William Wilkins (architect)

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Not to be confused with American architect William J. Wilkins.

William Wilkins
Born(1778-08-31)31 August 1778
National Gallery, London

William Wilkins

archaeologist. He designed the National Gallery and University College London
, and buildings for several Cambridge colleges.

Life

Wilkins was born in the parish of St Giles, Norwich, the son of William Wilkins (1751–1815),[1] a successful builder who also managed the Norwich Theatre Circuit, a chain of theatres. His younger brother George Wilkins became Archdeacon of Nottingham.

He was educated at

Magna Græcia in Italy between 1801 and 1804. On his tour he was accompanied by the Italian landscape painter Agostino Aglio, whom Wilkins had commissioned as a draughtsman on the expedition. Aglio supplied the drawings for the aquatint
plates of monuments illustrating Wilkins' volumes from the expedition, such as The Antiquities of Magna Graecia (1807).

Wilkins was a member of the

Greek Revival
of the early 19th century.

The Grange, Northington

His architectural career began in 1804 with his Greek-revival designs for the newly established Downing College, Cambridge.[6] The commission came after earlier plans in a Palladian style by James Wyatt had been rejected as insufficiently classical. Wilkins arranged the college buildings around a single large courtyard. Construction began in 1807 and proceeded slowly, coming to a halt in 1821 with Wilkins' scheme still incomplete.[7]

In 1806, Wilkins designed a college near Hertford for the

Haileybury College following the dissolution of the company. He built or added to Osberton House, near Worksop. These works were followed in 1808 by the Doric entrance to the Lower Assembly Rooms at Bath, and a villa at North Berwick for Sir H. D. Hamilton.[6] At Grange Park, Northington, Hampshire, in 1809, Wilkins encased and remodelled an existing seventeenth-century house, giving it something of the form of a Greek temple, with a large Doric portico at one end.[8]

In 1815, Wilkins inherited his father's chain of six theatres.[9] He continued to manage them for the rest of his life, and rebuilt or remodelled several of them, occasionally also designing scenery.[10]

In 1822–26, he collaborated with John Peter Gandy on the Clubhouse for the new United University Club, in Pall Mall, London. He was made an associate of the Royal Society in 1824 and given full membership in 1826.[6]

Trafalgar Square in 1852

Wilkins was influential in the development of London's

Royal Academy, attracted adverse criticism from the beginning.[13] John Summerson concluded in 1962 that although Wilkins' frontage has many virtues "considered critically as a façade commanding a great square, its weakness is apparent".[14]

Wilkins carried out two other major London buildings in a severe Classical style both designed in 1827–28:

St. Paul's Church, George Street, Nottingham 1822 and the Yorkshire Museum (1830). He was responsible for two columns commemorating Admiral Nelson, one in Dublin and the Britannia Monument in Great Yarmouth. Both predate William Railton's design for Trafalgar Square.[13]

He also produced buildings in the Gothic style, such as Dalmeny House for Lord Rosebery in 1814–17 and Tregothnan for Lord Falmouth in 1816. He used the style at several Cambridge colleges: in 1823 he won the competition to design a set of new buildings for King's College, Cambridge, comprising the hall, provost's lodge, library, and a stone screen towards Trumpington Street, and in the same year started work on the King's court of Trinity College, and new buildings, including the chapel, at Corpus Christi College.[6]

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Wilkins is buried in the chapel at centre.

In 1827, Wilkins was appointed architect to the

Houses of Parliament. After failing to win the latter he attacked the plans of his rivals and the decision of the committee in a pamphlet signed "Phil-archimedes".[6]

He was appointed professor of architecture at the Royal Academy following the death of John Soane in 1837, but gave no lectures before he himself died[13] at his house in Cambridge on 31 August 1839. He was buried in the crypt under the chapel of Corpus Christi College.[6]

List of publications

[15]

  • Some Account of the Prior's Chapel at Ely in pages 105–12 Archaeologia XIV (1801)
  • Antiquities of Magna Graecia (1807).
  • Observations on the Porta Honoris of Caius College, Cambridge in Vetusta Monumenta, iv (1809)
  • The Civil Architecture of Vitruvius: Comprising those Books of the Author which Relate to the Public and Private Edifices off the Ancients (1813 and 1817).
  • Atheniensia, or Remarks of the Topography and Buildings in Athens (1816).
  • Remarks on the Architectural Inscription Brought from Athens, and now Preserved in the British Museum in pages 580–603, Memoirs relating to European & Asiatic Turkey edited by Robert Walpole (1817).
  • On the Sculptures of the Parthenon in Travels in Various Countries edited by Walpole (1820).
  • Report on the State of Sherborne Church (1828).
  • Prolusiones Architectonicae or Essays on Subjects Connected with Grecian and Roman Architecture (1837).
  • The Lydo-Phrygian Inscription in pages 155–60 of Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom, III (1839).

List of architectural work

[16]

Gallery of architectural work

  • National Gallery, London
    National Gallery, London
  • University College, London
    University College, London
  • Downing College, Cambridge
    Downing College, Cambridge
  • Haileybury College
    Haileybury College
  • King's College, Cambridge
    King's College, Cambridge
  • King's College, Cambridge
    King's College, Cambridge
  • Great Hall, King's College, Cambridge
    Great Hall, King's College, Cambridge
  • The Grange, Northington
    The Grange, Northington
  • Tregothnan House
    Tregothnan House
  • Tregothnan House
    Tregothnan House
  • Dalmeny House
    Dalmeny House
  • New Court, Trinity College, Cambridge
    New Court, Trinity College, Cambridge
  • Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds
    Theatre Royal,
    Bury St Edmunds
  • Britannia Monument, Great Yarmouth
    Britannia Monument,
    Great Yarmouth
  • The Yorkshire Museum designed by William Wilkins in a Greek revival style
    The Yorkshire Museum designed by William Wilkins in a Greek revival style
  • Lower Assembly Rooms, Bath 1808–9, demolished 1933
    Lower Assembly Rooms, Bath 1808–9,
    demolished 1933
  • Former St George's Hospital, London, now Lanesborough Hotel
    Former
    Lanesborough Hotel

References

  1. ^ Searby 1988, p. 699.
  2. ^ Searby 1988, p. 19.
  3. ^ "Wilkins, William (WLKS796W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  4. ^ Liscombe 1980, p. 18.
  5. ^ Liscombe 1980, p. 24.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Waterhouse, Paul (1900). "Wilkins, William" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 61. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  7. ^ Pevsner 1954, pp. 95–96.
  8. ^ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1095216)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
  9. ^ Searby 1988, p. 701.
  10. ISBN 978-0-415-03183-7
    .
  11. ^ a b Mace 1976, p. 43.
  12. ^ Mace 1976, pp. 44–45.
  13. ^ a b c Knight, Charles, ed. (1858). "Wilkins, William". The English Cyclopædia. Vol. 6. London: Bradbury & Evans. p. 704. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
  14. ^ Summerson 1962, p. 09.
  15. ^ Liscombe 1980, pp. 281–282.
  16. ^ Liscombe 1980, pp. 233–242.
  17. ^ Searby 1988, p. 11.

Sources

External links

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