Willey Reveley

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Willey Reveley (1760–1799) was an 18th-century English

Royal Academy Schools. In 1781-2 he was employed (under Chambers) as assistant clerk of works at Somerset House
.

Around 1788, Reveley travelled in Greece to make sketches for Sir Richard Worsley.[3] That year, he married Maria James, better known under her later married name of Gisborne as a friend of Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Maria's father opposed the marriage and refused to help the couple financially. They returned to England, where they lived on an income of £140 a year. Their son, Henry Willey Reveley (1788–1875), became a civil engineer and architect in Cape Town and Western Australia.[4][5] Their other son's name is unknown.

Elevation, section and plan of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon prison, executed by Reveley, 1791

Reveley was a strong liberal and became a friend of William Godwin and Thomas Holcroft. About 1791 he received his first professional fee as an architect, £10, for assisting philosopher Jeremy Bentham in preparing architectural drawings for Bentham's scheme for a Panopticon prison.[4] Reveley continued to work on the project with Bentham for the rest of the 1790s.

Reveley contributed some views of the

James Stuart's Antiquities of Athens.[6]

One of Reveley's proposals to straighten the River Thames

In 1796, Reveley made four proposals to straighten the

wet docks, connected to the new channel through locks.[8] Parliament rejected all four proposals.[6]

Like the Thames scheme and the Panopticon prison, Reveley's designs for a public bath complex at Bath and an infirmary at Canterbury did not come to fruition.[6][9] His completed projects were All Saints' Church, Southampton (constructed 1792–1795, destroyed in 1940);[6] and Windmill Hill, Sussex, a country house built for W. H. Pigou and completed in 1798.

He died on 6 July 1799 "[a]fter a few hours illness".[6]

References

  1. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/23393. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  2. JSTOR 147240
    .
  3. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10780. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-071905610-9
    . For example, Henry Willey Reveley – Jewell's predecessor as the colony's architect – was the son of Willey Reveley who had worked directly with Jeremy Bentham in designing and drawing a number of his architectural propositions such as the 'Penitentiary Panopticon' illustrations of 1791.
  5. JSTOR 435236
    .
  6. ^ a b c d e Nichols, John (1815). "Obituary of Mr. Willey Reveley". The Gentleman's Magazine. Vol. 86. p. 627. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
  7. ^ Forrow, Alexander (1877). The Thames and Its Docks: A Lecture. Spottiswoode. pp. 41–42. Retrieved 29 September 2015 – via Internet Archive.
  8. ISBN 978-072300342-7
    .
  9. ^ "Willey Reveley and the Bath Pump Room". The Architect: 118. 23 February 1878.
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