Charles James Richardson (1806–1871) was an English architect, artist and writer.

Life

Richardson was a pupil of

Sir John Soane Sir John Soane (; né Soan; 10 September 1753 – 20 January 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. The son of a bricklayer, he rose to the top of his profession, becoming professor of architecture at the Ro ...

, from 1824 to 1830; he then became Soane's assistant, holding the position until 1837 and Soane's death. Soane's will envisaged that Richardson would be the assistant curator and librarian of the

Soane Museum Sir John Soane's Museum is a house museum, located next to Lincoln's Inn Fields in Holborn, London, which was formerly the home of neo-classical architect John Soane. It holds many drawings and architectural models of Soane's projects and a ...

. In the event, for financial reasons, he was not offered a post. For a period Richardson tried, without success, to set up an architectural academy. He became a Fellow of the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

in 1838, remaining a member to 1868. From 1845 to 1852 Richardson was master of the architectural class in the school of design at

Somerset House Somerset House is a large neoclassical architecture, neoclassical building complex situated on the south side of the Strand, London, Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadran ...

. In 1852 he designed

Leicester Stanhope, 5th Earl of Harrington Leicester FitzGerald Charles Stanhope, 5th Earl of Harrington, CB (2 September 17847 September 1862), styled The Honourable Leicester Stanhope until 1851, was an English peer and soldier. Early life Leicester Stanhope was born in Dublin in 1784 ...

's mansion

13 Kensington Palace Gardens 13 Kensington Palace Gardens, also known as Harrington House, is the former London Townhouse (Great Britain), townhouse of the Earls of Harrington. It is now the official residence of the List of ambassadors of Russia to the United Kingdom, Rus ...

; in 1853 he carried out works at

Belsize Park Belsize Park is a residential area of Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden, in the Inner London, inner North West London, north-west of London, England. The residential streets are lined with Georgian and Victorian villas and mews houses. ...

, Hampstead, and in 1856 a block of mansions in

Queen's Gate Queen's Gate is a street in South Kensington, London, England. It runs south from Kensington Gardens' Queen's Gate (the edge of which gardens are here followed by Kensington Road) to Old Brompton Road, intersecting Cromwell Road. The street i ...

, Hyde Park, for W. Jackson. He died in 1871.

Works

Richardson published: * ''Holbein's Ceiling of the Chapel Royal, St. James's'', 1837.
''Observations on the Architecture of England during the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I''
1837. * ''A Design for raising Holborn Valley'', 1837; reissued in 1863.
''A Popular Treatise on the Warming and Ventilation of Buildings''
1837. * ''Description of Warming Apparatus'', 1839. * ''Architectural Remains of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I'', 1840. * ''Studies from Old English Mansions'', 4 vols. 1841–8. * ''The Workman's Guide to the Study of Old English Architecture'', 1845. * ''A Letter to the Council of the Head Government School of Design'', 1846.
''Studies of Ornamental Design''
1851. * ''The Smoke Nuisance and its Remedy'', 1869. * ''Picturesque Designs for Mansions, Villas, Lodges, etc.'' 1870 was a popular and influential work favouring a Tudor style, with a second edition as ''The Englishman's House, from a Cottage to a Mansion'', 1871, and three further editions under that name; and a New York edition in 1873 as ''Housebuilding, from a Cottage to a Mansion''. It deprecated

stove A stove or range is a device that generates heat inside or on top of the device, for - local heating or cooking. Stoves can be powered with many fuels, such as natural gas, electricity, gasoline, wood, and coal. Due to concerns about air pollu ...

s as a substitute for open fires. A new edition with the titl
''The Englishman's house. : A practical guide for selecting and building a house''
appeared in 1898. Richardson compiled: *A collection of 549 original drawings by English architects, with several volumes of studies, including tracings from designs by

John Vanbrugh Sir John Vanbrugh (; 24 January 1664 (baptised) – 26 March 1726) was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restor ...

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (architect), William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and train ...

John Thorpe John Thorpe or Thorp (c.1565–1655?; fl.1570–1618) was an English architect. Life Little is known of his life, and his work is dubiously inferred, rather than accurately known, from a folio of drawings in the Sir John Soane's Museum, to whic ...

, and

Charles Heathcote Tatham Charles Heathcote Tatham (8 February 1772 in Westminster, London – 10 April 1842 in London), was an English architect of the early nineteenth century. Early life He was born in Duke Street, Westminster, the youngest of five sons of Ralph Tath ...

, and drawings of buildings, furniture, and ornaments, mainly of the Elizabethan period. The provenance of some of these drawings was John Soane's collection. Richardson made two sales from this collection to the

South Kensington Museum South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz' ...

library in 1863–4. He had borrowed drawings by Soane, Adam and William Chambers from Soane, saying he was intending to copy them, that he did not return. Now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, these holdings represent the only substantial collection of Soane's work, besides the Soane Museum's. *Two volumes of proofs of his own designs, from '' The Builder''. It went to the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

library. *A volume with extra-illustration of Soane material that came to light in 2003, in the British Library, accession to the British Museum library being in 1869 via the bookseller James Rimell.Bianca de Divitiis, ''A Newly Discovered Volume from the Office of Sir John Soane'', The Burlington Magazine Vol. 145, No. 1200, Centenary Issue (Mar., 2003), pp. 180–198, at p. 181. Published by: (PUB) Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd. A sketchbook of views and details of Richardson's house at

Ealing Ealing () is a district in west London (sub-region), west London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. It is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Pl ...

, and a collection of the drawings which he used at his architectural lectures, were left to the Soane Museum.

Notes

External links

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Richardson, Charles James 1806 births 1871 deaths English architects English artists English writers