Edward Strong the Elder (1652-1723) was a talented, well-networked and enterprising British sculptor, who hailed from a dynasty of masons. With his son, Edward Strong the Younger, he successfully exploited the numerous opportunities in London following the Great Fire. Strong the Elder formed a business relationship with Christopher Wren around 1680, following the death of his older brother, Thomas, Wren’s initial collaborator; their most significant project was the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral (of which Thomas had laid the foundation stone): “Over the course of the next twenty-seven years, Edward completed the work on the east end and the north portico which his brother had started. He also built the north side of the nave and the north-west quarter of the dome. On 26 October 1708 (three years before the work at St Paul’s would officially be declared complete), Edward laid the last stone on the lantern on the Cathedral’s dome, meaning that he was one of very few men who were engaged from beginning to end in the Cathedral’s reconstruction.” (ODNB). Father and son also worked on around two dozen parish churches in London and the suburbs of the City, plus the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich and “the main pile at Blenheim [Palace] to Vanbrugh’s designs”, both now UNESCO world heritage sites. Indeed, as Ian Stone argues: “what we speak of today as ‘Wren’s London’ or ‘Hawksmoor’s London’ could equitably also be called ‘the Strongs’ London’.” (Stone, 2020).
Ian Stone (2020) ‘Wren’s Masons: The Strongs and the Rebuilding of London after the Great Fire’; ‘Will of Edward Strong, Mason of London, National Archives, PROB-11-596-34.