Edmund Woolley (16951771) was an English-born American

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and master

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenter ...

, best known for building

Independence Hall Independence Hall is a historic civic building in Philadelphia, where both the United States Declaration of Independence, Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were debated and adopted by the Founding Fathers of ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, United States.

Biography

Woolley was born in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

around 1695, and emigrated to the

Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies were the British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America which broke away from the British Crown in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), and joined to form the United States of America. The Thirteen C ...

as a child, around 1705. It is not known with whom he apprenticed or where he learned his trade. He was one of the first members of The Carpenters' Company of the City and County of Philadelphia.Biography of Edmund Woolley at Philadelphia Architects and Buildings Project
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Independence Hall, 1732–1748 and 1750–1753

In 1732, he began construction of the Pennsylvania State House, later renamed

. Credit for the building's design has often been given to Andrew Hamilton, but modern scholarship argues that he contributed little to the project. A surviving 1735 receipt lists a £5 payment to Woolley for "drawing drafts," "fronts" (elevations) and "Plans of the first and Second floors of the State House." The building took 16 years for Woolley and his workers, who included Ebenezer Tomlinson and Thomas Nevell, to complete. The interior woodwork was carved by Samuel Harding and Bryan Wilkinson. The second floor featured meeting rooms and a banquet hall the width of the building. The original stairway proved inadequate for so large a building. In 1750, Woolley laid the foundations for a brick tower to house a grand staircase and support a wooden steeple. The tower's exterior was completed in 1753, but Hardings's interior woodwork was not completed until 1756. The bell ordered for the tower in 1751, is now known as the

Liberty Bell The Liberty Bell, previously called the State House Bell or Old State House Bell, is an iconic symbol of American Revolution, American independence located in Philadelphia. Originally placed in the steeple of Pennsylvania State House, now know ...

Whitefield Meeting House, 1740

Woolley designed and built the Whitefield Meeting House (1740, demolished), a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

church and

charity school Charity schools, sometimes called blue coat schools, or simply the Blue School, were significant in the history of education in England. They were built and maintained in various parishes by the voluntary contributions of the inhabitants to ...

named for preacher

George Whitefield George Whitefield (; 30 September 1770), also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican minister and preacher who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement. Born in Gloucester, he matriculated at Pembroke Coll ...

. Its 70-by-100 foot (21 x 30.5 m), -story building at 4th & Arch Streets was the largest building in the American Colonies – larger than the then-under-construction Pennsylvania State House. The charity school struggled financially. On the recommendation of

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...

, the building was purchased in 1749 for use by what became the Academy of Philadelphia (1751). Several years later, the academy was granted a

Royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but ...

to establish a college, the

College of Philadelphia The Academy and College of Philadelphia (1749–1791) was a boys' school and men's college in Philadelphia in the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania. Founded in 1749 by a group of local notables that included Benjamin Franklin, the Academy of P ...

(1755). The academy and college are predecessors of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. The Whitefield Meeting House was demolished by 1845.

Hope Lodge, 1743–1748

Woolley was responsible for design and construction of the Whitemarsh Estate (today known as Hope Lodge). The Georgian country mansion was built by

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

businessman Samuel Morris in what is now Fort Washington, Pennsylvania.

Selected works

File:Independence Hall 1752 Map detail.png, 1752 engraving of the Pennsylvania State House Image:PA-Philadelphia-Penn.jpg, Academy and College of Philadelphia (ca. 1780). Sketch by Pierre Du Simitière. File:HopeLodge HistoricSite.JPG, Hope Lodge

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Woolley, Edmund 1695 births 1771 deaths Architects from Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania people English emigrants