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The Custom House Scandal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

J. Mordaunt Crook
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Extract

The erection of the London Custom House, and its subsequent collapse and reconstruction, provides an interesting illustration of professional practice and building technique in the early 19th century.

Sir Robert Smirke’s Custom House appears to have been London’s seventh. The medieval building mentioned by Stow was succeeded by the larger Elizabethan edifice destroyed in the Great Fire. Wren’s ‘commodious and substantial building of brick and stone’, erected in 1671 at a cost of £10,000/ was in turn burnt in 1718 and replaced by Thomas Ripley’s essay in the Tuscan styled. It was the inadequacy of this building to cope with an increasing volume of trade and an expanding administrative system which prompted plans for rebuilding during the Napoleonic War.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 6 , 1963 , pp. 91 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1963

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References

Notes

1. Stow, J., Survey of London (ed. by Kingsford, C. L.), 1908, I, 135 Google Scholar.

2. Print in Library of H.M. Customs and Excise.

3. J. Elmes, Metropolitan Improvements, 1829.

4. D. Laing, Plans, Elevations and Sections of Buildings Public and Private including the Custom House, 1818, ix.

5. Print in B.M., Crowle Pennant, x, 10 Google Scholar.

6. Monthly Magazine, 1811, XXXVIII, 491 Google Scholar.

7. Laing, op. cit., p. 2.

8. Gentleman’s Magazine, 1814, I, 191.Google Scholar Busby’s Commercial Sale Rooms, Mincing Lane, provided temporary accommodation for the dispossessed officials.

9. Laing, op. cit., Plate I.

10. Gentleman’s Magazine, 1817, II, 360 Google Scholar.

11. In accordance with 52 G. III cap. 49.

12. Laing, op. cit., p. 4.

13. John Miles of College Hill and Henry Peto of 31 Little Britain.

14. Parliamentary Papers: Estimates and Accounts 1813–14, XI, 207 Google Scholar; Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Plan and Papers relating to a new Post Office, 1815, pp. 5–7 Google Scholar.

15. Laing, op. cit., p. 7.

16. e.g. Mr Parry of Woolwich, Rev. Thomas Webster of 3 Falcon Ct, Borough, John Dickinson of Nash Mill, Hemel Hempstead, W. James of Chelsea, James Philips of Mort-lake and a Mr Carpenter. Cf. Records of H.M. Customs and Excise: Rebuilding of Custom House, I, 1814.

17. Monthly Magazine, 1815, XXXIX, 492 Google Scholar.

18. Customs Records, op. cit., I, 4.6.1815.

19. Ibid., 1.3.1816.

20. Ibid., 9.12.1816.

21. Ibid., 18.12.1816 (and P.R.O. Works 1/8, 345).

22. Ibid., 22.11.1817 (and P.R.O. Works 12: 100/2, 40).

23. P.R.O. Works 12 : 100/2, 1–41.

24. Ibid., 69–70.

25. Customs Records, op. cit., II, 7.6.1821.

26. Ibid., 19.7.1822.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., 27.4.1820.

29. Ibid., III, 12.1.1825.

30. Ibid., 9.6.1823.

31. Ibid., 10.1.1825. Laing proposed to call the following architects to give evidence in his favour: Gwilt, Roper, I’Anson, Taylor, Abrahams, Fowler, and Montague, plus his own assistants Bellamy and Anderson (Ibid., 18.2.1825).

32. P.R.O. Works 1/13, 260: 24:3:1825.

33. Ibid., 293 : 16.4.1825.

34. Customs Records, op. cit., HI, 25.1.1827.

35. Ibid., 13.2.1828.

36. Ibid., 1827: notes for trial annotated with Smirke’s comments.

37. P.R.O. Works 1/13, 194: 26.1.1825.

38 Customs Records, op. cit.. III, 25.1.1827.

39. Ibid.

40. P.R.O. Works 1/13, 370–371: 14.6.1825.

41. Customs Records, op. cit., III, 13.2.1828.

42. Notes for trial, op. cit.

43. Soane Museum, Soane Correspondence, XII, C.

44. Cf. Hansard, N.S. XII, 1825, 1354.

45. Cf. Britton, J., Picture of London, 1825, p. 143 Google Scholar.

46. Customs Records, op. cit., Ill, 1.2.1825; 1.3.1825.

47. Ibid., 25.1.1827.

48. Ibid., 13.2.1828.

49. P.R.O. Works 1/13, 293; 16.4.1825.

50. Ibid., 1/15, 422: 20.9.1827.

51. Ibid., 1/13, 141: 7.1.1825.

52. Ibid., 353: 23.5.1825.

53. Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Office of Works, 1828, p. 79 Google Scholar; (P.P. 1828, IV, 394).

54. Library of the Fine Arts, 1831, II, 273 Google Scholar.

55. ‘Ralph Redivivus’ in The Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal, I, 1838, 187–8Google Scholar.

56. Customs Records, op. cit., III, 2.1.1827.

57. Gentleman’s Magazine, 1826, I, 460 Google Scholar; The Times, 18.5.1826, p. 4.

58. For all these arrangements cf. Customs Records, op. cit., IV.

59. Cf. H.M. Colvin, Dictionary of English Architects, 1954, p. 353, note 1.

60. Noble, J., The Professional Practice of Architects, 1836, p. 22 Google Scholar.