Paul Waterhouse

“ Blomfield excelled in the charitable but unremunerative art of keeping down the cost, and among his triumphs in this direction is the church of St. Barnabas, Oxford, in which, abandoning his usual and favourite 'perpendicular' English Gothic, he adopted an Italian manner, making use of the basilica type of plan and adding a campanile. The church, though erected at a small cost, is singularly effective.
He carried out several works in connection with schools and colleges besides the examples already mentioned, such as the chapels at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and at Malvern College ”

“ After a year's travel he opened practice in Bath, and was successful in 1862 with a design for the reconstruction of the Bath Theatre, which was completed in 1863, and which marked the direction of a future career, at variance both with the wishes of his parents, who disapproved of theatres, and with his training, which was Gothic and ecclesiastical. Phipps's early designs for buildings and furniture may be classed with the school of Godwin and Burges, whereas the theatrical works which rapidly followed his first success were naturally conceived in the more appropriate classic manner. ”

“ PEARSON, JOHN LOUGHBOROUGH (1817–1897) , architect, born in Brussels in 1817, was the son of William Pearson, etcher and water-colourist, whose father, a solicitor, belonged to a family possessing property in the neighbourhood of Durham. After pupilage (1831) in the office of Ignatius Bonomi [see Bonomi, Joseph, the elder] at Durham, young Pearson continued his architectural training in London, first under Anthony Salvin [q. v.] ”

“ He was educated at Rugby and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. and M.A. in 1851 and 1853 respectively. On leaving college he was articled for three years to Philip Charles Hardwick (1822- 1892) , son of Philip Hardwick [q. v.] , then architect of the Bank of England, and he followed up this training in 1855 by a continental tour in company with Frederick Pepys Cockerell [q. v.] Though his architectural schooling had not been under Gothic influences, Blomfield showed, when in 1856 he opened his first office in Adelphi Terrace, that Gothic was to be the style of his choice. ”

“ Blomfield's works, though mainly ecclesiastical, were not exclusively so, nor wholly Gothic. In 1883 he succeeded to his old master's post of architect to the Bank of England, for which he built the law courts branch, his most important classic building. On the death of George Edmund Street [q. v.] in 1881, Blomfield was associated with Street's son, Arthur Edmund, in super-intending the erection of the law courts. ”

“ Among his later designs are the chapel and other buildings at Ascot Priory [see art. Pusey, Edward Bouverin] , completed in 1885, and the church at Rugby in 1896.
Butterfield's works of restoration were not as happy as his original designs. It is strange that one who based all his knowledge upon original study and who had a genuine love of old buildings should have produced such misinterpretations of antiquity. At Winchester College, where he built certain new buildings, he incurred criticism by destroying the seventeenth-century stalls of the chapel (which may perhaps have been decayed) ”

“ BLOXAM, MATTHEW HOLBECHE (1805–1888) , antiquary and writer on architecture, was born on 12 May 1805 at Rugby, where his father, the Rev. Richard Rouse Bloxam (who married Ann, sister of Sir Thomas Lawrence) was an assistant master. He was one of ten children, and brother to Andrew Bloxam [q. v.] and Dr. John Rouse Bloxam [q. v. Suppl.] In 1813 he entered Rugby school as a pupil in his father's house, and in 1821 was articled to George Harris, a solicitor in Rugby. ”

“ In his professional work he was unfailingly industrious and an excellent draughtsman. In spite of the fact that his large practice necessitated the employment of a good staff of assistants and pupils, he drew a large proportion of his working drawings with his own hands, and even wrote the whole of his own correspondence in a handwriting which to the last retained exceptional beauty. ”

“ BUTTERFIELD, WILLIAM (1814–1900) , architect, the son of William Butterield, by his wife Ann, daughter of Robert Stevens, was born in the parish of St. Clement Danes, London, on 7 Sept, 1814. His first architectural education was received in an office at Worcester, where a sympathetic head clerk of archaeological tastes encouraged him in those studies of English mediæval building which laid the foundation of his career and knowledge (Builder, 1900, lxxviii. 201) . ”

“ W. W. Astor on the Thames Embankment display a free type of Renaissance work. This building is an excellent and rich design, exhibiting to the full the versatility of its author's genius. For the same employer Pearson carried out works at Carlton House Terrace and Cliveden, Buckinghamshire, previously owned by the Duke of Westminster.
Among Pearson's other works in London and neighbourhood should be mentioned the Catholic Apostolic Church, near the Regent's canal, noticeable externally for a deeply recessed west window ”

“ The central tower was bound to come down, and it was restored on the numbered-stone system ; but controversy arose over the question whether the pointed arches of the tower piers should be restored as pointed arches, or whether the Norman character of the surrounding work should be a sufficient argument for making the new arches circular. The question was referred to the archbishop of Canterbury, who decided for the pointed form, and also gave his vote against Pearson's original design for a new tower. ”

“ Butterfield died, unmarried, on 23 Feb. 1900 at his residence, 42 Bedford Square. He was buried at Tottenham cemetery. He had been a constant attendant at the church of All Hallows, Tottenham, which he had practically rebuilt.
[Royal Institute of British Architects Journal (with copy of portrait by Lady Coleridge) , vii. 241; Builder, 1900, lxxviii. 201; Times, 26 Feb. 1900; Men and Women of the Time; information from the Rev. W. Starey.] ”

“ GIBSON, JOHN (1817–1892) , architect, second son of Richard Gibson, a well-to-do farmer and horse-breeder, was born at Castle Bromwich, near Birmingham, in May 1817. After a short training in joinery, under a Birmingham builder, he entered the office of Joseph Aloysius Hansom [q. v.] , the architect of the Birmingham town hall, whence, in 1835, his articles being interrupted by the bankruptcy of his master, he passed for the remaining three years of his pupilage into the charge of (Sir) Charles Barry [q. v.] ”

“ Among them are important papers on 'Warwickshire during the Civil Wars,' 'Mediæval Sepulchral Antiquities of Northamptonshire,' 'Effigies and Monuments in Peterborough Cathedral,' and 'The Charnel-vault of Rothwell, Northamptonshire.' He wrote in all no less than 192 of such essays. ”

“ Mary, erected in 1883 for Lord Coleridge, is one of his best houses, and Milton Ernest in Bedfordshire another. He made the plans for the laying out of Hunstanton, and designed several houses for Mr. Le Strange. ”

“ Augustine's, Canterbury, as a missionary college. This building {ib. vii. 1) shares with the church of St. Matthias, Stoke Newington (1853) , and with the collegiate church (now cathedral) of Cumbrae, a certain simplicity and adherence to type which is absent from Butterfield's later and more individual works. The chapel at Balliol College, Oxford (1856-1857) , a small but characteristic building, shows the beginning of his unusual methods in colour ”

“ C. Lawley at Exminster, and two others at Rustington, Sussex, and Great Warley near Brentwood, besides numerous vicarages in different parts of the country. He designed a mausoleum at Tunbridge Wells and a chapel in Byzantine style for the cemetery at Malta. ”

“ Other works rapidly ensued, of which the earliest and not the least important was the Romanesque Bloomsbury Chapel (1847) ; it was followed in 1848 by the offices of the Imperial Insurance Company in Old Broad Street, and in 1849 by the church in Charlecote Park, Warwickshire, erected for Mrs. ”