Thomas Vallance Wran, stone mason and carver, emigrated from London with his family, first settling in Queensland before moving to Balmain, New South Wales. Wran sculpted the Royal Coat of Arms on the Chief Secretary’s Building, (originally known as the Colonial Secretary’s Building), at 121 Macquarie Street, Sydney in 1876. In 1882, he carved the faces in the keystones of the General Post Office along the Pitt Street frontage and the Royal Coat of Arms in the same facade, and the faces in the keystones along the eastern extension of the Martin Place colonnade in 1885.
Wran is identified as the sculptor for the Royal Coat of Arms of the Chief Secretary’s Building by way of a signature carved into the rear of the carving: 'T V WRAN SCULPT. 1876’. His work on the Pitt Street facade of the General Post Office is referenced in an article from the Sydney Morning Herald ( SMH ), 22 September 1882: “A large Royal Coat of Arms has already been placed in position here, and Mr. Thomas V. Wran, who carved it, has just finished four large female heads representing Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, and bearing the fruits and flowers which are seen during those seasons.”
Wran’s carving on the keystones of the Martin Place colonnade was judged favourably in a later article from the SMH , 17 March 1885: “... in regard to the sculptured heads which form the keystones of the colonnade, Mr. T. V. Wran, the chiseller, has aimed at variety, and has, in fact, produced an excellent array of faces typical of European and other nationalities.”
Wran’s sculptural style evolved over the period in England at Chichester in 1852 when it was strongly Romanesque influenced by Chichester cathedral, later focused on the humorous representation of grotesque lizard and dragon figures on St Mary church at South Dalton. On arrival in Sydney, Wran was strongly influenced by the Irish Catholic architect D.W. Ryan presentation at a February 1873 reconvened meeting of the Insitute of Architects in the Public Library. Under the patronage of Thomas Rowe Wran produced the first examples of an Australian architectural order for two warehouses in Pitt Street, which was based on a selection of indigenous animals and birds observed in the Australian Museum in College Street.
Wran’s later sculptural work varies in style to harmonise with the style preferences of the architect, ranging from elaborate Romanesque foliate stylisation on the Founder’s Hall at Newington College, to heavily classical keystones for James Barnet on the General Post Office. In between them, the Great Synagogue engaged in an episode exploring eastern Romanesque exoticism, whilst the Haymarket Branch of the Commercial Bank, while following an Italianate agenda set by A. G. Mansfield, elaborated further foliate themes.
Wran is Ruskinesque in as much as he never repeats himself, each carving is an original unique design, not mechanically repeated, but he is at the same time, he is contrary to Ruskin to the extent that his sculpture is forcefully three dimensional wherever possibility and the opportunity presents itself. Ruskin in his 1870 lectures at Oxford University advocated a pictorial approach of bas-relief which Wran abhored.
Wran received his training in sculpture when he moved to London during the mid-1850s at the Architectural Museum Canon Row which was established to raise the aesthetic discernment of art workers with lectures preseented by G.G. Scott and John Ruskin and an extensive collection of casts for copying which later became the core of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Wran died on 7 September 1891 off Hawkes Bay in the Red Sea on the return voyage to Sydney from London during an apoplectic fit and was hastily buried at Aden in Arabia now the Yemen.
- Writers:
- Laila Ellmoos
- Date written:
- 2010
- Last updated:
- 2021
