Montford taught sculpture at the South-Western Polytechnic (now the Chelsea School of Art) in 1898–1903 and was modelling master at the London Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) for five years.

Commissions became scarce, however, after the First World War and at 54 the energetic and enthusiastic Montford moved to Australia, motivated by his belief that its light was conducive to great monumental sculpture.

Sir John Byrne Leicester Warren or as he was known then, Hon. Mr Warren, was educated at Eton College (1847–1851) and Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1856 with second classes in classics, law and modern history.

In the autumn of 1858, he went to Turkey as unpaid attaché/administrator of sorts to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. In 1860 he was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four London courts. He became a lieutenant in the Cheshire Yeomanry and unsuccessfully contested Mid-Cheshire in 1868 as a Liberal. Leicester Warren was a great intellectual, accomplished writer and poet.

After his mother died and his father's remarriage in 1871, he removed to London, where he became a close friend of Tennyson, mixing in creative groups now associated with Victorian poetry. Lord Tennyson once said of him: 'He is Faunus, he is a woodland creature'.

From 1877 till his succession to the title in 1887, the 3rd Baron was lost to his friends, assuming the life of a recluse. It was not till 1892 that he returned to London life, and enjoyed a sort of renaissance of reputation and friendship.