William Wilkins (architect)

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William Wilkins (architect) : biography

31 August 1778 – 31 August 1839

Wilkins was a member of the Society of Dilettanti from 1817. In 1822-26, he collaborated with John Peter Gandy on the Clubhouse for the new United University Club, in Pall Mall. He was made an associate of the Royal Society in 1824 and given full membership in 1826. He was appointed professor of architecture at the Royal Academy following the death of John Soane in 1837, but gave no lectures before he died himself in August 1839.

He is buried in the chapel of Corpus Christi College, his own favourite among his works.

His study of Vitruvius, while flawed, assisted later authors interpreting difficult parts of the text.

List of architectural work

  • Downing College, Cambridge, designed (1805), west range built (1807–13), east range built (1818–22) the remainder of the design remained unexecuted
  • East India College (now Haileybury College), Hertfordshire (1805–09)
  • Norwich Cathedral, restoration work with his father (1806)
  • Lower Assembly Rooms, Bath, Somerset, later the Bath Royal Literary Institution, (1808), demolished (1933)
  • Nelson’s Pillar, Dublin, altered in execution by Francis Johnston
  • The Grange, Northington, remodelled, based on a Greek temple (1809)
  • Argyll House, Argyll Street, London, alterations to the interior (1809) demolished
  • Pentillie Castle, Cornwall, addition of a new wing (1810)
  • Theatre, Colchester, Essex, renovations (1811) demolished
  • Lensfield House, Lensfield Road, Cambridge, remodelled, including portico, Wilkin’s own house, (1811) demolished (1955)
  • Theatre, Newmarket Road, Cambridge, (1814) later remodelled
  • Dalmeny House, West Lothian (1814–19)
  • Nelson Column, Great Yarmouth (1815–17)
  • Tregothnan, Cornwall (1815–18)
  • Theatre Royal, Great Yarmouth (1816) demolished
  • The Perse School, Cambridge, remodelled interiors (1816) demolished
  • Former Freemason’s Hall, Bath, Somerset (1817)
  • Keswick Hall, Norfolk, remodelling and additions (1817–19)
  • Bridge, King’s College Cambridge (1818)
  • Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds (1818)
  • Church of St Mary the Great, Cambridge, alterations to the interior including a new west gallery (1819)
  • Dunmore Park, Stirlingshire, (1820-2), demolished (1972)
  • New Norfolk Gaol and Shire House, Norwich, built as part of the Norwich Castle complex (1820–24) partly demolished
  • St. Paul’s Church, Nottingham (1821–22) demolished (1926)
  • New Court, Trinity College, Cambridge (1821–1827)
  • United University Club, Pall Mall East, London (1821–26) rebuilt (1902)
  • New Court, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (1821–27)
  • Entrance Screen with Gatehouse and South Range with Great Hall and Library, King’s College, Cambridge (1823–28)
  • East India Company Military Seminary, Addiscombe, Surrey, added dining room, barracks and office block (1825–27), demolished (1861)
  • Theatre Royal, Norwich, reconstruction, including a Greek doric colonnade (1825–26) burnt down (1934)
  • Former St George’s Hospital, (now The Lanesborough Hotel),Hyde Park Corner, London (1826–28)
  • County Gaol Huntingdon (1826)
  • University College London (1826–1830) later completed to amended designs by 1869
  • Yorkshire Philosophical Society Museum (now Yorkshire Museum) (1827–30)
  • Brooke Hall, Norfolk additions (1827)
  • House, Kingsweston, Bristol, addition of a Doric Portico (1828)
  • National Gallery, London, originally only one room deep, and also housed the Royal Academy (1831–1838) much extended and remodelled

Gallery of architectural work

File:National Gallery from atop Nelson’s Column, Trafalgar Square, London – geograph.org.uk – 287253.jpg|National Gallery, London File:University_College_London_-quadrant-11Sept2006_(1).jpg|University College, London File:Downing College Bird’s Eye.jpg|Downing College, Cambridge File:Haileybury College.jpg|Haileybury College File:Cambridge King’s.JPG|King’s College, Cambridge File:King’s_College_gatehouse_from_the_Backs.jpg|King’s College, Cambridge File:Kings dining hall.JPG|Great Hall, King’s College, Cambridge File:Northington Grange – Hampshire.JPG|The Grange, Northington File:Tregothnan House.jpg|Tregothnan House File:Tregothnan Cornwall morris edited.jpg|Tregothnan House File:Dalmeny House 02.JPG|Dalmeny House File:New Court, Trinity College, Cambridge.jpg|New Court, Trinity College, Cambridge File:Broyal01.JPG|Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds exterior File:The Norfolk Naval Pillar or Nelson Memorial – geograph.org.uk – 166469.jpg|Nelson Pillar, Great Yarmouth File:Yorkshire Museum.jpg|The Yorkshire Museum designed by William Wilkins in a Greek revival style File:Bath Royal Literary Institution.jpg|Lower Assembley Rooms, Bath 1808-9, demolished 1933 File:Lanesborough Hotel.jpg|Former St George’s Hospital, London, now Lanesborough Hotel

List of publications

  • 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 Rev. Robert Walpole (1817)
  • On the Sculptures of the Parthenon in Travels in Various Countries edited by Rev. Robert 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)