1.6.alfred waterhouse

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ALFRED WATERHOUSE

- British architect

- Born 19 July 1830

- Liverpool, Lancashire, England

- Died 22 August 1905 (aged 75)

- Yattendon, Berkshire, England

- Nationality British

- Work: Buildings:- 1. Natural History Museum, London

2. Manchester Town Hall

3. The Tower Rochdale Town Hall

Alfred Waterhouse (19 July 1830 –

22 August 1905) was a British architect, particularly associated with theVictorian Gothic Revival architecture. He is perhaps best known for his design for the Natural History Museum in

London, and Manchester Town Hall, although he also built a wide variety of other buildings throughout the country.

Financially speaking, Waterhouse was probably the most successful of all Victorian architects. Though expert

within Neo-Gothic, Renaissance revival, and Romanesque revival styles, Waterhouse never limited himself to a

single architectural style.Contents

1. EARLY LIFE

Waterhouse was born on 19 July 1830 in Aigburth, Liverpool, the son of wealthy mill-owning Quaker

parents. His brothers were accountant Edwin Waterhouse, co-founder of the Price Waterhouse partnership that now

forms part of PriceWaterhouseCoopers and solicitor Theodore Waterhouse, who founded the law firm Waterhouse

& Co. that is now part of Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP in the City of London

Alfred Waterhouse was educated at the Quaker run Grove School in Tottenham near London. He studied

architecture under Richard Lane in Manchester, and spent much of his youth travelling in Europe and studying in

France, Italy and Germany. Upon his return to England, Alfred set up his own architectural practice in Manchester.

2. MANCHESTER PRACTICE

Illustration of the Manchester Assize Courts from Charles Eastlake's History of the Gothic Revival.

Waterhouse continued to practise in Manchester for 12 years, until moving his practice to London in 1865.

Waterhouse's earliest commissions were for domestic buildings. In executing the commission for the cemetery

buildings at Warrington Road, Lower Ince, Wigan, (1855-56) he began his move towards designing public buildings

in his developing Gothic style, building a Lodge for the Registrar, and two Chapels, one Church of England, and one

Non-Conformist. However, his success as a designer of public buildings was assured in 1859 when he won the open

competition for the Manchester Assize Courts (now demolished). This work not only showed his ability to plan a

complicated building on a large scale, but also marked him out as a champion of the Gothic cause



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In 1860, he married Elizabeth Hodgkin (1834 – 1918), the sister of the historian Thomas Hodgkin

Waterhouse had connections with wealthy Quaker industrialist through schooling, marriage and religious

affiliation. Many of these Quaker connections commissioned him to design and build country mansions, especially

in the areas near Darlington. Several of these were built for members of the Backhouse family, founders of

Backhouse's Bank, a forerunner of Barclays Bank. For Alfred Backhouse, Waterhouse built Pilmore Hall (1863),

now known as Rockliffe Hall, in Hurworth-on-Tees. In the same village he built The Grange (1875), now known as

Hurworth Grange Community Centre, which Alfred Backhouse had commissioned as a wedding gift for his nephew,

James. E. Backhouse. Another Backhouse family mansion designed and built by Waterhouse was Dryderdale Hall

(1872), near Hamsterley, which many might recognise as the home of Cyril Kinnear in the movie Get Carter.[5]

3. LONDON PRACTICE

Manchester Town Hall

In 1865, Waterhouse was one of the architects selected to compete for the Royal Courts of Justice. The new

University Club of New York was undertaken in 1866. In 1868 and nine years after his work on the Manchester

Assize Courts, another competition secured for Waterhouse the design of Manchester Town Hall, where he was able

to show a firmer and more original handling of the Gothic style. The same year he was involved in rebuilding part of

Caius College, Cambridge; this was not his first university work, for he had already worked on Balliol College,

Oxford in 1867, and the new buildings of the Cambridge Union Society, in 1866

At Caius, out of deference to the Renaissance treatment of the older parts of the college, this Gothic element

was intentionally mingled with classic detail, while Balliol and Pembroke College, Cambridge, which followed in

1871, are typical of the style of his mid career with Gothic tradition tempered by individual taste and by adaptation

to modern needs. Girton College, Cambridge, a building of simpler type, dates originally from the same period

(1870), but has been periodically enlarged by further buildings. Two important domestic works were undertaken in

1870 and 1871 respectively —

Eaton Hall in Cheshire for the Duke of Westminster, and Heythrop Hall,

Oxfordshire, the latter a restoration of a fairly strict classic type

The Natural History Museum has an ornate terracotta facade typical of high Victorian architecture.

Waterhouse received, without competition, the commission to build the Natural History Museum in SouthKensington (1873 – 1881), a design which marks an epoch in the modern use of architectural terracotta and which

was to become his best known work. Waterhouse's other works in London included the National Liberal Club (a

study in Renaissance composition), University College London's Cruciform Building, previously known as

University College Hospital, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in London's Great George Street (1896), and

the Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine in Chelsea (1895)

From the late 1860s, Waterhouse lived in the Reading area and was responsible for several significant

buildings there. These included his own residences of Foxhill House (1868) and Yattendon Court (1877), together

with Reading Town Hall (1875) and Reading School (1870). Foxhill House is still in use by the University of



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Reading, as are his Whiteknights House (built for his father) and East Thorpe House (built in 1880 for Alfred

Palmer)

For the Prudential Assurance Company, Waterhouse designed many offices, including their Holborn Bars

head office in Holborn and branch offices in Southampton, Nottingham and Leeds. He also designed offices for the

National Provincial Bank in Piccadilly (1892) and in Manchester. The Liverpool Infirmary was Waterhouse's largest

hospital; and St. Mary's Hospital in Manchester, the Alexandra Hospital in Rhyl, and extensive additions at the

Nottingham General Hospital, also involved him. He was involved in a series of works for the Victoria University of

Manchester, of which he was made LL.D. in 1895

Other educational buildings designed by Waterhouse include Yorkshire College, Leeds (1878), the Victoria

Building for the Liverpool University College (now University of Liverpool) (1885), St Paul's School in

Hammersmith (1881-4; demolished 1968); and the Central Technical College in London's Exhibition Road (1881)

Among works not already mentioned are the Cambridge Union building and subsequently a similar building

for the Oxford Union; Strangeways Prison; St Margaret's School, Bushey; the Metropole Hotel in Brighton; Hove

Town Hall; Knutsford Town Hall; Alloa Town Hall; St. Elisabeth's Church in Reddish; Heaton Park Congregational

Church in Prestwich; Darlington town clock, covered market hall and Backhouse's Bank (now Barclay's Bank); the

former District Bank in Nantwich;[6] the King's Weigh House chapel in Mayfair; and Hutton Hall in Yorkshire. St.

Mary's Church in Twyford, Hampshire (1878) shows interestingly similar patterning to the Natural History Museum

and was designed at the same time

4. LATER LIFE

A memorial to Waterhouse at Yattendon, Berkshire.

Waterhouse retired from architecture in 1902, having practised in partnership with his son, Paul Waterhouse,

from 1891. He died at Yattendon Court on the 22 August 1905

5. RECOGNITION

Waterhouse became a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1861, and was President from

1888 to 1891. He obtained a grand prix for architecture at the Paris Exposition of 1867, and a "Rappel" in 1878. In

the same year he received the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and was made an

associate of the Royal Academy, of which body he became a full member in 1885 and treasurer in 1898. He was

also a member of the academies of Vienna (1869), Brussels (1886), Antwerp (1887), Milan (1888) and Berlin

(1889), and a corresponding member of the Institut de France (1893). After 1886 he was constantly called upon to

act as assessor in architectural competitions, and was a member of the international jury appointed to adjudicate on

the designs for the west front of Milan Cathedral in 1887. In 1890 he served as architectural member of the Royal

Commission on the proposed enlargement of Westminster Abbey as a place of burial

6. LIST OF ARCHITECTURAL WORK

The names of the buildings and the names of the county they are located in, both in the list and gallery, arethose in use when Waterhouse designed the buildings.

6.1. The 1850s

Enlargement of 23 Ardwick Green, Manchester, Lancashire, (1852)

Rothay Holme, Ambleside, Westmorland (1854)

Stables Sneyd Park, Gloucestershire (1854)

6.2. The 1860s

Alterations Eagley Works, Bolton, Lancashire (1860) demolished

Alterations Egerton Hall, Bolton, Lancashire (1860) demolished

1.6.alfred waterhouse

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