The Double Double Lincoln of England

By David J. Kent

Washington, DC

Thursday, July 31, 2025

Abraham Lincoln is everywhere, it seems, as I recently discovered on a road trip through the United Kingdom.

I first saw him in Edinburgh, Scotland, then in a seminary outside Durham, England, followed by statues or busts in Manchester, Bath, and Hingham. More on all that in future posts here and on my own website. But this post is about a unique Double Lincoln bust. Unique both in design and the fact that I saw two of them, one of which is a bit of a secret.

Angela Conner is a well-known English sculptor with a large number of sculptures in public and private collections around the world, especially in England. While many of her works are kinetic and use natural elements like sun and water, she also has many bronze busts of famous people. Preferring to sculpt from life, many of her subjects have sat for her over the years. That includes Queen Elizabeth, then Prince (now King) Charles, and many others. But Conner also has an affinity for American subjects, having lived in New York at a young age, which is why one of her more famous sculptures is a bust of Lincoln.

Make that two busts. Including a double bust. Actually, two double busts.

I first heard about Conner from David Wiegers, who visited the Conner home in Monnington-on-Wye in the far west of England, barely steps from the border with Wales. Wiegers and LGDC board member Scott Schroeder have created a Lincoln Sculpture Project map documenting hundreds of Lincoln sculptures, busts, and reliefs around the world. With Dave's help, I made contact with Conner and her assistant Trudy and arranged to visit her private home and Morgan horse farm, where at 90 years old she still lives with her husband, photographer and filmmaker John Bulmer.

Trudy showed us to the garden where the Double Lincoln was displayed, along with a single Lincoln bust and about 40 other busts of (mostly English) famous people. The Double Lincoln faces, one beardless, one bearded, is Conner's interpretation of a story in which Lincoln saw himself in the mirror just after the election of 1860. Rather than a single face, he saw two faces (he was still sans beard at the time), one ghostly pale. He took it as a sign that he would live through his first term but not a second.* The bust brings the story to life.

Before leaving, Trudy told us there was a second casting of the Double Lincoln at the American Museum and Gardens in Bath, which is where we were headed the next day. The Gardens in Bath display several of Conner's busts, all of them larger than life. Because it is focused on American life (there is a long story as to why it is in Bath), those busts include Harriett Tubman, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, Winston Churchill (because his mother was born in America), and the large single face Lincoln.

So far, no Double Lincoln. Assuming it was inside the museum itself, we went inside and discovered many recreated rooms from early American life, most from New England. I asked the volunteer receptionist, but she hadn't heard of a Double Lincoln. As we walked through the museum, I asked three more docents we encountered. No one knew a thing. We then went out to a separate annex building where there was a store. The clerk there made my day by saying, "Oh, I've seen it upstairs." Turns out it was on the top floor of the museum in a staff-only area not open to the public. Back to the main museum building, where another docent had no clue what I was talking about, but walkie-talkied a permanent staffer, who with a bit of cajoling agreed to take us up in the private staff elevator (excuse me, the lift) and escorted us to a small hallway between two offices next to the conference room.

And there it was, taking up most of the surface of a desk!

The staffer (Holly) graciously let us take photos before leading up back down the lift to the main floor, where we profusely thanked the docents. I even raced back to the annex store to thank the one person who knew it existed.

There is a long story behind why the Double Lincoln bust is in the museum, why it is not on display, and why the volunteer docents were unaware of its existence. The short version of that story involves a bust of Barack Obama that didn't quite meet the usual standards (did I mention that Angela Conner is now 90 years old?). In a sort of trade, the museum agreed to take the recasting of the Double Lincoln instead of the Obama, and that happened only in recent years.

So, the staff have their own private Double Lincoln, which I got to see. And the original Double Lincoln is on the private property of the sculptor, Angela Conner, in an estate/horse farm far from the normal tourist byways, which thanks to a tip from Wiegers, I also got to see.

Sometimes being associated with the Lincoln Group of DC can get you into places the general public can't access. And I'm thankful for that.

*The ghostly story comes from the Ward Hill Lamon Recollections of Abraham Lincoln biography, so you can get some idea of its credibility.

[All photos by David J. Kent, 2025]