William Benson (1682 – 2 February 1754) was a talented amateur architect and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1715 to 1719. In 1718, he arranged to displace the aged Sir Christopher Wren as

Surveyor of the King's Works The Office of Works was established in the English royal household in 1378 to oversee the building and maintenance of the royal castles and residences. In 1832 it became the Works Department forces within the Office of Woods, Forests, Land Reven ...

, but his short time in that post was not a success.

Life

Benson was the eldest son of Sir William Benson, Sheriff of London in 1706–07, and his wife Martha Austin, daughter of John Austin, jeweller of London. He made a Grand Tour as a young man, which was extended to a prolonged visit in 1704–1706 to Hanover, the seat of the Elector, who was next in line to the British throne. He paid assiduous court and ingratiated himself with the Elector and his mother the

Electress Sophia Sophia of Hanover (born Princess Sophia of the Palatinate; 14 October 1630 – 8 June 1714) was the Electress of Hanover by marriage to Elector Ernest Augustus and later the heiress presumptive to the thrones of England and Scotland (later Gre ...

, pressing unwanted gifts upon the Electress. He also went to Stockholm, far from the usual beaten track. In London he published a Whig tract that offered a warning against Jacobitism, and a polemic against Divine Right of kingship in a ''Letter to Sir J cobB nkes' addressed transparently to Sir Jacob Bancks; it reached its eleventh edition in 1711 and was translated into French. Wilberry House Vit Brit edited

Returning to London with fresh impressions of innovative neo-Palladian constructions currently afoot at Herrenhausen, in 1707 he married Eleanor Earle, the daughter of Joseph Earle, a wealthy merchant of Bristol; and received from his father purchases of land in Wiltshire to the value of £5,000. The following February he rented the classical Caroline

Amesbury Abbey Amesbury Abbey was a Benedictine abbey of women at Amesbury in Wiltshire, England, founded by Queen Ælfthryth in about the year 979 on what may have been the site of an earlier monastery. The abbey was dissolved in 1177 by Henry II, who founded ...

, Wiltshire, then attributed to Inigo Jones, on a twenty-one-year lease, and in 1709 he set to work designing Wilbury House for himself on a nearby property at

Newton Tony Newton Tony (formerly Newton Toney) is a rural English village and civil parish in the county of Wiltshire, close to the border with Hampshire. Situated in the Bourne Valley, Newton Tony is about north-east of its post town, Salisbury. Wilbu ...

, which he purchased that year from Hon. John Fiennes. Wilbury, the earliest example of neo-Palladianism in England, was a modest

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became sm ...

of one storey, nine bays in length, with a pedimented portico over the three central bays. Above the simply framed windows isolated bas-relief tablets were inserted in the wall. Small windows in a low rusticated basement lit service areas. Chimney stacks stood at the ends of the angled roofs. A central balustraded belvedere with a dome raised on columns crowned the elevation. In this manner Wilbury was illustrated in

Colen Campbell Colen Campbell (15 June 1676 – 13 September 1729) was a pioneering Scottish architect and architectural writer, credited as a founder of the Georgian style. For most of his career, he resided in Italy and England. As well as his architectural ...

's first volume of '' Vitruvius Britannicus'' (1715, plates 51–52), credited to Benson as inventor and builder. Later, as Surveyor, Benson appointed the professional Campbell Deputy Surveyor and Chief Clerk. In 1709 he was appointed High Sheriff of Wiltshire. His interests extended to hydraulics. He carried out a project to bring piped water to Shaftesbury; according to a memoir of the hydraulics engineer John Theophilus Desaguliers, it was actually the invention of Mr Holland, the modest curate of Shaftesbury, but Benson took the credit, which resulted in his election as Whig Member of Parliament. Benson was elected Member of Parliament for Shaftesbury at the

1715 general election Events For dates within Great Britain and the British Empire, as well as in the Russian Empire, the "old style" Julian calendar was used in 1715, and can be converted to the "new style" Gregorian calendar (adopted in the British Empire i ...

. In 1716 he attended

George I George I or 1 may refer to: People * Patriarch George I of Alexandria (fl. 621–631) * George I of Constantinople (d. 686) * George I of Antioch (d. 790) * George I of Abkhazia (ruled 872/3–878/9) * George I of Georgia (d. 1027) * Yuri Dol ...

on a visit to Hanover, where with "Water Engine" plans in hand, he gave directions for waterworks to be built for the Elector George at Herrenhausen, Hanover, borrowing Mr Holland's smith and foreman; they resulted in the largest fountain in the gardens. The main jet, expected to rise a hundred feet, merely spurted a disappointing ten. In 1717 he was offered in reversion the post of

Auditor of the Imprests Auditor of the Imprests was a profitable office of the Exchequer, responsible for auditing the accounts of officers of the English crown to whom money was issued for government expenditure, from 1559 to 1785. Foundation Prior to 1559 this duty was ...

, and in 1718 he was appointed

in place of Sir Christopher Wren. In achieving this appointment he had the assistance of

John Aislabie John Aislabie or Aslabie (; 4 December 167018 June 1742), of Studley Royal, near Ripon, Yorkshire, was a British politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1695 to 1721. He was of an independent mind, and did not stick r ...

, according to

Nicholas Hawksmoor Nicholas Hawksmoor (probably 1661 – 25 March 1736) was an English architect. He was a leading figure of the English Baroque style of architecture in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Hawksmoor worked alongside the principa ...

, who was deprived of his double post to provide places for Benson's brother. In accepting a government post he had to stand again for Parliament at Shaftesbury. He won the by-election on 21 November 1718 but was unseated on petition on 24 January 1719. As Surveyor, Benson's months in office proved disastrous for the professional staff.

Howard Colvin Sir Howard Montagu Colvin (15 October 1919 – 27 December 2007) was a British architectural historian who produced two of the most outstanding works of scholarship in his field: ''A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840' ...

noted that "Benson's surveyorship lasted for fifteen months, in the course of which he sacked his ablest subordinates, declared war on his closest colleagues, infuriated the Treasury and finally brought down upon himself the wrath of the House of Lords for falsely insisting that their Chamber was in imminent danger of collapse." The only lasting work produced under Benson's surveyorship was the suite of state rooms at Kensington Palace. After he was relieved of his position in July 1719, in a flurry of satirical pamphlets, Benson involved himself in the creation of Stourhead, designed by Campbell for Benson's brother-in-law, Henry Hoare.

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

later ridiculed him in ''

The Dunciad ''The Dunciad'' is a landmark, mock-heroic, narrative poem by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times from 1728 to 1743. The poem celebrates a goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they brin ...

'' (III.321, IV.111–12) for having erected a monument to John Milton in Westminster Abbey, 1737, then having turned and honoured with a bust by

Michael Rysbrack Johannes Michel or John Michael Rysbrack, original name Jan Michiel Rijsbrack, often referred to simply as Michael Rysbrack (24 June 1694 – 8 January 1770), was an 18th-century Flemish sculptor, who spent most of his career in England where h ...

, a distinctly minor writer of Latin verses, Dr Arthur Johnston (1587–1641); in the elaborate procession attending the Goddess Dulness, Benson appeared: "On two unequal crutches propt he came, Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's name" (''Dunciad'' IV.111-12). Benson stood for Parliament again at Shaftesbury at the 1727 general election. However, he only received four votes and thereupon cut off the water supply. In 1734 he sold Wilbury to his nephew Henry II Hoare and retired to a house in Wimbledon. A product of Benson's retirement was ''Letters concerning Poetical Translations, and Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse &c.'' (1739), where his unlucky pronouncement (page 61) that "the principal Advantage ''Virgil'' has over ''Milton'' is ''Virgil's'' Rhyme",Quoted in George Sherburn, "The Early Popularity of Milton's Minor Poems." ''Modern Philology'' 17.5 (September 1919), p 263 can hardly have failed to catch Pope's eye, if the volume fell into his hands while he was revising his ''Dunciad''. In 1735 he took over the remunerative post of

which he had been promised in 1717, a position he held until his death. Benson died on 2 February 1754. He had four sons and three daughters by his first wife, and a son and daughter by his second wife Elizabeth, whom he married after Eleanor's death in 1722.

Notes

References

*Colvin, Howard. ''A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840'' 3rd ed. (Yale University Press) 1995. *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Benson, William 1682 births 1754 deaths 18th-century English architects British MPs 1715–1722 English surveyors High Sheriffs of Wiltshire Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies

Life

Notes

References

Further reading

External links