Augustus Pugin

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Augustus Pugin
Born
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin

(1812-03-01)1 March 1812
Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London, England
Died14 September 1852(1852-09-14) (aged 40)
Ramsgate, Kent, England
OccupationArchitect
BuildingsPalace of Westminster, Westminster, London
DesignMany Victorian churches, Big Ben, interior of the Houses of Parliament[1]

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin[a] (/ˈpjɪn/ PEW-jin; 1 March 1812 – 14 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, artist and critic with French and Swiss origins. He is principally remembered for his pioneering role in the Gothic Revival style of architecture. His work culminated in designing the interior of the Palace of Westminster in Westminster, London, and its renowned clock tower, the Elizabeth Tower (formerly St Stephen's Tower), which houses the bell known as Big Ben. Pugin designed many churches in England, and some in Ireland and Australia.[2] He was the son of Auguste Pugin, and the father of Edward Welby Pugin and Peter Paul Pugin, who continued his architectural firm as Pugin & Pugin.[3]

Biography

The Grange, Ramsgate, Thanet, Kent, England, designed by Pugin as his family home
St Chad's Cathedral in Birmingham
, England
The northeast chapel of St Giles' Catholic Church, Cheadle, Cheadle, Staffordshire, England, designed by Pugin

Pugin was the son of the French draughtsman Auguste Pugin, who had immigrated to England as a result of the French Revolution and had married Catherine Welby of the Welby family of Denton, Lincolnshire, England.[4] Pugin was born on 1 March 1812 at his parents' house in Bloomsbury, London, England. Between 1821 and 1838, Pugin's father published a series of volumes of architectural drawings, the first two entitled Specimens of Gothic Architecture and the following three Examples of Gothic Architecture, that not only remained in print but were the standard references for Gothic architecture for at least the next century.

Religion

As a child, his mother took Pugin each Sunday to the services of the fashionable Scottish

Presbyterian preacher Edward Irving (later the founder of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church), at his chapel in Cross Street, Hatton Garden, Camden, London.[5] Pugin quickly rebelled against this version of Christianity: according to Benjamin Ferrey, Pugin "always expressed unmitigated disgust at the cold and sterile forms of the Scottish church; and the moment he broke free from the trammels imposed on him by his mother, he rushed into the arms of a church which, pompous by its ceremonies, was attractive to his imaginative mind".[6]

Education and early ventures

Pugin learned drawing from his father, and for a while attended

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.[8] He also developed an interest in sailing, and briefly commanded a small merchant schooner trading between Great Britain and Holland, which allowed him to import examples of furniture and carving from Flanders, with which he later furnished his house at Ramsgate in Kent.[9] During one voyage in 1830, he was wrecked on the Scottish coast near Leith,[10] as a result of which he came into contact with Edinburgh architect James Gillespie Graham, who advised him to abandon seafaring for architecture.[11] He then established a business supplying historically accurate carved wood and stone detailing for the increasing number of buildings being constructed in the Gothic Revival style, but the enterprise quickly failed.[9]

Marriages

In 1831, at the age of 19, Pugin married the first of his three wives, Anne Garnet.

Edward Welby Pugin, with his second wife, Louisa Burton, who died in 1844. His third wife, Jane Knill, kept a journal of their marital life, from their marriage in 1848 to Pugin's death, which was later published.[13] Their son was the architect Peter Paul Pugin
.

Salisbury

Following his second marriage in 1833, Pugin moved to Salisbury, Wiltshire, with his wife,[14] and in 1835 bought one-half of an acre (0.20 ha) of land in Alderbury, about one and a half miles (2.4 km) outside the town. On this he built a Gothic Revival-style house for his family, which he named St Marie's Grange.[15] Of it, Charles Eastlake said "he had not yet learned the art of combining a picturesque exterior with the ordinary comforts of an English home."[16]

Conversion to Catholicism

In 1834, Pugin converted to

Catholicism[17] and was received into it the following year.[18]

British society at the start of the 19th century often discriminated against dissenters from the

Roman Catholic Relief Act
of 1829, which allowed Catholics to become MPs.

Pugin's conversion acquainted him with new patrons and employers. In 1832 he made the acquaintance of John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, a Catholic sympathetic to his aesthetic theory and who employed him in alterations and additions to his residence of Alton Towers, which subsequently led to many more commissions.[19] Shrewsbury commissioned him to build St Giles Catholic Church, Cheadle, Staffordshire, which was completed in 1846, and Pugin was also responsible for designing the oldest Catholic Church in Shropshire, St Peter and Paul Church, Newport.

Contrasts

"Contrasted Residences for the Poor" from Pugin's Contrasts

In 1836, Pugin published Contrasts, a polemical book which argued for the

revival of the medieval Gothic style, and also "a return to the faith and the social structures of the Middle Ages".[20] The book was prompted by the passage of the Church Building Acts of 1818 and 1824, the former of which is often called the Million Pound Act due to the appropriation amount by Parliament for the construction of new Anglican churches in Britain. The new churches constructed from these funds, many of them in a Gothic Revival style due to the assertion that it was the "cheapest" style to use, were often criticised by Pugin and many others for their shoddy design and workmanship and poor liturgical standards relative to an authentic Gothic structure.[21]

Each plate in Contrasts selected a type of urban building and contrasted the 1830 example with its 15th-century equivalent. In one example, Pugin contrasted a medieval monastic foundation, where monks fed and clothed the needy, grew food in the gardens – and gave the dead a decent burial – with "a panopticon workhouse where the poor were beaten, half-starved and sent off after death for dissection. Each structure was the built expression of a particular view of humanity: Christianity versus Utilitarianism."[20] Pugin's biographer, Rosemary Hill, wrote: "The drawings were all calculatedly unfair. King's College London was shown from an unflatteringly skewed angle, while Christ Church, Oxford, was edited to avoid showing its famous Tom Tower because that was by Christopher Wren and so not medieval. But the cumulative rhetorical force was tremendous."[20]

In 1841 he published his illustrated The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, which was premised on his two fundamental principles of Christian architecture. He conceived of "Christian architecture" as synonymous with medieval, "Gothic", or "pointed", architecture. In the work, he also wrote that contemporary craftsmen seeking to emulate the style of medieval workmanship should reproduce its methods.

Ramsgate

In 1841 he left

church dedicated to St Augustine, after whom he thought himself named. He worked on this church whenever funds permitted it. His second wife died in 1844 and was buried at St Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham, which he had designed.[22]

Architectural commissions

Following the destruction by fire of the Palace of Westminster in Westminster, London, in 1834, Pugin was employed by Sir Charles Barry to supply interior designs for his entry to the architectural competition which would determine who would build the new Palace of Westminster. Pugin also supplied drawings for the entry of James Gillespie Graham. This followed a period of employment when Pugin had worked with Barry on the interior design of King Edward's School, Birmingham. Despite his conversion to Catholicism in 1834, Pugin designed and refurbished both Anglican and Catholic churches throughout England.

Other works include St Chad's Cathedral,

St Michael's Church, Ballinasloe, County Galway, Ireland. Bishop William Wareing also invited Pugin to design what eventually became Northampton Cathedral
, a project that was completed in 1864 by Pugin's son Edward Welby Pugin.

Pugin visited Italy in 1847; his experience there confirmed his dislike of Renaissance and Baroque architecture, but he found much to admire in the medieval art of northern Italy.

Stained glass

Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge, made by John Hardman & Co.
to a design by Pugin (1848–50)

Pugin was a prolific designer of stained glass.[25] He worked with Thomas Willement, William Warrington and William Wailes before persuading his friend John Hardman to start stained glass production.

Illness and death

Tiles designed by Pugin (c.1845–51)

In February 1852, while travelling with his son Edward by train, Pugin had a total breakdown and arrived in London unable to recognise anyone or speak coherently. For four months he was confined to a private asylum,

Royal Bethlem Hospital, popularly known as Bedlam.[26] At that time, Bethlem Hospital was opposite St George's Cathedral, Southwark, one of Pugin's major buildings, where he had married his third wife, Jane, in 1848. Jane and a doctor removed Pugin from Bedlam and took him to a private house in Hammersmith where they attempted therapy, and he recovered sufficiently to recognise his wife.[26] In September, Jane took her husband back to The Grange in Ramsgate, where he died on 14 September 1852.[26]
He is buried in his church next to The Grange, St Augustine's.

The tomb of Augustus Pugin in St Augustine's Church, Ramsgate

On Pugin's death certificate, the cause listed was "convulsions followed by coma". Pugin's biographer, Rosemary Hill, suggests that, in the last year of his life, he had had hyperthyroidism which would account for his symptoms of exaggerated appetite, perspiration, and restlessness. Hill writes that Pugin's medical history, including eye problems and recurrent illness from his early twenties, suggests that he contracted syphilis in his late teens, and this may have been the cause of his death at the age of 40.[27]

Palace of Westminster

Palace of Westminster
Sovereign's Throne in the Palace of Westminster, designed by Pugin in the 1840s

In October 1834, the

Lords.[28] The commissioners subsequently appointed Pugin to assist in the construction of the interior of the new Palace, to the design of which Pugin himself had been the foremost determiner.[28] Pugin's biographer, Rosemary Hill, shows that Barry designed the Palace as a whole, and only he could co-ordinate such a large project and deal with its difficult paymasters, but he relied entirely on Pugin for its Gothic interiors, wallpapers and furnishings.[30] The first stone of the new Pugin-Barry design was laid on 27 April 1840.[31]

During the competition for the design of the new Houses of Parliament, Decimus Burton, 'the land's leading classicist',[32] was vituperated with continuous invective, which Guy Williams has described as an 'anti-Burton campaign',[33] by the foremost advocate of the neo-gothic style, Augustus W. N. Pugin,[34] who was made enviously reproachful that Decimus "had done much more than Pugin's father (Augustus Charles Pugin) to alter the appearance of London".[35] Pugin attempted to popularize advocacy of the neo-gothic, and repudiation of the neoclassical, by composing and illustrating books that contended the supremacy of the former and the degeneracy of the latter, which were published from 1835.[36] In 1845, Pugin, in his Contrasts: or a Parallel Between the Noble Edifices of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries and Similar Buildings of the Present Day, which the author had to publish himself as a consequence of the extent of the defamation of society architects therein, satirized John Nash as "Mr Wash, Plasterer, who jobs out Day Work on Moderate Terms", and Decimus Burton as "Talent of No Consequence, Premium Required", and included satirical sketches of Nash's Buckingham Palace and Burton's Wellington Arch.[36] Consequently, the number of commissions received by Decimus declined,[37] although Decimus retained a close friendship with the aristocrats amongst his patrons, who continued to commission him.[38]

At the end of Pugin's life, in February 1852, Barry visited him in Ramsgate and Pugin supplied a detailed design for the iconic Palace clock tower, in 2012 dubbed the Elizabeth Tower but popularly known as Big Ben. The design is very close to earlier designs by Pugin, including an unbuilt scheme for Scarisbrick Hall, Lancashire. The tower was Pugin's last design before descending into madness. In her biography, Hill quotes Pugin as writing of what is probably his best-known building: "I never worked so hard in my life [as] for Mr Barry for tomorrow I render all the designs for finishing his bell tower & it is beautiful & I am the whole machinery of the clock."[39] Hill writes that Barry omitted to give any credit to Pugin for his huge contribution to the design of the new Houses of Parliament.[40] In 1867, after the deaths of both Pugin and Barry, Pugin's son Edward published a pamphlet, Who Was the Art Architect of the Houses of Parliament, a statement of facts, in which he asserted that his father was the "true" architect of the building, and not Barry.[41]

Pugin in Ireland

Pugin was invited to Ireland by the Redmond family, initially to work in

St Aidan's Cathedral for the Diocese of Ferns in Enniscorthy, County Wexford.[43] Pugin was the architect of the Russell Library at St Patrick's College, Maynoooth, although he did not live to see its completion.[44]
Pugin did the initial design of St Mary's Cathedral, Killarney.

Pugin and Australia

, designed by Augustus Pugin and built between 1848 and 1850

The first Catholic Bishop of New South Wales, Australia, John Bede Polding, met Pugin and was present when St Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham and St Giles' Catholic Church, Cheadle were officially opened. Although Pugin never visited Australia,[45] Polding persuaded Pugin to design a series of churches for him. Although a number of churches do not survive, St Francis Xavier's in Berrima, New South Wales, is regarded as a fine example of a Pugin church. Polding blessed the foundation stone in February 1849, and the church was completed in 1851.[46]

St Stephen's Chapel, now in the cathedral grounds in Elizabeth Street,

Bishop of Brisbane, Brisbane became a diocese, and Pugin's small church became a cathedral. When the new Cathedral of St Stephen was opened in 1874 the small Pugin church became a schoolroom, and later church offices and storage room. It was several times threatened with demolition before its restoration in the 1990s. In Sydney, there are several altered examples of his work, namely St Benedict's, Chippendale; St Charles Borromeo, Ryde; the former church of St Augustine of Hippo (next to the existing church), Balmain; and St Patrick's Cathedral, Parramatta, which was gutted by a fire in 1996[47]

According to Steve Meacham writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, Pugin's legacy in Australia is particularly of the idea of what a church should look like:

Pugin's notion was that Gothic was Christian and Christian was Gothic... It became the way people built churches and perceived churches should be. Even today if you ask someone what a church should look like, they'll describe a Gothic building with pointed windows and arches. Right across Australia, from outback towns with tiny churches made out of corrugated iron with a little pointed door and pointed windows, to our very greatest cathedrals, you have buildings which are directly related to Pugin's ideas.[48]

After his death, Pugin's two sons, E. W. Pugin and Peter Paul Pugin, continued operating their father's architectural firm under the name Pugin & Pugin. Their work includes most of the "Pugin" buildings in Australia and New Zealand.

Reputation and influence

Charles Eastlake, writing in 1872, noted that the quality of construction in Pugin's buildings was often poor, and believed he was lacking in technical knowledge, his strength lying more in his facility as a designer of architectural detail.[49]

Pugin's legacy began to fade immediately after his death.

Sir Kenneth Clark wrote, "If Ruskin had never lived, Pugin would never have been forgotten."[51]

Nonetheless, Pugin's architectural ideas were carried forward by two young architects who admired him and had attended his funeral,

Das englische Haus (1904), Pugin was all but invisible, yet "it was he ... who invented the English House that Muthesius so admired".[27]

An

The Great Exhibition of 1851, but was not eligible for a medal, as it was shown under Crace's name and he was a judge for the Furniture Class at the exhibition.[53]

On 23 February 2012 the Royal Mail released a first-class stamp featuring Pugin as part of its "Britons of Distinction" series. The stamp image depicts an interior view of the Palace of Westminster.[54] Also in 2012, the BBC broadcast Pugin: God's Own Architect, an arts documentary programme on his achievements hosted by Richard Taylor.[55]

Pugin's principal buildings in the United Kingdom

House designs, with approximate date of design and current condition

[56]

Pugin Hall, Rampisham, Dorset: Grade I listed house designed as a rectory by Pugin, built 1846–1847
  • John Halle's Hall, Salisbury (1834) – restoration of an existing hall of 1470, largely intact but extended prior to and following the 1834 restoration; now in use as the vestibule to a cinema
  • St Marie's Grange, Alderbury, Wiltshire, for his own occupation (1835) – altered; a private house
  • Oxburgh Hall (with J.C. Buckler, 1835) – restoration of a 15th-century fortified manor house, now owned by the National Trust
  • Derby presbytery (1838) – demolished
  • Scarisbrick Hall (1837) – largely intact; a school
  • Uttoxeter presbytery (1838) – largely intact; in use
  • Keighley presbytery (1838) – altered; in use
  • Bishop's House, Birmingham (1840) – demolished
  • Warwick Bridge presbytery (1841) – intact with minor alterations; in use
  • Clergy House, Nottingham (1841) – largely intact; in use
  • Garendon Hall scheme (1841) – not executed
  • Bilton Grange (1841) – intact; now a school
  • Oxenford Grange farm buildings (1841) – intact; private house and farm
  • Cheadle presbytery (1842) – largely intact; now a private house
  • Woolwich presbytery (1842) – largely intact; in use
  • Brewood presbytery (1842) – largely intact; in use
  • St Augustine's Grange ("The Grange"), Ramsgate (1843) – restored by the Landmark Trust
  • Alton Castle (1843) – intact; a Catholic youth centre
  • Alton Towers – largely intact; used as a theme park
  • Oswaldcroft, Liverpool (1844) – altered; a residential home
  • Dartington Hall scheme (1845) – unexecuted
  • Lanteglos-by-Camelford rectory (1846) – much altered; a hotel
  • Rampisham rectory (1846) – unaltered; private house
  • Woodchester Park scheme (1846) – unexecuted
  • St Thomas of Canterbury Church, Fulham (1847)
  • Fulham presbytery (1847) – intact; in use
  • Leighton Hall, Powys (1847) – intact; in use
  • Banwell Castle (1847) – intact now a hotel and restaurant
  • Wilburton Manor, Cambridgeshire (1848) – largely intact[57]
  • Stafford Grammar School
  • Pugin's Hall (1850) – intact, a private house
  • St Edmund's College Chapel (1853) – intact, a school and chapel[58]
"Big Ben" (London), completed to Pugin's design

Institutional designs

Major ecclesiastical designs

Railway cottages

Less grand than the above are the railway cottages at Windermere station in Cumbria which have been loosely attributed to Pugin or a follower.[65] Believed to date from 1849, and probably some of the first houses to be built in Windermere, the terrace of cottages was built for railway executives. One of the fireplaces is a copy of one of his in the Palace of Westminster.[66]

Buildings in Ireland

St Aidan's Cathedral
, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford

See also

References

  1. .
  2. ^ Hill, 2007, List of Works, pp. 501–528.
  3. ^ Hill, 2007, p. 495.
  4. ^ "Pugin's Family". 10 June 2013. Archived from the original on 10 June 2013. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  5. ^ Ferrey, 1861, pp. 43–4.
  6. ^ Ferrey, 1861, p. 45.
  7. ^ Eastlake, 1872, p. 146.
  8. ^ Eastlake, 1872, p. 147.
  9. ^ a b Eastlake, 1872, p. 148.
  10. ^ Porter, Bertha (1890). "Graham, James Gillespie" . In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney (eds.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 22. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  11. ^ Eastlake, 1872, pp. 147–8.
  12. ^ "Augustus Northmore Welby Pugin". Dictionary of Art Historians. Archived from the original on 19 June 2018. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  13. ^ Jane Pugin and Caroline Stanford, "Dearest Augustus and I": The Journal of Jane Pugin. Spire Books, 2004.
  14. ^ Ferrey, 1861, p. 93.
  15. ^ Ferrey, 1861, pp. 73–4.
  16. ^ Eastlake 1872, pp. 148–9.
  17. ^ "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  18. ^ "Clifton Diocese | Parliament's Pugin Plaque in Salisbury". archive.is. 24 July 2012. Archived from the original on 24 July 2012. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  19. ^ Eastlake, 1872, p. 150.
  20. ^ a b c Hill, Rosemary (24 February 2012). "Pugin, God's architect". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
  21. ^ Mary Mulvey-Roberts, ed., The Handbook to Gothic Literature (Houndsmills and London: Macmillan, 1998), 94.
  22. ^ a b Eastlake, 1872, pp. 150–1.
  23. ^ Ferrey, 1861, p. 94.
  24. ^ Eastlake, 1872, p. 96.
  25. OCLC 313657551
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  26. ^ a b c Hill, 2007, pp. 484–490
  27. ^ a b c d e f Hill, 2007, pp. 492–494
  28. ^ .
  29. .
  30. ^ Hill, 2007, pp. 316–318
  31. .
  32. .
  33. .
  34. .
  35. .
  36. ^ .
  37. .
  38. .
  39. ^ Hill, 2007, pp. 481–483
  40. ^ Hill, 2007, p. 480
  41. ^ Hill, 2007, pp. 495–496
  42. ^ Comerford, Patrick (28 January 2019). "AWN Pugin and the Gothic Revival in Ireland". PATRICK COMERFORD: an online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more. Archived from the original on 28 February 2021. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  43. ^ "Saint Aidan's Catholic Cathedral, Cathedral Street originally Duffrey Street, Main Street originally Market Street, ENNISCORTHY, Enniscorthy, WEXFORD". National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. 13 June 2005. Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  44. ^ "Maynooth University Library". Archived from the original on 25 May 2015. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  45. ^ "Tasmania's Gothic paradise rediscovered". The Age. 14 September 2002. Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  46. ^ Morton, Philip (28 September 2015). "Berrima church is a Pugin design of heritage significance". Southern Highland News. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
  47. ^ "puginfoundation.org". Go Daddy. Archived from the original on 24 January 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  48. Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Archived
    from the original on 22 December 2005. Retrieved 30 January 2006.
  49. ^ Eastlake, 1872, pp152
  50. ^ a b Hill, 2007, pp. 458–459
  51. ^ Clark, 1962, p. 144
  52. S2CID 195044710
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  53. ^ a b "Armoire | A. W. Pugin | V&A Search the Collections". collections.vam.ac.uk. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  54. ^ "Royal Mail Britons of Distinction Stamp Issue". GBStamp.co.uk. 1 June 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2012.
  55. ^ "Pugin: God's Own Architect". BBC Four. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  56. ^ "Pugin Society website". Archived from the original on 4 March 2010. Retrieved 13 November 2007.
  57. ^ Historic England. "Wilburton Manor (Grade II) (1460737)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
  58. ^ "History of the Pugin Chapel". St Edmund's College. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
  59. ^ Beattie, Gordon J (1997). Gregory's Angels. Gracewing Publishing. p. 143.
  60. ^ "Cathedral tour – 9". Leeds Cathedral. Archived from the original on 31 January 2009. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
  61. ^ "Restoring a masterpiece". BBC Leeds. Archived from the original on 14 February 2009. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
  62. .
  63. .
  64. ^ "The Pugin Windows". Bolton Priory. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  65. ^ Historic England. "The Terrace (Grade II) (1203378)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
  66. ^ "A W N Pugin in Cumbria". Visit Cumbria.
  1. ^ Variously abbreviated, during his lifetime and since, as A. W. N. Pugin, A. W. Pugin, and Augustus Pugin.

Sources

External links