Rev. Ralph Nicholson (d.1794) and his wife Catherine (1744-1801) Sculptor: Sir Francis Chantrey Inv. no. 9845

This plaque to the parents of William Nicholson was commissioned and executed at the same time as Chantrey's larger Nicholson monument which stands nearby (see next image). It consists of a medallion with overlapping profile portraits of husband and wife, carved to appear as if suspended by a ribbon from the tablet bearing the inscription. Chantrey charged £1000 for carving the two Nicholson monuments, and a further £24 1Os for transporting them to Liverpool and fixing them in place. Ralph Nicholson owned lands at Chadkirk near Stockport, but he never lived there and passed much of his life at Didcot in Berkshire, where he was rector between 1768 and 1793. Shortly before his death he moved to Liverpool. Catherine Nicholson was one of the ten children of Charles Roe of Macclesfield (1715-81), a prominent industrialist in the fields of silk spinning and copper smelting who developed strong links with Liverpool when he built a smelting plant by the dockside in 1767. Roe's company also ran a Liverpool warehouse supplying metal trade goods to West African slavers.