Godfrey Sykes (1824-1866) trained at the Sheffield School of Art and became a pupil of Alfred Stevens (1817-1875). In 1859 Captain Fowke recruited him to work on the new buildings of the South Kensington Museum (later the V&A). He was responsible for much of the moulded decoration there. His humorous figures of children still decorate the columns of the old restaurant. The figures in the frieze are derived from this alphabet, which Sykes produced in 1864. He seems to have specialised in drawing ‘inhabited’ alphabets. This one is full of sly touches. It was brilliantly translated into three-dimensional sculptural forms.