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Newly discovered drawings by C. R. Cockerell for Cambridge University Library

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

David Watkin
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Extract

An important collection of over two hundred and twenty drawings relating to the former Cambridge University Library (1829–40) by C. R. Cockerell (1788–1863) has recently come to light in the present University Library. The material consists of 153 drawings which were mounted in three elephant folios by J. W. Clark when they were acquired from Cockerell’s widow in 1887; and seventy-odd drawings contained loose in a portfolio, of which at least some were passed to the University Library from the Fitzwilliam Museum by M. R. James in 1907. Since Cockerell has always been admired not only as an architect of genius but as a draughtsman of rare quality, it is a matter for rejoicing to be able to report a substantial addition to the corpus of his architectural drawings for a building which was a turning point in his stylistic development.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 26 , 1983 , pp. 87 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1983

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References

Notes

1 The drawings were discovered in 1982 by Mr Nigel Hancock of the University Library. I am grateful to him for drawing my attention to them. Since they are not included in any of the library catalogues, they were not available to me when I published The Life and Work of C. R. Cockerell, R.A. (1974).

2 Only a year or so before, Clark had written in Willis, J. and Clark, J. W., Architectural History of the University of Cambridge, III (Cambridge, 1886), 118 Google Scholar, ‘No ground-plan or elevation of Mr Cockerell’s design has been preserved in the University, so far as we have been able to discover’, and in my monograph I lamented that though sixteen sheets of drawings for the library survive in the Victoria and Albert Museum Print Room (E. 2069-2084-1909) and thirty-three drawings at Cambridge Univeristy Library (Add.MS.6630), ‘no drawings survive from the first competition and none of any consequence for the building as executed’ (p. 187). It is these drawings that have now come to light.

3 For reproductions of the entries by Wilkins and by Rickman and Hutchinson in both classical and Gothic styles, see Watkin, D. J., The Triumph of the Classical, Cambridge Architecture 1804-1834 (Cambridge, 1977), pls 7–9 Google Scholar.

4 The Rev. George Peacock (1791-1858), Fellow of Trinity, Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry from 1836-58 and Dean of Ely from 1839-58, was a reforming Whig in university matters though not in his own affairs since he was content to treat his chair as a sinecure. At a time when Whewell and Willis were making Cambridge a centre of architectural scholarship, Peacock was an active promoter of new building. He was a member of the Syndicate for building a new Observatory in 1817 and for the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1835. He made significant alterations to Blore’s designs for the Pitt Press in 1832 and was responsible for the complete restoration of Ely Cathedral carried out firstly by him and his friend Willis and eventually by Sir Gilbert Scott.

5 The Rev. Henry Coddington (1799-1845), Fellow and Tutor of Trinity.

6 See Watkin, D. J., ‘Charles Kelsall: the Quintessence of Neo-Classicism’, Architectural Review, CXL (1966), 109-12Google Scholar.

7 [Whewell, W.], Reply to Observations, etc. By a member of both Syndicates (Cambridge, 1831), p. 8 Google Scholar.

8 Vice-Chancellor’s circular of 23 June 1830 and Instructions to Architects. See Willis and Clark, op. cit., p. 110.

9 ‘At the charge of old members’.