Charles Heathcote Tatham

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Trentham Mausoleum, Stone Road, Trentham, built 1807–8 to a design by Tatham

Charles Heathcote Tatham (8 February 1772 in Westminster, London – 10 April 1842 in London), was an English architect of the early nineteenth century.

Early life

He was born in Duke Street, Westminster, the youngest of five sons of Ralph Tatham who had come to London from

Aldersgate Street.[2]

Charles was educated at

the Prince Regent", his brothers William and John respectively a naval officer and a London solicitor.[3]

Early career and travels

Returning to London at the age of 16, he was engaged as a clerk by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, architect and surveyor. Learning nothing there, as he thought, he ran away, and returned to his mother's lodgings, where he remained working hard for a year or more at the five orders of architecture and French ornament and studying mathematics.

When he was nearly 19

V&A
in the Print Room.

Together with

Dropmore House in Buckinghamshire which was built in the 1790s for Lord Grenville, later the Prime Minister who pushed through the law abolishing the slave trade.[4]

With Holland's help, and a loan of £100 from

Prince Borghese
and Don Isidoro Velasquez, an exhibitioner from the academy of Madrid, both, like Tatham, students of classical architecture.

Tatham's chief friends during his stay in Italy were

Lady Hamilton at Naples; and lastly, Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, to whose long friendship and patronage he owed much of his success. He left Rome a month or so before Bonaparte
's first attack on the papal states in 1797; returning through Dresden, Berlin, and Prague, and making architectural drawings on the way. As the result of his studies he etched and published in 1799 Ancient Ornamental Architecture at Rome and in Italy. A second edition, containing more than a hundred plates, appeared in 1803, and a German translation was published at Weimar in 1805.

His old master, Holland, had also commissioned him to collect in Italy antique fragments relating to ornamental architecture. He got together a noble assemblage, which was brought to England two years later. Tatham published a description of them in 1806. As of about 1895, they, along with his own collection of architectural drawings made at the same time, were in the

Royal Academy
in 1797, and continued to do so until 1836, contributing in all fifty-three designs.

Tatham moved from 101 Park Street, Mayfair, first to York Place, and then to a house with a beautiful garden in Alpha Road, which he built for himself. He lived on intimate terms with

Benjamin Robert Haydon, Samuel Bagster the publisher, and John Linnell
.

Designs

On 15 August 1799 the treasury issued a general invitation to artists to send competitive designs for a national monument of a pillar or obelisk two hundred feet high upon a basement of thirty feet "in commemoration of the late glorious victories of the British navy." Tatham sent in three designs. Finding, after more than two years had passed, that no decision had been made, he published them as etchings, with descriptive text and a dedication to the Earl of Carlisle, in 1802. The project ultimately took shape in Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, built to designs of William Railton in 1843.

In 1802 Tatham designed the sculpture gallery at Castle Howard, Yorkshire, and did work at Naworth, Cumberland, for the Earl of Carlisle; and in 1807 the picture gallery at Brocklesby, Lincolnshire, for Lord Yarborough. His etchings for the designs of these galleries, both in the severe classical style in vogue at the time, were published in 1811.

He designed the rebuilding of Roche Court at

Grade I listed).[7]

Before 1816 he designed for the

Duke of Bridgwater the portion of Cleveland House, St. James's, which lay to the west of the gallery. This building was destroyed when Sir Charles Barry
designed the later Bridgwater House in 1847.

Later life

Tatham was apt to be masterful and litigious in professional matters, and engaged in lawsuits most unwisely with more than one of his employers. Refusing work for builders and others, he lost his practice. In 1834 he fell into pecuniary difficulties and his house and collection of objects of interest were sold, and at the age of 62 it seemed that he would have to begin life anew. His friends – the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, the Duchess of Sutherland and others – rallied round him, and in 1837 obtained for him the post of warden of Holy Trinity Hospital, Greenwich, where he ended his days happily and usefully.

Family

Tatham married, in 1801, Harriet Williams, the daughter of a famous button-maker in St. Martin's Lane. By her he had four sons and six daughters. His eldest son

prebendary of Exeter Cathedral. His second daughter, Julia, in 1831, married George Richmond the portrait-painter, the father of Sir William Blake Richmond
, KCB RA.

Tatham, who was member of the

Benjamin Robert Haydon
was in the print-room of the British Museum.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Richmond, Thomas Knyvett (1898). "Tatham, Charles Heathcote". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 55. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

  1. ^ Will of Jabez Bloxham in National Archives
  2. ^ NOTES for a PEDIGREE of THE TATHAMS OF CO. DURHAM, ENGLAND…Compiled by Henry Curtis, F.R.C.S. (retired). London 1921; bankruptcies from The Times Digital Archive
  3. ^ Henry Curtis
  4. ^ Timpson, Trevor (1 April 2007). "Abolitionist's house escapes ruin – BBC news 1 April 2007". BBC News. Retrieved 6 February 2009.
  5. OCLC 1147989725
    – via Internet Archive.
  6. ^ Historic England. "Roche Court (1300004)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  7. ^ Historic England. "Mausoleum (1210451)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  8. ^ Alexander Gilchrist, Life of William Blake

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

http://hdl.handle.net/2346/58806 Texas Tech Public Domain Books

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