A.B. Burton

The Thames Ditton Foundry was a foundry in Thames Ditton in Surrey which operated from 1874 to 1939 and which under various owners produced numerous major statues and monuments as one of the United Kingdom's leading firms of bronze founders.

Located in Summer Road in Thames Ditton just outside the Greater London area, the Thames Ditton Foundry is believed to have been built on the site of an historic ‘melting house’ beside the River Thames. Its owners were: Cox & Sons (1874-80), Drew & Co (1880-82), Moore & Co (1882-97), Hollinshead & Burton (1897-1902) and A.B. Burton (1902-39).

The foundry was established in Summer Road, Thames Ditton, in 1874 by Cox & Sons, a large firm of ecclesiastical furnishing suppliers, to cast ornaments and statues in bronze. A hand operated gantry crane, which moved the entire foundry floor to facilitate all major lifting work, was an integral part of the building constructed for this work. When the factory was demolished in 1976 this crane was preserved by Surrey Archaeological Society.

The foundry was a leader in its field and produced fine bronze statues which it exported worldwide, including Matthew Noble's statue of Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, in Parliament Square (1874), Thomas Thornycroft's equestrian statue of Richard Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo for Calcutta (1875), Matthew Noble's Oliver Cromwell in Manchester (1875) and his Robert Peel in Parliament Square (1876), Thomas Brock's William Rathbone in Liverpool, George E. Ewing’s Robert Burns (1876), Frederic Leighton's 'An Athlete wrestling with a Python' (1877), John Mossman’s David Livingstone (1877), Thomas Woolner’s John Stuart Mill (1877) on the Victoria Embankment and Captain James Cook in Sydney, Australia (1878), Richard Belt’s Lord Byron at Hyde Park (1880), Thomas Brock’s Robert Raikes in the Victoria Embankment Gardens (1880) and Daniel O’Connell in Dublin (1881), William Hamo Thornycroft's statues of General Gordon and related reliefs in the Victoria Embankment Gardens (1888) and John Bright in Rochdale (1891).

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