I am NOT dead! Thank God, I was never in better health; John Ternouth (1796-1848) Kensal Green Cemetery

Sculptor John Ternouth's grave in Kensal Green was probably sculpted by himself

One can only wonder how sculptor John Ternouth came to hear the news about his own death. Did he stumble unsuspectingly on the ghastly fact as he perused the morning newspaper over his breakfast? Was he blithely unaware of his own demise until grieving relatives and stunned friends began to call at the house to express their shock and give their condolences to his wife? Was he out and about conducting the normal business of his Saturday when his attention was drawn to an ashen faced acquaintance, literally rooted to the spot and looking like he had seen a ghost, stuttering the words “but John, I thought you were dead….”? Ternouth was a sculptor who had been commissioned to produce one of the four bronzes that stand on the plinth of Nelson’s column. Although it was reported widely, and in identical words, it seems likely that the original story was printed in The Daily News on Saturday 24 October 1846;  

Nelson Column in Trafalgar-square.—By the death of Mr. J. Ternouth, the sculptor, another delay has occurred in the completion of this long-deferred debt of gratitude to the great hero Trafalgar. Mr. Ternouth, our readers will remember, was one of the four artists entrusted with the modelling of the bronze bas-reliefs for the base of the column. He had made his design, and sent it in to the Woods and Forests for approval, before the retirement of Lord Lincoln from the head of that department; and nothing has been done, we are assured, to further the completion of the monument since Lord Morpeth's appointment, and this not from any dislike or disinclination the part of his Lordship, but simply from the circumstance that his time has been fully employed on matters of greater and more immediate moment. The designs for the four great battles, St. Vincent, the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, are yet without official sanction; but this delay, we trust, is only temporary. A new artist should be nominated at once succeed Mr. Ternouth, or to complete his design, if fit for its purpose, and sufficiently advanced to be available. Mr. Ternouth had worked in the studio of Sir Francis Chantrey, was a gentleman of modest and affable manners, and of some talent in his art.

Ternouth's design for the fourth plaque on Nelson's Column

Several other London newspapers took up the story including the Morning Post, The Express, The Globe, The Sun and Lloyd’s Weekly Advertiser. By the following Tuesday retractions of the story were starting to appear in the press, beginning where it had started, with the Daily News;

Fine Arts. The Nelson Column and Mr. Ternouth.— In our paper of Saturday it was stated that another delay had occurred in the completion of the column, in consequence of the death of Mr. Ternouth. We have great satisfaction in contradicting this piece of misinformation on the very best authority. Last evening, we had the pleasure of a visit from Mr. Ternouth, who was, to all appearance, in the best possible health, and certainly—considering the peculiar circumstances of his visit—in best humour.

Mr Ternouth also called upon several other newspapers, including the Morning Post, handing in a letter which they also printed on Tuesday 27 October; Sir, —I am sure I need not to apologise for requesting you to insert in your paper of to-morrow morning a direct contradiction to the paragraph in this day’s paper, headed “Nelson Column," stating that l am dead thank God, I never was in better health. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, JOHN TERNOUTH. 9, Lower Belgrave-place, Pimlico. The editor added that he could “vouch, judging from appearances, that he is, happily, in the enjoyment of most excellent health” and was excusing the error on the grounds that the offending news item had been copied from another paper!  By the following week, apparently forgetting that his paper had also misreported Ternouth’s premature demise, the editor was twitting the Builder, which in that week’s issue “speaks of ‘the death’ of Mr. Ternouth.” Proudly adding, as though it was the fruit of some serious piece of investigative journalism rather than a correction letter received from the aggrieved party, that his own paper “of the 27th instant gave proof under Mr. T.’s own hand (In refutation of the rumour) that “he never was in better health in his life.” The rumour of Mr Ternouth’s death seemed not to be going away, the minute the lie was given in one quarter, it rose again hydra like, in two others.

On the 7th November Mr Ternouth wrote to the most august publication of them all, The Times, complaining that a “report of my death having been most industriously circulated by several of the London daily newspapers.” Would the Times “permit me to contradict the same through your valuable columns and refute the account, which has been circulated to the alarm of my friends, coupled with a feigned regret that the occurrence might tend to retard the completion of the Nelson monument.” A week later the Athenaeum was treating the whole affair as a joke “the long slumber which has fallen on all the proceedings connected with the Nelson Column is lending, not unnaturally, to rumours of the deaths of parties concerned in the works. Mr. Ternouth;, the sculptor, has written to say that he is not dead; and we give him the benefit of his assertion-but yet, we are of the opinion that the inference of his death was a fair one,” they commented caustically.

Like stopped clocks, which continue to register the correct time at least once, sometimes twice, a day, and unlike most other misreported facts, premature reports of a subject’s death inevitably come true.  Mr. Ternouth lived barely two years longer. In December 1848 he caught Typhus and finally died. This time the newspapers did not bother to report his death. His last great work, his Nelson at the battle of Copenhagen was finally fixed in place on Nelson’s column on 26^th November 1850 by which point the proud artist had been buried in Kensal Green for over two years. 

Newcastle fans turn their back on Ternouth's Nelson as they pose for the camera's just before losing the FA cup final to Liverpool, 3-0. in 1974