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The pre-Victorian architect: professionalism & patronage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

J. Mordaunt Crook
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Extract

For a long time Victorian architecture was misjudged because it was criticized in twentieth-century terms. Then teleology fell out of fashion and nineteenth-century buildings began to be judged, rather more sensibly, not as precedents -pioneers or anti-pioneers - but as products of their own environment. Perhaps we are now in danger of carrying this process too far. We are already starting to look at the artefacts of the Victorian age through spectacles which are rosily and uncompromisingly High Victorian. This article sets out to redress that particular imbalance by explaining the Victorian architectural scene in terms of its Regency foundations. Its terms of reference are limited. It is primarily concerned with the attitudes of early nineteenth-century architects and the way these attitudes were conditioned by economics and by education. It deals with two interconnecting themes: firstly the survival of Regency characteristics into the mid-Victorian period; and secondly the explanation offered by these characteristics for some of the primary attributes of Victorian architecture -qualities or weaknesses, according to taste.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 12 , 1969 , pp. 62 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1969

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References

Notes

1 Goodhart-Rendel, H. S., ‘Architecture since 1834’, The Growth and Work of the R.I.B.A., ed. Gotch, J. A. (1934), p.168.Google Scholar Those visual elements in Regency architecture which can best be described as proto-Victorian (e.g. the villas of Lugar, Loudon and Lamb) are dealt with at length in Hitchcock, H.-R., Early Victorian Architecture, i (1954).Google Scholar

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3 ‘As the building trade was rapidly falling into few hands, capitalists and others embarked in it, especially about 1815, and then the system of competitive contracts with all its strategems came into full force, especially after the panic of 1825, when many speculative builders found it best to work for others besides themselves. The epoch of the “division of labour” has seen all the trades connected … with a building combined in single hands, and has commenced a system of under contracts called sub-letting, which cannot be sufficiently deplored on account of its attendant evils’ (Dictionary of Architecture, ed. W. Papworth, 1852–92, s.v. ‘Contractor’). Perhaps the first general contractor was Alexander Copeland, that ‘emperor of barrack-builders’. In the Barrack Office of the Napoleonic period can be traced the origins of both general contracting and quantity surveying ( Thompson, F. M. L., Chartered Surveyors: the growth of a profession, 1968, p.84 Google Scholar). For the development of contracting see also Port, M. H., ‘The Office of Works and Building Contracts in Early Nineteenth-century England’,Economic History Rev. xx (1967), pp. 94–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Summerson ascribes the ‘descent into chaos’ during the 1830s partly to the influence of contractors like Thomas Cubitt, who ‘introduced the conception of a contracting firm equipped to supply all the building trades, with the trade of architect thrown in … [a] principle … which too readily admitted aesthetic irresponsibility’ ( Summerson, J., Architecture in Britain, 1530–1830, 1963 ed., p.319 Google Scholar). In the Victorian period the architect also handed over responsibility for estate management to the surveyor ( Summerson, J., Georgian London, 1962 ed., p.290 Google Scholar). See also Dyos, H. J., ‘Speculative Builders and Developers of Victorian London’, Victorian Studies xi (1968), supp.Google Scholar

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11 Rolt, L. T. C., Telford (1958), p. 33.Google Scholar He also wrote on ‘the philosophical prin ciples of architecture’ for Brewster’s Encyclopaedia Google Scholar ( Architectural Mag., i, 1834, p. 320 Google Scholar).

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19 Farington Diary typescript, BM Print Room, pp.515, 536, 538, 724, 872, 888, 913–914,928 (1796–97). For a letter from Smirke to his father, complaining about the office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Soane and his fellow pupils, cf. Soane Museum, Soane Correspondence, Division II, Cupboard i, 8 Sept. 1796.

20 The price of entry into Soane’s office was £50 in 1784 and 100–175 guineas in 1788 ( Jenkins, , op.cit., p. 94 Google Scholar).

21 The Architect, Engineer and Surveyor, iv (1843), p. 229.Google Scholar

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24 The Civil Engineer and Architect’s Jnl, iv (1841), p.339.Google Scholar Pugin criticized it as an expression of antichrist: ‘Pagan lectures, pagan designs, pagan casts and models, and, as a reward for proficiencies in these matters, a pagan journey!’ ( The Artizan, i, 1844, p.90 Google Scholar).

25 Foreign Quarterly Review, vii (1831), p.445.Google Scholar ‘The worst and the darkest room; no lectures for nearly the last ten years; no guide to, or keeper of, the architectural students; a limited use (almost amounting to a prohibition) of a good library; no models, no instructions … Wyatt, Dance, Mylne and Soane, have well succeeded Chambers and Stuart; but… who is to succeed them?’ ( Monthly Mag., xxvii, 1809, pp. 604–605 Google Scholar).

26 When Wilkins tried to get J. P. Gandy elected R A, Soane wrote to Chantrey: ‘We have the usual number of architects, and nothing short of extraordinary talent should induce us to depart from the established number’ ( Bolton, , Portrait, op. cit., p. 463 Google Scholar, 9 Feb. 1831). In later years Soane’s lectures were delivered by proxy, the RA Secretary Henry Howard acting as understudy (ibid., p.220). For detailed lists of RA architects, medallists, exhibitors &c cf. Dictionary of Architecture ed. W. Papworth, (1852–92), s.v. ‘Academician’; J. E. Hodgson & F. A. Eaton, History of the Royal Academy (1905), Appendix vii; Graves, A., The Royal Academy of Arts, 1769–1804 (1907), 8 vols.Google Scholar

27 Bolton, , Portrait, op. cit., p. 133 Google Scholar; Leslie, G. D., The Inner Life of the R.A. (1914), pp.5 et seq. Google Scholar; Whitley, W. T., Artists and their Friends in England, 1700–99 (1928), pp.227–228 Google Scholar, and Art in England, 1800–20 (1928), p. 13.Google Scholar Of the 1,551 pupils admitted during the period 1768–1830, 771 were painters and 247 architects ( Hutchinson, S. C., ’The Royal Academy Schools, 1768–1830’, The Walpole Society, xxxviii, 1960–62, pp. 123–191 Google Scholar).

28 The Civil Engineer and Architect’s Jnl, i (1837–38), p. 158.Google Scholar

29 idem. For a comparison with Continental academies cf. N. Pevsner, Academies of Art (1940), passim. See also E. Newton & M. Whiffen, ‘The First Hundred Years of the R.A.’, The Listener, 20 Dec. 1951.

30 Kaye, B., The Development of the Architectural Profession in England (1961), p. 105.Google Scholar

31 The Civil Engineer and Architect’s Jnl, iv (1841), p.339.Google Scholar

32 ibid., i (1837–38), p. 158.Google Scholar

33 For a discussion of the difficulties involved see Summerson, J., Heavenly Mansions (1948), pp. 197–198.Google Scholar

34 The Surveyor, Engineer and Architect, ii (1841), p. 243.Google Scholar

35 ibid., p. 147.Google Scholar For the Commissioners’ churches see M. H. Port, Six Hundred New Churches (1961).

36 Lectures on Architecture by Sir John Soane, ed. Bolton, A. T. (1929), pp.24,180.Google Scholar Soane believed that ‘the integrity of the architect, like the chastity of Caesar’s wife, must be not only pure, but unsuspected’ ( Gent’s Mag., 1832, pt.i, p.252 Google Scholar).

37 Tike Artist, i (1810), p. 8.Google Scholar

38 Elmes, J., letter to Hope, Thomas, The Pamphleteer, iii (1814), pp. 330–343 Google Scholar.

39 Bolton, , Portrait, op. cit., p.vii.Google Scholar

40 Phoebe Stanton, ‘Welby Pugin and the Gothic Revival’ (PhD, London, 1950, p. 348).

41 For surveyors, engineers and carpenters cf. Thompson, op. cit., C. M. Norrie, Bridging the Years (1956) and B. W. E. Alford & T. C. Barker, The Carpenters’ Company (1968).

42 Membership was limited to architects who were medallists of, or belonged to, the RA or to the Academies of Rome, Parma, Bologna, Florence or Paris. The following were members: James, Benjamin, Lewis and Jeffry Wyatt, G. Dance Jr, H. Holland, S. P. Cockerell, W. Chambers, R. Adam, R. Mylne, R. Jupp,J. Lewis, R. Norris,J. Soane, J. Yenn, J. Gandon, T. Hardwick, T. Bretting- ham,J. Paine Jr, J. Carr, N. Revett, T. Sandby, J. Nash, R. Smirke, J. Crunden, C. Beazley, R. Abraham, T. Allason, J. Gandy, J. A. Repton, W. Montagu, J. C. Loudon, J. Newman, W. Pilkington, J. Elmes, R. Browne, D. Alexander, G. Saunders, S. Saxon, W. Wilkins (British Imperial Calendar, 1812–24; Farington Diary, op. cit., passim; Mulvany, T., Life of James Gandon, 1846, pp.295–297 Google Scholar; Bolton, Portrait, op. cit., pp.67–79 Google Scholar; Colvin, , op. cit., pp. 18–19 Google Scholar).

43 Two sets of papers, Essays of the London Architectural Society (1808) and ‘MSS relating to the London Architectural Society’ (RIBA Library MSS, 1845–47), may or may not refer to the same body. For details of membership &c cf. Annals of the Fine Arts, iii (1818), p. 146 Google Scholar; British Imperial Calendar, 1810–11; The Builder, xxi (1863), pp.86, 112–113,140Google Scholar; The Growthand Work of the R.I.B.A., ed. Gotch, J. A., 1934, p.3 Google Scholar; Colvin, , op. cit., p.20 Google Scholar; Kaye, , op. cit., p.61 Google Scholar n.).

44 Minutes, correspondence and membership, Bodleian Library, Gough Adds., London 8vo 405. For Britton’s concern with this and other architectural societies see Mordaunt Crook, J., ‘John Britton and the Genesis of the Gothic Revival’, in Concerning Architecture, essays presented to Nikolaus Pevsner, ed. Summerson, J. (1967), pp.98–119 Google Scholar.

45 Elmes attempted to set up a Royal Academy of Architecture in 1810 and an Institution for the Cultivation and Encouragement of Architecture in 1819 ( Annals of the Fine Arts, ii, 1817, pp.261–262, & iv, 1819, pp.348–351Google Scholar).

46 Bolton, , Portrait, op. cit., pp.508–515 Google Scholar. As an R A Soane was unable to join the Institute. This rule was only broken when Barry, a member of the Institute, was elected R A in 1842.

47 Jenkins, , op. cit., p. 118 Google Scholar; Kaye, , op. cit., pp.60, 75–79.Google Scholar For meetings of the Society of Architects and Surveyors (alias the Society for the Promotion of Architecture and Architectural Topography) cf. Library of the Fine Arts, N.S. iv (1834), p. 187 Google Scholar; Architectural Mag., i (1834), p. 89.Google Scholar For Donaldson’s early connection with the Architectural Students’ Society cf. Annals of the Fine Arts, ii (1817), pp. 265–266 Google Scholar. For a summary of Donaldson’s career see Blutman, Sandra, ‘The Father of the Profession’, RIBA Jnl., lxxiv (1967), pp.542–544.Google Scholar

48 For preliminary proposals cf. The Civil Engineer and Architect’s Jnl, i (1837–38), pp.321, 404.Google Scholar

49 Library of the Fine Arts, NS. iv (1834), pp. 188–192 Google Scholar; Kaye, , op. cit., p.77 Google Scholar.

50 Kerr, R., Newhafe Discourses (1846), pp. 206–207 Google Scholar.

51 Kaye, , op. cit., pp.47–48 Google Scholar. Kaye’s figures are open to serious objection in so far as they are based on successful architects, i.e. those recorded in the D.N.B. Nevertheless these proportional percentages probably represent current tendencies accurately enough.

52 Noble, T., Professional Practice of Architects (1837), p. 29.Google Scholar

53 Architectural Mag., ii (1835), p.555.Google Scholar

54 Institute of British Architects, Address and Regulations (1835), BM Press Mark T.2100 (13). For J. B. Papworth’s explanation of the lack of instruction offered by the Institute cf. ‘Report from the Select Committee on Arts and Manufacturers’, Pari. Pap., 1835, V, p. 471 Google Scholar. For the background to the rise of the architectural profession see Carr-Saunders, A. M. & Wilson, P. A., The Professions (1933), pp. 176 et seq. Google Scholar, and Pevsner, N., Kritische Berichte zur Kunstgeschichte (1930–31), pp.97–122.Google Scholar

55 Architectural Mag., v (1838), pp. 1–7.Google Scholar

56 J. Summerson, The Architectural Association, 1847–1947 (1947).

57 The Builder, ix (1851), p. 87.Google Scholar

58 Sidney, S., Rides on Railways (1851), p. 14.Google Scholar

59 Fergusson, J., An Historical Enquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art (1849), p. 105.Google Scholar

60 The Surveyor, Engineer and Architect, i (1840), p. 3; ii (1841), p. v.Google Scholar

61 Noble, , Professional Practice, op. cit., pp. 22–25 Google Scholar. ‘Constructionis the anatomy of architecture’; but ‘so much have the principles of construction been neglected by many architects, that all works which require any considerable degree of skill in construction are now given to men of a new profession - to Civil Engineers’ ( Tredgold, T., Carpentry, 1820, p.viii Google Scholar).

62 Architectural Mag., ii (1835), pp.402–404.Google Scholar

63 Ruskin, J., The Seven Lamps of Architecture (2nd ed., 1855), p.xii Google Scholar, reprinted in Complete Works, ed. Cook, & Wedderburn, , viii (1903), p. 10.Google Scholar

64 The Study of Architecture in our Schools (RIB A, 1865), reprinted in Complete Works, xix (1905),p.35.Google Scholar

65 Architectural Mag., i (1834), p. 89.Google Scholar

66 Annals of the Fine Arts, ii (1817), pp.258–266.Google Scholar

67 For its meetings cf. e.g. Architectural Mag., iii (1836), p.581 Google Scholar; Library of the Fine Arts, N.S. iii (1833–34), p.385 Google Scholar; Gent’s Mag., 1834–41, passim. For membership see Colvin, , op. cit., p.22.Google Scholar Papers read at meetings, 1834–36, are among the RIBA Library MSS.

68 ’Report from the Select Committee on Arts and Manufacturers’, Pari. Pap., 1835, v, p.379 etsq. Google Scholar

69 Kaye, , op. cit., p.94 Google Scholar; Q. Bell, The Schools of Design (1963), passim.

70 The Civil Engineer and Architect’s Jnl, iv (1841), p.iii.Google Scholar See also Gent’s Mag., 1840, pt.ii, p. 413.Google Scholar

71 The Civil Engineer and Architect’s Jnl., ix (1846), p. 283.Google Scholar

72 For details of the whole process see Jenkins, F. I., ‘The Victorian Architectural Profession’, in Victorian Architecture, ed. Ferriday, P. (1963), pp.39–49 Google Scholar. Sir Charles Barry had made radical proposals for reorganizing the R A in 1856 ( Barry, A., Life and Works of Sir Charles Barry, 1867, pp. 307–311 Google Scholar). For a fervent plea on behalf of compulsory examinations see Knowles, J. T., Architectural Education (RIBA, 1853)Google Scholar.

73 See Architecture: a Profession or an Art? ed. Norman Shaw, R. & Jackson, T. G. (1892)Google Scholar. Compulsory registration was only achieved in 1938. For criticism of the ecclesiological societies as a hindrance to professional growth and stylistic development cf. The Architect, Engineer and Surveyor, iv (1843), p. 231.Google Scholar

74 Summerson, , Architecture in Britain, p. 302.Google Scholar

75 In private conversation.

76 Kaye, , op. cit., pp.67, 147, 173–175Google Scholar. The 1841 census figures are of course open to doubt owing to the confusion of architects with surveyors and builders.

77 Compare Mingay, G. E., English Landed Society in the 18th Century (1963)Google Scholar with Thompson, F. M. L., English Landed Society in the 19th Century (1963)Google Scholar.

78 Hitchcock, , Early Victorian Architecture, i (1954), p. 343 Google Scholar. For a contemporary view that ‘the Victorian Age of English Art … begins with … 1851’ cf. Kerr’s, R. preface to Fergusson, J., History of the Modern Styles of Architecture (1891 ed.), p.v. Google Scholar

79 Blutman, , ‘English Country Houses, 1780–1815’ (M Phil, London, 1967).Google Scholar

80 Hitchcock, H.-R., Architecture: 19th and 20th centuries (1963 ed.), p. 173.Google Scholar

81 Architectural Mag., ii (1835), p.471.Google Scholar

82 ’Report from the Select Committee on Arts and Manufacturers’, Pari. Pap., 1835, v, pp.479 etseq. Google Scholar

83 Architectural Mag., ii (1835), p. 471 Google Scholar. ‘Neither architecture, nor the fine arts generally, will flourish … till they become branches of female education’ (ibid., i, 1834, p. 347). ‘As a study for the ladies, nothing could be more interesting than … architecture: it could not … injure their health, as with them it would not be a matter of gain. By a little perseverance on their part, attended with a degree of nicety and care, which very few ladies are without, architectural drawing could soon be accomplished; and this art … would be an endless source of amusement to them’ (ibid., iii, 1836, p. 497).

84 Mrs Loudon re-edited her husband’s Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Villa and Farm Architecture (1850 & 1867). Lady Jersey designed the landscape and village at Middleton Park, Oxon. ( Neale, J. P., Seats, v, 1829, 2nd seriesGoogle Scholar). Lady Grenville designed the garden buildings at Dropmore ( Architectural Mag., i, 1834, p. 121 Google Scholar; Country Life, cxx, 1956, pp.772–775, 834–835, 1011, 1068Google Scholar), advised Lord Auckland on the layout of his estate at Eden Farm near Beckenham ( H. M. C. Fortescue MSS, ix, 1915, p. 164,1 Jan. 1808Google Scholar) and helped James Wyatt with his alterations to the House of Lords ( Universal Mag., vi, 1805, p.376 Google Scholar; Gent’s Mag., 1807, pt.i, p.324 Google Scholar; The Times, 23 Oct. 1806, p. 3 Google Scholar). Lady Jerningham may well have co-operated in Buckler’s reconstruction of Costessey Hall, Norfolk, during the 1820s.

85 Architectural Review, xvii (March, 1905), p.xxviii Google Scholar.

86 The Builder, i (1843), p.l. Thus following Loudon’s ambition to do for the building professions what the Mechanics’ Mag. first did for engineers, the Lancet for doctors and the Legal Observer for lawyers ( Architectural Mag., i, 1834, p. 13 Google Scholar). See also Adams, M. B., ‘Architectural Journalism’, RIBA fnl, xiv (1907), p.322 Google Scholar; Jenkins, F. I., ‘19th century Architectural Periodicals’, Concerning Architecture, op. cit., pp.153–160 Google Scholar.

87 The Civil Engineer and Architect’s Jnl, iv (1841), p. 339 Google Scholar. Briggs, M. S., The Training of the Architect (1943)Google Scholar and Sir Banister Fletcher, Architecture and its Place in a General Education (1951) are summaries, factual and eloquent respectively, of recent developments in this field.