weston regarding the purchase of this bust by Weston and confirming that it was in ‘the possession of Rockley Wilson who kept him in his bedroom’. Gutteridge offers the bust to Weston for the princely sum of £10. Slight loss of colour to one edge of the plinth at the back and minor damage to the edge of the rear left hand corner of the plinth otherwise in good to very good condition. The bust and plinth are extremely heavy and weighs around 25 kilos. A large wonderful figure of an almost live size W.G. Grace enhanced with a glorious patina
An extremely rare and important figure of Grace, one of only three similar busts known to exist, the Marylebone Cricket Club were presented with a similar bust by W.G. Grace’s widow in 1919 and it is displayed in the Lord’s museum, the other known bust, which is in marble, is in a private collection and this is the bust formally owned by renowned collector Roger Mann. It was acquired and was owned by G. Neville Weston, a leading student of Grace and it previously belonged to Evelyn Rockley Wilson (Yorkshire & England 1899-1923), who had it standing in his bedroom at Winchester College

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