William Butterfield

William Butterfield
Born (1814-09-07)7 September 1814
Died 23 February 1900(1900-02-23) (aged 85)
Nationality British
Occupation Architect
Awards Royal Gold Medal (1884)
Buildings St Ninian's Cathedral, Perth in Scotland, St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne in Australia
Projects Keble College, Oxford

William Butterfield (7 September 1814 – 23 February 1900) was a Gothic Revival architect and associated with the Oxford Movement (or Tractarian Movement). He is noted for his use of polychromy.

Biography

William Butterfield was born in London in 1814. His parents were strict non-conformists who ran a chemist's shop in the Strand. He was one of nine children and was educated at a local school. At the age of 16, he was apprenticed to Thomas Arber, a builder in Pimlico, who later became bankrupt. He studied architecture under E. L. Blackburne (1833–1836). From 1838 to 1839, he was an assistant to Harvey Eginton, an architect in Worcester, where he became articled. He established his own architectural practice at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1840.

From 1842 Butterfield was involved with the Cambridge Camden Society, later The Ecclesiological Society. He contributed designs to the Society's journal, The Ecclesiologist. His involvement influenced his architectural style. He also drew religious inspiration from the Oxford Movement and as such, he was very high church despite his non-conformist upbringing. He was a Gothic revival architect, and as such he reinterpreted the original Gothic style in Victorian terms. Many of his buildings were for religious use, although he also designed for colleges and schools.

Butterfield's church of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, was, in the view of Henry-Russell Hitchcock, the building that initiated the High Victorian Gothic era. It was designed in 1850, completed externally by 1853 and consecrated in 1859.[1] Flanked by a clergy house and school, it was intended as a "model" church by its sponsors, the Ecclesiological Society. The church was built of red-brick, a material long out of use in London, patterned with bands of black brick, the first use of polychrome brick in the city, with bands of stone on the spire. The interior was even more richly decorated, with marble and tile marquetry.[1]

In 1849, just before Butterfield designed the church, John Ruskin had published his Seven Lamps of Architecture, in which he had urged the study of Italian Gothic and the use of polychromy. Many contemporaries perceived All Saints' as Italian in character, though in fact it combines fourteenth century English details, with a German-style spire.[1]

Also in 1850 he designed, without polychromy, St Matthias in Stoke Newington, with a bold gable-roofed tower. At St Bartholomew's, Yealhampton in the same year, Butterfield used a considerable amount of marquetry work for the interior, and built striped piers, using two colours of marble.[1]

Blue plaque, 42 Bedford Square, London

At Oxford, Butterfield designed Keble College, in a style radically divergent from the University's existing traditions of Gothic architecture, its walls boldly striped with various colours of brick. Intended for clerical students, it was largely built in 1868–70, on a fairly domestic scale, with a more monumental chapel of 1873–6. In his buildings of 1868–72 at Rugby School, the polychromy is even more brash.[2]

Butterfield received the RIBA Gold Medal in 1884. He died in London in 1900, and was buried in a simple Gothic tomb in Tottenham Cemetery, Haringey, North London. The grave can be easily seen from the public path through the cemetery, close to the gate from Tottenham Churchyard. There is a blue plaque on his house in Bedford Square, London.

Works

Butterfield's buildings include:

Keble College Chapel, Oxford
St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia
St Ninian's Cathedral, Perth, Scotland
William Butterfield's original design for the new Anglican cathedral (St Paul's) in Melbourne, Australia
All Saints, Margaret Street, London (detail of interior)
St Mary's church, Brookfield
St Andrew's Church, Rugby
St Barnabas's Church, Horton-cum-Studley
St Mark's Church, Dundela, Belfast
Font of Ottery St Mary Parish Church, Devon
Chalice designed by William Butterfield, 1856–1857 (hallmarked) V&A Museum no. CIRC.521–1962

Sources

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Hitchcock 1977, pages 247–8
  2. ↑ Hitchock 1977, page 264
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Homan 1984, page 106
  4. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1973, page 252
  5. ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, page 579–583
  6. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 365
  7. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 366
  8. ↑ "Ottery St Mary". Exeter and Plymouth Gazette. Exeter. 30 March 1850. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  9. ↑ Listed Building schedule
  10. 1 2 Pevsner, 1966, page 253
  11. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 90
  12. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 458
  13. ↑ Pevsner, 1966, page 177
  14. ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, page705
  15. ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, page 101
  16. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 162
  17. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 291
  18. ↑ "St John the Evangelist Churchyard". London Gardens Online. 1 November 2011. Retrieved 25 January 2015.
  19. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 293
  20. ↑ "History & architecture". All Saints Margaret Street website. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
  21. ↑ Pevsner, 1966, page 182
  22. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 531
  23. ↑ Lych gate restoration
  24. 1 2 Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 82
  25. ↑ Pevsner, 1966, page 166
  26. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 160
  27. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 140
  28. ↑ The Buildings of England: Lancashire – Manchester and the South East, 2004
  29. 1 2 Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, page 693
  30. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 319
  31. ↑ Pevsner, 1966, page 154
  32. ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, page 164
  33. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 118
  34. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1973, page 470
  35. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 266
  36. ↑ Pevsner, 1960, page 112
  37. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 268
  38. ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, page 656
  39. ↑ Pevsner, 1966, page 84
  40. ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, page 685
  41. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 571
  42. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 144
  43. ↑ Birtchnell, Percy (1960). A Short History of Berkhamsted. The Bookstack. p. 30. ISBN 1-871372-00-3.
  44. ↑ Sheppard, F.H.W., ed. (1970). "St. Paul's Church". Survey of London: volume 36: Covent Garden. pp. 98–128.
  45. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 374
  46. ↑ Verey, 1970, pages 370–371
  47. 1 2 Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 182
  48. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1973, page 120
  49. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 563
  50. ↑ Pevsner, 1966, page 254
  51. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 283
  52. ↑ Pevsner, 1966, page 357
  53. ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner, 1974, pages 225–229
  54. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 95
  55. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 354
  56. ↑ Pevsner, 1966, page 68
  57. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 591
  58. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 251
  59. ↑ Church of St John the Evangelist, Clevedon
  60. ↑ Pevsner, 1966, page 213
  61. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1973, page 188
  62. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 105
  63. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 427
  64. ↑ St. Saviour's Church, Coalpit Heath: Beginnings
  65. ↑ Holy Saviour church, Hitchin
  66. ↑ St. Andrew's parish church, Rugby
  67. ↑ St. Mary 1883Magdalene, Enfield Chase: William Butterfield
  68. ↑ 1853–1855 Rhea, Nicholas (1985). Portrait of the North Yorkshire Moors.
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