Chronological Gazetteer of the works of E.W. Pugin
By GJ Hyland – 11 March 2010 This article is undergoing continual refinement, and is updated periodically.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF EDWARD WELBY PUGIN, 1834-75
'... a few weeks will I expect bring a little Gothic boy or girl.'
• AWN Pugin: letter to Wm Osmond, 30th Jan 1834 (M Belcher, The Collected Letters of AWN Pugin, vol.1, p.24, OUP, 2001)
Edward Welby Pugin, the eldest son of AWN Pugin by his second wife Louisa (née Button), was born on Tuesday, 11th March 1834 in Ellington Cottage, St Lawrence, then on the outskirts of Ramsgate. Shortly after he was one year old, the family moved to St Marie's Grange, the house AWN Pugin had designed for his family near Salisbury. After two years, they moved to London, returning to Ramsgate in the summer of 1844, following the death of Edward's mother. Having been educated at home (where he was known as 'Teddy'), he was available to help in his father's office, which he apparently did from the age of seven, eventually becoming his 'right-hand man'. He was thus well placed, while still only 17 years old during his father's final illness, to assume responsibility for his practice, and to successfully oversee the completion of some of his father's outstanding commissions. After the death of his father in 1852, Edward applied to join the firm of Sir Charles Barry, but having been rejected decided to set up practice on his own, moving the family to Birmingham in order to be near his father's friend John Hardman, Jr. of Hardman & Co. They stayed there for four years until 1856 when then moved to London, where they remained (at 5 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury) until 1861 when they returned to The Grange in Ramsgate.
Helped by the burgeoning in Catholic church building following the restoration of the Hierarchy in England and Wales only two years prior to his father's death, Edward soon began to acquire an increasing number of clients of his own, and in his relatively short working life of only 23 years established himself as one of the leading High Victorian Catholic architects of his day.
'... a few weeks will I expect bring a little Gothic boy or girl.'
• AWN Pugin: letter to Wm Osmond, 30th Jan 1834 (M Belcher, The Collected Letters of AWN Pugin, vol.1, p.24, OUP, 2001)
Edward Welby Pugin, the eldest son of AWN Pugin by his second wife Louisa (née Button), was born on Tuesday, 11th March 1834 in Ellington Cottage, St Lawrence, then on the outskirts of Ramsgate. Shortly after he was one year old, the family moved to St Marie's Grange, the house AWN Pugin had designed for his family near Salisbury. After two years, they moved to London, returning to Ramsgate in the summer of 1844, following the death of Edward's mother. Having been educated at home (where he was known as 'Teddy'), he was available to help in his father's office, which he apparently did from the age of seven, eventually becoming his 'right-hand man'. He was thus well placed, while still only 17 years old during his father's final illness, to assume responsibility for his practice, and to successfully oversee the completion of some of his father's outstanding commissions. After the death of his father in 1852, Edward applied to join the firm of Sir Charles Barry, but having been rejected decided to set up practice on his own, moving the family to Birmingham in order to be near his father's friend John Hardman, Jr. of Hardman & Co. They stayed there for four years until 1856 when then moved to London, where they remained (at 5 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury) until 1861 when they returned to The Grange in Ramsgate.
Helped by the burgeoning in Catholic church building following the restoration of the Hierarchy in England and Wales only two years prior to his father's death, Edward soon began to acquire an increasing number of clients of his own, and in his relatively short working life of only 23 years established himself as one of the leading High Victorian Catholic architects of his day.
Given his innate ability and speed with which he could work and, in particular, draw, he accomplished, as this Gazetteer reveals, a vast amount of work, both ecclesiastical and secular, the latter mainly for Catholic clients, including members of peerage and landed gentry, not only in the UK, but also in Ireland and Belgium. Although at various times he was in partnership with another architect - the most significant (of eight years duration) being that with the Irishman George Coppinger Ashlin (a former pupil of his who, in 1867, married Edward's youngest sister Mary) - the majority of this work he alone was responsible for.
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In addition to many churches and domestic buildings, he designed convents, monasteries, schools/colleges, orphanages, almshouses/convalescent homes, as well as additions/alterations to existing buildings (including some by his father), and undertook numerous smaller miscellaneous works. A very large number of his buildings were reported on in contemporary architectural journals, and the laying of the Foundation Stone and the opening of many of his churches - the genre for which he is best known, and which ranges from cathedrals to small private chapels - were featured also in the Catholic weekly, The Tablet. Church commissions came from both diocesan clergy and Religious Orders.
Whilst his early work was in the Decorated English style of his father, it was not long before he started to develop an independent and highly idiosyncratic approach to both the external and internal design of his churches. Externally, the influence of flamboyant Franco-Flemish Gothic soon began to assert itself, whilst internally he succeeded in reconciling Gothic with the then prevailing liturgical requirement that as many as possible of the congregation be able to see the High Altar; this he achieved by the use of wide nave arcades with slender pillars and a quite shallow sanctuary (often apsidal) that was essentially a continuation of the nave under the same roof-line, frequently without any demarcating chancel arch. This model - essentially a kind of (inverted) 'vessel' church - was first developed around 1859, and he continued to refine and adapt it for the rest of his career, although during the last five years of his life a somewhat greater degree of sobriety, redolent of his early work, started to characterise some of his designs. Externally, his larger churches are instantly recognisable from their physical assertiveness, achieved through a persistent emphasis on the vertical element of their design, which is accentuated by the acuteness of the roof pitch and often by a dominant W. gable bell-cote or an off-centre tower supporting a spire.
Even for the most impoverished localities, he invariably succeeded in realising dignified places of worship, no matter how meagre the available funds. Indeed, as he once said, he was often compelled to show what he could not do, rather than what he could; frequently, every point of design, every corner, feature (that he wished to see produced) had, in the end, to be sacrificed to necessity - simply for want of means. For many of his commissions came from working-class communities with little money to spend on niceties - which accounts for the simplicity of some of the carving, and for many intended towers and spires remaining unbuilt to this day. It is important to bear this in mind when assessing the architectural merits of his churches, which, as Archbishop Downey of Liverpool once wrote, 'were built in the tradition of the cathedrals of old, in the spirit of sacrifice, to be temples with which to worship God'.
The cost of a typical unendowed urban church, ranged, depending on size and date of building, from around £3000 to £10,000 (approximately £1.8 to £6 million in today's terms), compared with £20,000 (approximately £12 million today) for the de Trafford church at Barton-on-Irwell, considered by Pevsner to be his masterwork. His least expensive church was probably that in Peel (Isle of Man), costing only £400 (£240,000), whilst the most expensive was Cobh Cathedral, begun in 1867, which by the time it was completed in 1915 had cost £235,000 (£73 million), making it the most expensive building in Ireland up to that time.
When only 24, he was created a Knight of the Order of St Sylvester by Pope Pius IX in recognition of his design for the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Dadizele, Belgium.
Whilst his early work was in the Decorated English style of his father, it was not long before he started to develop an independent and highly idiosyncratic approach to both the external and internal design of his churches. Externally, the influence of flamboyant Franco-Flemish Gothic soon began to assert itself, whilst internally he succeeded in reconciling Gothic with the then prevailing liturgical requirement that as many as possible of the congregation be able to see the High Altar; this he achieved by the use of wide nave arcades with slender pillars and a quite shallow sanctuary (often apsidal) that was essentially a continuation of the nave under the same roof-line, frequently without any demarcating chancel arch. This model - essentially a kind of (inverted) 'vessel' church - was first developed around 1859, and he continued to refine and adapt it for the rest of his career, although during the last five years of his life a somewhat greater degree of sobriety, redolent of his early work, started to characterise some of his designs. Externally, his larger churches are instantly recognisable from their physical assertiveness, achieved through a persistent emphasis on the vertical element of their design, which is accentuated by the acuteness of the roof pitch and often by a dominant W. gable bell-cote or an off-centre tower supporting a spire.
Even for the most impoverished localities, he invariably succeeded in realising dignified places of worship, no matter how meagre the available funds. Indeed, as he once said, he was often compelled to show what he could not do, rather than what he could; frequently, every point of design, every corner, feature (that he wished to see produced) had, in the end, to be sacrificed to necessity - simply for want of means. For many of his commissions came from working-class communities with little money to spend on niceties - which accounts for the simplicity of some of the carving, and for many intended towers and spires remaining unbuilt to this day. It is important to bear this in mind when assessing the architectural merits of his churches, which, as Archbishop Downey of Liverpool once wrote, 'were built in the tradition of the cathedrals of old, in the spirit of sacrifice, to be temples with which to worship God'.
The cost of a typical unendowed urban church, ranged, depending on size and date of building, from around £3000 to £10,000 (approximately £1.8 to £6 million in today's terms), compared with £20,000 (approximately £12 million today) for the de Trafford church at Barton-on-Irwell, considered by Pevsner to be his masterwork. His least expensive church was probably that in Peel (Isle of Man), costing only £400 (£240,000), whilst the most expensive was Cobh Cathedral, begun in 1867, which by the time it was completed in 1915 had cost £235,000 (£73 million), making it the most expensive building in Ireland up to that time.
When only 24, he was created a Knight of the Order of St Sylvester by Pope Pius IX in recognition of his design for the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Dadizele, Belgium.
Four years later, he was elected a Fellow of the
RIBA, and he frequently exhibited his designs at the Royal Academy. Edward differed from his father not only stylistically, but also in the nature and tenor of his writings. His father's passionately written, well-researched, if somewhat polemic, scholarly treatises - devoted to such subjects as the promulgation of Gothic architectural principles, antiquarian research and theological/liturgical topics - were replaced by Edward's impulsively written, often strident, pamphlets and published letters on less academic subjects of more personal concern, such as criticising the work of fellow architects (vide infra), attempting to secure proper recognition of his father's contribution to the design of the new Houses of Parliament, or with financial grievances.
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Other more pragmatic differences were also evident, such as having a number of pupils, the best known being his half-brother Peter Paul George Coppinger Ashlin and Edmund Kirby; by letting his buildings go out to tender to local builders and by not working solely from home but maintaining offices also in Westminster, Dublin (with Ashlin), and Liverpool, the centre of the Catholic heartland of the NW of England from where many commissions originated. Carving, however, was usually reserved for his preferred sculptors, in particular, W Farmer & RL Boulton, whilst Hardman & Co were often, but not invariably, used for stained glass and metalwork. In addition, he entertained a much wider range of activities than did his father, once describing himself as 'architect, builder and warehouseman'. To these should be added those of designer, not only of stained glass/encaustic tiles and other decorative work, but also of furniture and other fittings, some of which (such as church benches and items of stone carving) he had produced in his own factory, The South-Eastern Works, in Ramsgate. Indeed, as was noted in his obituary in The Architect, 'he eventually had in his hands a business so extensive that no ordinary brain could control it.'
Edward's life-style also differed significantly from that of his father, possibly as a reaction to the almost monastic domestic regime in which he had been brought up, and to the oft-commented-on unkempt appearance of his father. Edward, by contrast, appears to have been something of a dandy figure to whom personal cleanliness was important (as evidenced by his fondness of Turkish bathing), and who, apart from during his final years, appears to have been something of a bon vivant - a larger-than-life, if not eccentric, character, well-known locally in Ramsgate, after his family's return there from London in 1861, for his hospitality and social engagement, such as his concern with improving local housing conditions via domestic building projects, and his participation for three years, as Capt Pugin, in the Ramsgate Volunteer Artillery Corps. It has been suggested that his more extrovert life-style was perhaps driven by the desire to gain social acceptance, particularly given his religion.
His architectural output peaked in the mid-1860s when over a five-year period it is claimed that he earned around £40,000 (about £2.5 million). Despite his national eminence, however, he was not amongst those invited to submit designs for the new Law Courts in 1867 and he responded by publishing a trenchant criticism of the design submitted by EM Barry, a son of Sir Charles Barry. This marked the beginning not only of a pamphlet war between the two concerning the relative contributions of their fathers to the design of the new Houses of Parliament, but also of an ever-increasing paranoia that was to reach its peak in 1874. Coupled with this, things started to go wrong for him financially towards the end of the 1860s, mainly on account of his reckless speculation in the Granville Hotel venture. This proved to be his undoing, so much so that in October 1872 he was forced to file for liquidation of his estate (including not only the Granville Hotel, but also The South-Eastern Works) with liabilities of £180,000 (about £11 million). In an attempt to improve his financial circumstances, he left for the USA in October 1873, where he did obtain quite a few commissions, although there is no evidence that any were ever realised.
After his return to England, which was announced at the beginning of January 1874, things deteriorated even further, following the publication of yet more pamphlets - this time against those whom he paranoically felt had contributed to his financial demise - the content of which was often deemed to be malicious and libellous, resulting in frequent, regrettable court appearances in both Kent and London. These attracted much unsympathetic publicity and ridicule, leading the writer of his obituary in The Building News to state: 'Mr Pugin was best known to the general public as a litigant of a most energetic character.' The most high profile case involved AWN Pugin's friend, the painter JR Herbert RA, who brought against EW Pugin a charge of publishing false and defamatory libels arising from a financial grievance over a house he had designed for Herbert in 1869. This led to two appearances in the Central Criminal Court in London. On the first occasion, in July 1874, when Mr Gladstone was called by both parties to give evidence, EW Pugin was acquitted, but after offending again in September 1874 was found guilty, and only just escaped a six months' custodial sentence.
Edward's life-style also differed significantly from that of his father, possibly as a reaction to the almost monastic domestic regime in which he had been brought up, and to the oft-commented-on unkempt appearance of his father. Edward, by contrast, appears to have been something of a dandy figure to whom personal cleanliness was important (as evidenced by his fondness of Turkish bathing), and who, apart from during his final years, appears to have been something of a bon vivant - a larger-than-life, if not eccentric, character, well-known locally in Ramsgate, after his family's return there from London in 1861, for his hospitality and social engagement, such as his concern with improving local housing conditions via domestic building projects, and his participation for three years, as Capt Pugin, in the Ramsgate Volunteer Artillery Corps. It has been suggested that his more extrovert life-style was perhaps driven by the desire to gain social acceptance, particularly given his religion.
His architectural output peaked in the mid-1860s when over a five-year period it is claimed that he earned around £40,000 (about £2.5 million). Despite his national eminence, however, he was not amongst those invited to submit designs for the new Law Courts in 1867 and he responded by publishing a trenchant criticism of the design submitted by EM Barry, a son of Sir Charles Barry. This marked the beginning not only of a pamphlet war between the two concerning the relative contributions of their fathers to the design of the new Houses of Parliament, but also of an ever-increasing paranoia that was to reach its peak in 1874. Coupled with this, things started to go wrong for him financially towards the end of the 1860s, mainly on account of his reckless speculation in the Granville Hotel venture. This proved to be his undoing, so much so that in October 1872 he was forced to file for liquidation of his estate (including not only the Granville Hotel, but also The South-Eastern Works) with liabilities of £180,000 (about £11 million). In an attempt to improve his financial circumstances, he left for the USA in October 1873, where he did obtain quite a few commissions, although there is no evidence that any were ever realised.
After his return to England, which was announced at the beginning of January 1874, things deteriorated even further, following the publication of yet more pamphlets - this time against those whom he paranoically felt had contributed to his financial demise - the content of which was often deemed to be malicious and libellous, resulting in frequent, regrettable court appearances in both Kent and London. These attracted much unsympathetic publicity and ridicule, leading the writer of his obituary in The Building News to state: 'Mr Pugin was best known to the general public as a litigant of a most energetic character.' The most high profile case involved AWN Pugin's friend, the painter JR Herbert RA, who brought against EW Pugin a charge of publishing false and defamatory libels arising from a financial grievance over a house he had designed for Herbert in 1869. This led to two appearances in the Central Criminal Court in London. On the first occasion, in July 1874, when Mr Gladstone was called by both parties to give evidence, EW Pugin was acquitted, but after offending again in September 1874 was found guilty, and only just escaped a six months' custodial sentence.
In what proved to be his final court appearance, against doctor's orders, as a witness in the case of Hayes v. King, certain imputations of the judge concerning his mental stability greatly disturbed him and continued to prey on his mind, so much so that in a conversation shortly before his death he said that he intended to 'give up law and go in again for hard work'. Virtually the last words he uttered on that occasion - 'Put on my gravestone Here lies a man of many miseries' - proved to be prophetic, for he died a few weeks later. Amongst his many miseries must surely have numbered his expulsion in 1874 from the RIBA, of which he had been a member for 12 years - an act that the Irish Builder considered 'uncharitable and uncalled for' - and his unsuccessful attempts to marry, despite having been engaged at least twice.
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Towards the end of his annus horribilis of 1874, a public meeting was convened in Ramsgate to invite 'subscriptions from working men and others, of the parishes of Ramsgate and St Lawrence, for the purpose of presenting a testimonial to EW Pugin, Esq, to evince their esteem and sympathy for him, and also their appreciation of the great benefits derived by them and the town of Ramsgate generally from the extensive works carried on by him in its vicinity.' In January the following year, the working-men of Ramsgate presented him with a silver salver inscribed to fulsomely reflect these sentiments.
By now, however, the accumulated stress was starting to have a detrimental effect not only on his work but, more tragically, on his health, which was already in a precarious condition on account of the punishing work schedule he had sustained over many years. Despite his intention to 'give up law and go in again for hard work', it was too late, and he died, aged 41, in the arms of his younger brother Cuthbert, on the evening of Saturday 5th June 1875 at his London residence, Victoria House, 111 Victoria St, of syncope of the heart, provoked, it was claimed, by his injudicious use of chloral hydrate. (The sedational properties of chloral hydrate were first recognised in 1869, and its use to treat insomnia, in particular, soon became widespread and greatly abused. One of its reported side-effects is extreme irritability and unusual excitement, both of which were characteristic of EW Pugin's behaviour, particularly during his later years.) His death was entered in the Liber Defunctorum of his local church in Palace St, Westminster, dedicated, appropriately enough, to St Edward the Confessor. Although having been ill for several weeks previously, his death was unexpected; indeed, he had spent the Saturday morning working and visiting Kilburn, where his OMI Juniorate College was under construction, and in the afternoon had relaxed in the nearby Grosvenor Turkish Baths in Buckingham Palace Road, which he had designed a few years earlier.
By now, however, the accumulated stress was starting to have a detrimental effect not only on his work but, more tragically, on his health, which was already in a precarious condition on account of the punishing work schedule he had sustained over many years. Despite his intention to 'give up law and go in again for hard work', it was too late, and he died, aged 41, in the arms of his younger brother Cuthbert, on the evening of Saturday 5th June 1875 at his London residence, Victoria House, 111 Victoria St, of syncope of the heart, provoked, it was claimed, by his injudicious use of chloral hydrate. (The sedational properties of chloral hydrate were first recognised in 1869, and its use to treat insomnia, in particular, soon became widespread and greatly abused. One of its reported side-effects is extreme irritability and unusual excitement, both of which were characteristic of EW Pugin's behaviour, particularly during his later years.) His death was entered in the Liber Defunctorum of his local church in Palace St, Westminster, dedicated, appropriately enough, to St Edward the Confessor. Although having been ill for several weeks previously, his death was unexpected; indeed, he had spent the Saturday morning working and visiting Kilburn, where his OMI Juniorate College was under construction, and in the afternoon had relaxed in the nearby Grosvenor Turkish Baths in Buckingham Palace Road, which he had designed a few years earlier.
Although it was his irascibility and volatility that invariably attracts attention and adverse comment, there was another side to his nature, as the author of his obituary in the Thanet Advertiser was at pains to point out, writing: 'He was a good hater and a firm friend - impetuous to a degree and generous to a fault.' He was much loved by his workmen who (said the obituary) 'speak of him with reverence'. As it made its way to St Augustine's on 10th June 1875, his funeral cortège was followed by a great crowd of admirers, including many of the poor who showered his coffin with flowers, whilst in the Royal Harbour fishing smacks flew their flags at half-mast, and in the town many shops were closed out of respect. He was buried in the vault beneath the Pugin Chantry in St Augustine's, wherein his father had been laid to rest 23 years earlier.
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His highest qualities - again in common with his father - were a truly generous heart, coupled with a profound knowledge of his art. However, as his obituary in The Art Journal concluded, 'Mr Pugin would have been a wiser and happier man had he confined himself strictly to the duties of a profession for which he was so eminently qualified.'
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help of Sarah Houle, in making available the family photograph of members of the Pugin family, c.1851; of Dr Rory O'Donnell, a pioneer in research on EW Pugin, to whose writings I am much indebted; and of Catriona Blaker, whose beautifully written Edward Pugin and Kent contains fascinating insights into his Kentish exploits.
SOURCES
Obituaries: The Builder, 33 (1875), 522-523; The Building News (11 June, 1875, 670); The Architect (12 June, 1875, 350); The Art Journal 14 (1875), 279; The Irish Builder (15 June, 1875, pp.157, 169); The Thanet Advertiser (12 June 1875)
'The Pugin Family' - A Wedgwood, in Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the RIBA, edited by J Bettley, Gregg International, 1977.
'The Later Pugins' - R O'Donnell, in Pugin - a Gothic Passion, pp. 259-271 (edited by P Atterbury & C Wainwright), Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1994.
Edward Pugin & Kent - C Blaker, The Pugin Society, 2003.
Pugin, Edward Welby (1834-1875), architect - R O'Donnell, Oxford Dictionary of National. Biography, OUP, 2004-6.
God's Architect: Pugin & the Building of Romantic Britain - R Hill, Allen Lane (The Penguin Group), London, 2007.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help of Sarah Houle, in making available the family photograph of members of the Pugin family, c.1851; of Dr Rory O'Donnell, a pioneer in research on EW Pugin, to whose writings I am much indebted; and of Catriona Blaker, whose beautifully written Edward Pugin and Kent contains fascinating insights into his Kentish exploits.
SOURCES
Obituaries: The Builder, 33 (1875), 522-523; The Building News (11 June, 1875, 670); The Architect (12 June, 1875, 350); The Art Journal 14 (1875), 279; The Irish Builder (15 June, 1875, pp.157, 169); The Thanet Advertiser (12 June 1875)
'The Pugin Family' - A Wedgwood, in Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the RIBA, edited by J Bettley, Gregg International, 1977.
'The Later Pugins' - R O'Donnell, in Pugin - a Gothic Passion, pp. 259-271 (edited by P Atterbury & C Wainwright), Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1994.
Edward Pugin & Kent - C Blaker, The Pugin Society, 2003.
Pugin, Edward Welby (1834-1875), architect - R O'Donnell, Oxford Dictionary of National. Biography, OUP, 2004-6.
God's Architect: Pugin & the Building of Romantic Britain - R Hill, Allen Lane (The Penguin Group), London, 2007.