Charles Barry

Sir Charles Barry (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was an English architect best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.Bisgrove, p. 179

Background and training

Born on 23 May 1795Barry p. 4 in Bridge Street, Westminster (opposite the future site of the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster), he was the fourth son of Walter Edward Barry (died 1805), a stationer, and Frances Barry (née Maybank; died 1798). He was baptised at St Margaret's, Westminster, into the Church of England, of which he was a lifelong member. His father remarried shortly after Frances died and Barry's stepmother Sarah would bring him up.

He was educated at private schools in Homerton and then Aspley Guise, before being apprenticed to Middleton & Bailey,Brodie, Felstead, Franklin, Pinfield and Oldfield, p. 123 Lambeth architects and surveyors, at the age of 15. Barry exhibited drawings at the Royal Academy annually from 1812 to 1815. Upon the death of his father, Barry inherited a sum of money that allowed him, after coming of age, to undertake an extensive Grand Tour around the Mediterranean and Middle East, from 28 June 1817 to August 1820.

He visited France and, while in Paris, spent several days at the Louvre. In Rome, he sketched antiquities, sculptures and paintings at the Vatican Museums and other galleries, before carrying on to Naples, Pompeii, Bari and then Corfu. While in Italy, Barry met Charles Lock Eastlake, an architect, William Kinnaird and Francis Johnson (later a professor at Haileybury and Imperial Service College) and Thomas Leverton Donaldson.

With these gentlemen he visited Greece, where their itinerary covered Athens, which they left on 25 June 1818, Mount Parnassus, Delphi, Aegina, then the Cyclades, including Delos, then Smyrna and the Ottoman Empire, where Barry greatly admired the magnificence of Hagia Sophia. From Constantinople he visited the Troad, Assos, Pergamon and back to Smyrna. In Athens, he met David Baillie, who was taken with Barry's sketches and offered to pay him £200 a year plus any expenses to accompany him to Egypt, Palestine and Syria in return for Barry's drawings of the countries they visited. Middle East sites they visited included Dendera, the Temple of Edfu and Philae – it was at the last of these three that he met his future client, William John Bankes, on 13 January 1819 – then Thebes, Luxor and Karnak. Then, back to Cairo and Giza with its pyramids.Barry, p. 36

Continuing through the Middle East, the major sites and cities visited were Jaffa, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, then Bethlehem, Baalbek, Jerash, Beirut, Damascus and Palmyra, then on to Homs.

On 18 June 1819, Barry parted from Baillie at Tripoli. Over this time, Barry created more than 500 sketches. Barry then travelled on to Cyprus, Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Ephesus and Smyrna from where he sailed on 16 August 1819 for Malta.Barry, p. 43

Barry then sailed from Malta to Syracuse, Sicily, then Italy and back through France. His travels in Italy exposed him to Renaissance architecture and after arriving in Rome in January 1820, he met architect John Lewis Wolfe, who inspired Barry himself to become an architect. Their friendship continued until Barry died. The building that inspired Barry's admiration for Italian architecture was the Palazzo Farnese. Over the following months, he and Wolfe together studied the architecture of Vicenza, Venice, Verona and Florence, where the Palazzo Strozzi greatly impressed him.

Early career

While in Rome he had met Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, through whom he met Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland, and his wife, Elizabeth Fox, Baroness Holland. Their London home, Holland House, was the centre of the Whig Party. Barry remained a lifelong supporter of the Liberal Party,Barry, p. 337 the successor to the Whig Party. Barry was invited to the gatherings at the house, and there met many of the prominent members of the group; this led to many of his subsequent commissions. Barry set up his home and office in Ely Place in 1821. In 1827 he moved to 27 Foley Place, then in 1842 he moved to 32 Great George Street and finally to The Elms, Clapham Common. Now 29 Clapham Common Northside, the Georgian house of five bays and three stories was designed by Samuel Pepys Cockerell as his own home.

Probably thanks to his fiancée's friendship with John Soane,Colvin, p. 90 Barry was recommended to the Church Building Commissioners, and was able to obtain his first major commissions building churches for them. These were in the Gothic Revival architecture style, including two in Lancashire, St Matthew's Church, Manchester (1821–22), and All Saints' Church, Whitefield (or Stand) (1822–25). Barry designed three churches for the Commissioners in Islington: Holy Trinity, St John's and St Paul's, all in the Gothic style and built between 1826 and 1828.

Two further Gothic churches in Lancashire, not for the Commissioners followed in 1824: St Saviour's Church, Ringley, partially rebuilt in 1851–54, and Barry's neglected Welsh Baptist Chapel, on Upper Brook Street (1837–39) in Manchester (and owned by the City Council), long open to the elements and at serious risk after its roof was removed in late 2005, the building was converted to private apartments in 2014–17. His final church for the Commissioners' was the Gothic St Peter's Church, Brighton (1824–28), which he won in a design competition on 4 August 1823 and was his first building to win acclaim.

The next church he designed was St Andrew's Hove, East Sussex, in Waterloo Street, Brunswick, (1827–28); the plan of the building is in line with Georgian architecture, though stylistically the Italianate style was used, the only classical church Barry designed that was actually built. The Gothic Hurstpierpoint church (1843–45), with its tower and spire, unlike his earlier churches was much closer to the Cambridge Camden Society

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