James Woodford
James Arthur Woodford (1893–1976) was an English sculptor. His works include sets of bronze doors for the headquarters of the Royal Institute of British Architects and Norwich City Hall; the Queen's Beasts, originally made for the Coronation in 1953, and later replicated in stone, and the statue of Robin Hood outside Nottingham Castle. Life Woodford was born in Nottingham on 25 September 1893. His father was a lace designer, who expected his son to follow him into the trade and was opposed to Woodford pursuing a career as an artist. Notoriously, he even threw his son's early sculptures across the room. Despite his father's opposition, Woodford had started studying at the Nottingham School of Art, although his education was curtailed when he enlisted in the Sherwood Foresters during the First World War. After the war, he continued his training at the Royal College of Art in London, and was Rome Scholar in 1922–25. Woodford designed the bronze doors of the 1930s extension of the Liverpool Blind School in Hope Street. The doors were later transferred to the new Blind School when it moved to Wavertree, a suburb of Liverpool. In 1934 Woodford created a monumental pair of doors for the