William Benson (architect)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

William Benson (1682 – 2 February 1754) was a talented amateur architect and

Surveyor of the King's Works
, but his short time in that post was not a success.

Life

Benson was the eldest son of Sir William Benson,

Sir Jacob Bancks; it reached its eleventh edition in 1711 and was translated into French.[1]

Wilbury House in Vitruvius Britannicus, 1715

Returning to London with fresh impressions of innovative

neo-Palladian constructions currently afoot at Herrenhausen,[2] in 1707 he married Eleanor Earle, the daughter of Joseph Earle, a wealthy merchant of Bristol; and received from his father purchases of land in Wiltshire to the value of £5,000. The following February he rented the classical Caroline Amesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, then attributed to Inigo Jones,[3] on a twenty-one-year lease, and in 1709 he set to work designing Wilbury House[4] for himself on a nearby property at Newton Tony , which he purchased that year from Hon. John Fiennes.[5]

Wilbury, the earliest example of neo-Palladianism in England,

Vitruvius Britannicus (1715, plates 51–52), credited to Benson as inventor and builder.[7] Later, as Surveyor, Benson appointed the professional Campbell Deputy Surveyor and Chief Clerk.[8]

In 1709 he was appointed High Sheriff of Wiltshire. His interests extended to hydraulics.[9] He carried out a project to bring piped water to Shaftesbury; according to a memoir of the hydraulics engineer John Theophilus Desaguliers,[10] it was actually the invention of Mr Holland, the modest curate of Shaftesbury, but Benson took the credit, which resulted in his election as Whig Member of Parliament.

Benson was elected

Herrenhausen, Hanover, borrowing Mr Holland's smith and foreman; they resulted in the largest fountain in the gardens. The main jet, expected to rise a hundred feet, merely spurted a disappointing ten.[12]

In 1717 he was offered in reversion the post of

Sir Christopher Wren. In achieving this appointment he had the assistance of John Aislabie, according to Nicholas Hawksmoor, who was deprived of his double post to provide places for Benson's brother.[13] In accepting a government post he had to stand again for Parliament at Shaftesbury. He won the by-election on 21 November 1718 but was unseated on petition on 24 January 1719.[11]

As Surveyor, Benson's months in office proved disastrous for the professional staff. Howard Colvin noted[14] that "Benson's surveyorship lasted for fifteen months, in the course of which he sacked his ablest subordinates, declared war on his closest colleagues, infuriated the Treasury[15] and finally brought down upon himself the wrath of the House of Lords for falsely insisting that their Chamber was in imminent danger of collapse." The only lasting work produced under Benson's surveyorship was the suite of state rooms at Kensington Palace.

After he was relieved of his position in July 1719, in a flurry of satirical pamphlets, Benson involved himself in the creation of

Michael Rysbrack, a distinctly minor writer of Latin verses, Dr Arthur Johnston
(1587–1641); in the elaborate procession attending the Goddess Dulness, Benson appeared: "On two unequal crutches propt he came, Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's name" (Dunciad IV.111-12).

Benson stood for Parliament again at Shaftesbury at the

Auditor of the Imprests
which he had been promised in 1717, a position he held until his death.

Benson died on 2 February 1754. He had four sons and three daughters by his first wife, and a son and daughter by his second wife Elizabeth, whom he married after Eleanor's death in 1722.[11]

Notes

  1. ^ Mary Ransome, "The Press in the General Election of 1710" Cambridge Historical Journal 6.2 (1939, pp. 209–221) p.214, note 31.
  2. ^ Notably in the Orangery.
  3. ^ It is the masterpiece of Jones' assistant, John Webb.
  4. ^ Historic England. "Wilbury House (1300348)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  5. ^ Fiennes was the father of Celia Fiennes (Fry 2003:191, note 13).
  6. ^ Fry 2003:181ff.
  7. ^ Both Wilbury and Amesbury have been extensively altered.
  8. ^ Howard E. Stutchbury, The Architecture of Colen Campbell (Cambridge: Harvard University Press/Manchester:Manchester University Press) 1967:
  9. ^ Colvin 1993
  10. ^ Desaguliers, A Course in Experimental Philosophy (London, 1763), quoted in Carole Fry, "Spanning the Political Divide: Neo-Palladianism and the Early Eighteenth-Century Landscape" Garden History 31.2 (Winter 2003, pp. 180–192) p. 181.
  11. ^ a b c d "BENSON, William (1682–1754), of Wilbury House, Wilts". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 16 May 2013.
  12. ^ Fry 2003:181.
  13. ^ Hawksmoor's letter to Lord Carlisle (1725), noted in Kerry Downes, Hawksmoor (1959:245).
  14. ^ Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840 3rd ed. (Yale University Press) 1995, s.v. "William Benson".
  15. ^ Benson informed the Treasury Lords that a certain Acres was to replace Henry Wise and his partner as King's Gardener. Benson was summoned and his peremptory letter was burned in his presence. (Quoted by W. R. Ward in a review of Calendar of Treasury Books, Vol. xxxii: 1718 in The English Historical Review 74 No. 291 (April 1959:358).
  16. ^ Quoted in George Sherburn, "The Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems." Modern Philology 17.5 (September 1919), p 263

References

Further reading

  • Bold, John and John Reeves. Wilton House and English Palladianism: Some Wiltshire Houses (London: H.M.S.O.) 1998.

External links

Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by
Samuel Rush
Edward Nicholas
Member of Parliament for Shaftesbury
1715 – 1719
With: Edward Nicholas
 Succeeded by
Sir Edward des Bouverie
Edward Nicholas
Political offices
Preceded by Surveyor of the King's Works
1718–1719 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Auditor of the imprests
1735–1754
(in reversion from 1717) with
Thomas Foley 1735–1737
William Aislabie 1737–1754
Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Benson_(architect)&oldid=1181019504"