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‘Our very quaint old architect’: Some Letters of William Butterfield

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Peter Howell
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Extract

Paul Thompson’s monograph on William Butterfield set out to challenge the bizarre misconceptions which had previously warped appreciation of his work. These included Sir John Summerson’s accusation of ‘purposeful sadism’, Ian Nairn’s view of him as an ‘unexpected Heathcliff, and Henry-Russell Hitchcock’s description of him as uncivilized, ‘a man who never wrote a book or an article’ and who rarely travelled. Mendacious anecdotes suggested a puritanical and antisocial character, lacking in humanity. Thompson effectively refuted such absurdities, but Butterfield’s letters — very few of which have been published, even in part — provide fascinating evidence of his character. They reveal his humour and his affection for old friends, and his strongly held, but eminently sensible, religious views, as well as his pragmatic and conscientious practice of architecture. This evidence bears out and adds much useful detail to Thompson’s depiction of the man, refining our understanding of him and allowing his personality to come to the fore.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 53 , 2010 , pp. 217 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2010

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References

Notes

1 Thompson, Paul, William Butterfield (London, 1971)Google Scholar.

2 Thompson, William Butterfield, pp. 3-5.

3 I am grateful to Cheshire and Chester Archives and Local Studies, and to the Revd Canon K. Peter Lee, Rector of Christleton, for permission to quote from these letters, the overall reference for which is P/28/7/5-28. Ms Caroline Picco, at the Cheshire Record Office, has been particularly helpful. On the church, see Thompson, William Butterfield, pp. 48, 71, 133, 142, 193, 432, 454, 460 and 472.

4 Cheshire and Chester Archives and Local Studies, P/28/7/7.

5 These letters are Cheshire and Chester Archives, P/28/7/14, /15, /18, /20 and /25.

6 Copies of the Goodhart-Rendel papers are available at the National Monuments Record, Swindon, and at the RIBA, London.

7 Thompson, William Butterfield, p. 432. He gives the cost of the rebuilding as ‘c. £7,000’, which is surprising as Garnett seems to refer to an estimate of £4,000.

8 A ‘Catalogue of the Papers of the Horsley family’ was compiled in 1990 by Anna Bunney and is available online at <http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/1500-1900/horsley/horsley.html> [accessed 1 May 2010]. The letters from Butterfield to Horsley are Bodleian, MS Eng. c.2223, ff. 113-14, and MS Eng. c.2226, ff. 12-17.

9 Thompson, William Butterfield, p. 458; also Thompson, Paul, ‘All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, Reconsidered’, Architectural History, 8 (1965), pp. 73–94 (pp. 75–76 and 79)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; William, Henry and Law, Irene, The Book of the Beresford Hopes (London, 1925), p. 164 Google Scholar. Beresford Hope also got Horsley the commission to decorate Yealmpton Church, in Devon, with frescoes, after it was rebuilt by Butterfield in 1848-50, but the conversion to Rome in 1850 of the patron, Edward Bastard, terminated the project — see Horsley, J. C., Recollections of a Royal Academician, ed. Mrs Helps, Edmund (London, 1903), pp. 346–48 Google Scholar.

10 ‘The Life and Work of William Butterfield’, Architect, 83 (1910), pp. 129-30 and 145-47 (pp. 145-46). Swinfen Harris refers (p. 145) to Butterfield’s ‘forceful methods as an admirable and voluminous correspondent; he not only wrote long and very scholarly letters, but every word of them had its due place, weight and measure most exactly apportioned’.

11 Saint, Andrew, Richard Norman Shaw (New Haven and London, 2nd edn, 2010), pp. 44–48 Google Scholar.

12 Thompson, William Butterfield, p. 45.

13 I am grateful to the Warden and Fellows of Keble College for allowing me to publish these letters. Particular thanks are due to the Archivist, Rob Petre, for his help.

14 Keble College archive, Oxford, AD 1 /C40, letter from Butterfield to Thomas Keble, 14 June 1866.

15 Keble College archive, Oxford, AD 1 /C40, letter from Butterfield to Thomas Keble, 1 July 1866.

16 Keble College archive, Oxford, AD 1 /C40, letter from Butterfield to ‘Mrs Keble’, 19 August 1866.

17 For a picture of Mr and Mrs Keble’s graves before the stones were added, see Moor, J. W. F., The Birthplace, Home, Churches and Other Places Connected with the Author of ‘The Christian Year’ (Winchester and London, 1867), p. 165 Google Scholar. For a picture of their ‘coped stones’, see Warren, W. Thorn, Kebleland (Winchester and London, 1900), p. 15 Google Scholar.

18 On Keble College, see Rowell, Geoffrey, ‘“Training in Simple and Religious Habits”: Keble and its First Warden’, in History of the University of Oxford, VII, Part II, ed. Brock, M. G. and Curthoys, M. C. (Oxford, 2000), pp. 171–91 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Howell, Peter, ‘Oxford Architecture, 1800-1914’, in History of the University of Oxford, VII, Part II, pp. 729–77 (pp. 744–46 Google Scholar). See also Stephenson, Gwendolen, Edward Stuart Talbot (London, 1936)Google Scholar.

19 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/1 (32), letter from Revd Edward Churton, 16 May 1867.

20 John Sankey, ‘Edward Stuart Talbot’, rev. Geoffrey Rowell, Oxford New Dictionary of National Biography, <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36409?docPos=2> [accessed 1 May 2010].

21 Talbot described him thus in a letter of 28 December 1922, sending some correspondence relating to Keble College.

22 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/4 (28), letter from Talbot to H. E. Pellew, 14 October 1870.

23 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/12 (37), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 19 September 1875.

24 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/7 (50), letter from Butterfield to Pellew, 10 March 1871.

25 For example, by Howell, ‘Oxford Architecture’, p. 745, n. 51.

26 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/10 (22), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 23 April 1873.

27 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/9 (23), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 1 September 1872.

28 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/10 (24), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 4 May 1873.

29 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/5, letter from Butterfield to Talbot, 4 April 1870.

30 Thompson, William Butterfield, pp. 461-73; Kerney, Michael, ‘The Stained Glass Commissioned by William Butterfield’, The Journal of Stained Glass, 20, no. 1 (1996), pp. 1–30 Google Scholar; Kerney, Michael, ‘AH Saints’, Margaret Street: a Glazing History’, The Journal of Stained Glass, 25 (2002), pp. 27–52 Google Scholar.

31 Kerney, ‘The Stained Glass’, p. 14.

32 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/5, letter from Butterfield to Talbot, 11 March 1870.

33 Centre for Oxfordshire Studies, Oxford: photograph in Taunt Collection, OCL 771.

34 There is correspondence at Keble between Sir John Taylor Coleridge and John Keble relating to the Hursley glass. It appears that Coleridge at first offered to pay for all of it. On 5 May 1848 he said that he is sending Wailes to make an estimate. On 11 September 1849 he consulted Keble about the iconographical scheme for glass at Ottery St Mary, and wrote, ‘you will need Butterfield’s advice on the subject — he is no mean authority’. Coleridge wrote later about the Hursley glass that Keble ‘eventually had the good fortune to secure the direction and inspection of Mr Butterfield, a candid but severe judge’ (A Memoir of the Rev. John Keble, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1870), p. 349).

35 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Miss Wilbraham to Talbot, 5 April 1875.

36 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Butterfield to Talbot, 7 April 1875.

37 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/10 (2), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 10 January 1873.

38 Thompson, William Butterfield, p. 468.

39 Kerney, ‘The Stained Glass’, pp. 19 and 21.

40 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/Di /y (2), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 10 July 1872.

41 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Gibbs to Talbot, 11 December 1872.

42 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Pusey to Talbot, 27 December 1872.

43 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Liddon to Talbot, 31 December 1872.

44 Thompson, William Butterfield, pp. 247-49.

45 Talbot, Bishop Edward S., Memories of Early Life (London, 1924), p. 63 Google Scholar.

46 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA/1 A/3, letter from Butterfield to Talbot, 12 December 1872.

47 Thompson, William Butterfield, p. 105.

48 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/9 (4), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 14 July 1872.

49 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/9 (6), letter from Butterfield, 20 July 1872.

50 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Butterfield to Talbot, 27 August 1872.

51 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Beauchamp to Talbot, 8 September 1872.

52 Scott’s chapel for Exeter College (1856-59) had provided space for the Rector’s family in an annexe on the north side. Heads of houses were the only senior members of these colleges allowed to marry.

53 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Butterfield to Talbot, 9 September 1872.

54 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Beauchamp to Talbot, 18 December 1872.

55 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Liddon to Talbot, 31 December 1872.

56 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, note by Talbot, 10 January 1873.

57 On the accident, see Builder, 32 (1874), p. 977. Breathwitt is also referred to in letters from Butterfield to Pellew of 9 July 1870 and 21 June 1871.

58 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/11(10), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 26 November 1874.

59 Hughes, A. C., ‘Life, Achievements and Influence of Thomas Combe of Oxford’ (doctoral thesis, Oxford Brookes University, 1996)Google Scholar.

60 The words quoted come from Hunt, W. Holman, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 2 vols (London, 1905), p. 411 Google Scholar. On the picture, see Maas, Jeremy, Holman Hunt and the Light of the World (London, 1984)Google Scholar.

61 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3. The Council Minutes record the offer of the bust in 1890. In 1894 it was in the Library. It is now in the Senior Common Room.

62 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Mrs Combe to Talbot, 17 March 1873.

63 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Mrs Combe to Talbot, 14 November 1873.

64 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/10 (43), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 13 March 1873.

65 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. lett. c.2196 is a collection of letters (and other papers), mostly to Holman Hunt, but including letters to Mrs Combe.

66 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/11 (2), letter from Liddon to Shaw Stewart, January 1874.

67 According to Holman Hunt and Walter Lock, in their exchange of letters published in The Times between 24 March and 2 April 1904.

68 Letter in Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c.2196.

69 Letter in Bodleian, MS Eng. lett. c.2196.

70 Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism, p. 411. There was a suggestion that the picture might be placed on an easel in the chapel, which hardly sounds sensible.

71 On the Gibbs family, see Miller, James, Fertile Fortune: The Story ofTyntesfield (London, 2003)Google Scholar.

72 See the letter from Hunt to James Crossley, quoted by Maas, Holman Hunt, p. 97. Hunt’s notion is all the more strange when one recalls that he wrote in his book (11, p. 410), ‘The suspicion of certain thinkers that the Light of the World was painted to support the Puseyite movement had no justification’.

73 Keble College, Council minutes, 15 October 1890.

74 The Council Minutes of 17 January 1894 record Mrs Combe’s bequest of £1,500 ‘towards the cost of completing the Liddon chapel’. Subscriptions were sought under the name ‘Liddon Chapel’ and the name has occasionally been used, but there is no evidence that Mrs Combe intended it to be a memorial to Liddon (who had died in 1890), nor does Liddon’s name appear anywhere in it.

75 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/5, letter from Talbot, 28 December 1922.

76 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/10 (3), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 21 January 1873.

77 There are copies in Keble College Library (including the one sent by Butterfield to Talbot in 1893), but there is none in the Bodleian.

78 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Butterfield to Liddon, 7 January 1873.

79 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Liddon to Butterfield, 10 January 1873.

80 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Butterfield to Liddon, 14 January 1873. The inscription on the brass — ‘a memorable portion of our Litany, which he so loved’ (Coleridge, p. 561) — reads ‘By thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, by thy precious death and burial, by thy glorious resurrection and ascension and by the coming of the Holy Ghost, good Lord deliver us’.

81 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Liddon to Talbot, 14 January 1873.

82 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Liddon to Butterfield, 17 January 1873.

83 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Butterfield to Talbot, 20 January 1873.

84 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Butterfield to Talbot, 22 January 1873.

85 Bodleian MS Eng. lett. c. 2196, letter to Hunt of 1876 (date illegible).

86 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/10 (3), letter from Butterfield to Shaw Stewart, 21 January 1873.

87 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/10 (5), letter from W. E. Sackville West to Shaw Stewart, 22 January 1873.

88 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/FDN/D1/10 (6), letter from P. G. Medd to Shaw Stewart, 22 January 1873.

89 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Talbot to Butterfield, 31 January 1873.

90 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Butterfield to Talbot, February 1873.

91 Keble College archive, Oxford, letter from Butterfield to Sackville West, KC/CHA 1 A/5, 11 February 1873.

92 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Butterfield to Talbot, 14 March 1873.

93 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letters from William Gibbs to Talbot, October 1873.

94 Keble College archive, Oxford, KC/CHA 1 A/3, letter from Pusey to Butterfield, 22 October 1873.

95 Butterfield does not seem to have had any direct dealings with Pusey, though he had acted as architect for convents which were under Pusey’s supervision.