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The Life and Work of Henry Roberts (1803-76), Architect: The Evangelical Conscience and the Campaign for Model Housing and Healthy Nations
Henry Roberts was a successful Victorian architect and reformer whose work influenced the design of housing for the poor for generations, internationally, and whose life sheds fascinating light on both the Evangelical Movement and the inter-linked philanthropic groups in Europe. It is surprising that the importance of his career had been relatively under-estimated until the appearance of this lively, scholarly, detailed, well-illustrated, definitive biography in 1983. Having obtained his early training in the offices of the distinguished architects Charles Fowler (1792-1867) and Robert Smirke (1780-1867) and at the Royal Academy Schools, Roberts (who had worked on the drawings for the British Museum while with Smirke), won the competition for the design of the Hall for The Worshipful Company of Fishmongers of the City of London in 1831, and established a prosperous practice with many and varied commissions. One of his assistants was the young George Gilbert Scott (1811-78), who was to go on to great things himself.
From 1835 Roberts became involved in the design of model housing for the poor, and from 1844 was intimately connected with the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes: his Model Housing for the Great Exhibition of 1851 (paid for by Prince Albert) became world-famous, and his designs were exemplars for decades to come throughout Europe and America. Roberts was a prolific writer and a tireless advocate of housing reform, whose publications were translated into various languages. His links with philanthopists in France, Germany, and Italy, his network of influential clients, and his associations with the Evangelical Movement in the Church of England and similar Protestant Evangelical groups in Europe (especially in France and Germany) furthered the spread of his ideas and designs both during his working career and, after the scandal that led to his departure to Italy in 1853, for the 23 years of his very active retirement there. Curl's vivid and thoroughly researched text is illustrated with a very comprehensive record of Roberts' buildings in the form of photographs, original drawings, engravings, lithographs, water-colours, and sketches to produce, together with a delightful study of Roberts the man and his family background (with portraits discovered by Curl), a thorough and monumental work that will appeal to a wide range of readers, including social and political historians, as well and those interested in architectural history.
The Life and Work of Henry Roberts (1803-76), Architect: The Evangelical Conscience and the Campaign for Model Housing and Healthy Nations (Chichester: Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 1983).
ISBN: 0-85033-446-2
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Reviews 'Sumptuously produced, with good binding, plentiful illustrations, and an attractive jacket. There is a huge Bibliography and a large Index....Curl has written a lively study, fully researched, that tells the story of a brilliant man....Roberts's meteoric career....is chronicled...in Curl's painstaking study....' Hampshire Chronicle (29 July 1983).
'Not even in this age of the cult of youth would a likely young architect of twenty-eight be commissioned by a group of City Fathers to build a hall appropriate to their greater glory. Yet that, in 1832, was the achievement of the subject of a new biography....The author tells what proves to be a surprising tale with authority and verve. He is one of the few architectural historians who manages to absorb prodigious research which he imparts effortlessly in sustained and lively narrative....[a]...valuable and interesting book'. House and Garden (October 1983).
'Curl has offered us another valuable insight...in his book he has revealed a man "who at first appeared to be a faceless enigma" but whom we now recognise as "among the most humane, inventive, and original minds of the Victorian age". Prince Albert and Roberts seem to have been destined to meet'. Derek Linstrum in The Yorkshire Post (21 November 1983).
'Curl has exhumed the details of this unjustly forgotten architect with energy, accuracy, scholarship, and assurance. He well proves his claim that Roberts should rank higher than he has hitherto....among...social reformers and architects'. Andrew Saint in The Times Literary Supplement (18 November 1983).
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