Herbert Henry Martyn (1842-1937) founded a firm of stone, marble and wood carvers in Cheltenham in 1888. It became a limited company, H.H. Martyn & Co. Ltd, in 1900, and included castings in bronze and gun metal among its range of services, alongside decorative plaster work, joinery, cabinet making and wrought iron work. By 1920, the firm’s Sunningend Works in Lansdown, Cheltenham, employed over one thousand men and it remained the largest employer in Cheltenham for many years while also operating in other locations, including London and Birmingham.

In 1934, the business was taken over by Maple & Co., London furnishers, forming the Maple-Martyn Organisation. H.H. Martyn & Co. Ltd continued to operate as a subsidiary company producing works in stone, wood and metal, advertising as specialist craftsmen in memorial and architectural construction at the Sunningend Works.

Henry Moore used the firm to produce three bronze casts of Upright Internal/External Form 1952-53, cast 1958-60 (LH 296) and five casts of Reclining Figure: External Form 1953-54, cast 1957 (LH 299), as well as the editions of Upright Motive No.2 1955-56 (LH 379) and Upright Motive No.7 1955-56, cast c.1958–61 (LH 386).

For more information, see:
https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/mapping/public/view/person.php?id=ann_1263238661&search=martyn
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/research/programmes/british-bronze-founders-and-plaster-figure-makers-1800-1980-1/british-sculpture-makers-m
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/H._H._Martyn
https://catalogue.gloucestershire.gov.uk/records/D5922