Hawksmoor, Nicholas

Person

Hawksmoor, Nicholas

c. 1662 –1736

Hawksmoor was an English architect whose importance lies in his representation of the English Baroque style. He was probably born in early 1662. It is not known where he received his schooling but it has been suggested it could have been at the grammar school in Dunham, Nottinghamshire. At 18 he left home to work as a clerk for architect Sir Christopher Wren. His first official post was as Deputy Surveyor to Wren at Winchester Palace from 1683 until 1685. Hawksmoor worked with Wren on all his major architectural projects, including Chelsea Hospital (1681 -1692), St. Paul's Cathedral (completed 1710), Hampton Court Palace (1689-1700), and Greenwich Hospital (1699-1702). By 1688 he was designing buildings, and by about 1690 executing them, both under Wren's continued direction and on independent commissions. In 1689 he was named Clerk of the Works at Kensington Palace, and in 1705 Deputy Surveyor of Works at Greenwich. On Wren’s death (1723), Hawksmoor became surveyor general of Westminster Abbey, the west towers of which were built (1734–45) to his design. Hawksmoor also worked with architect Sir John Vanbrugh. He was involved in the building of Blenheim Palace (1705–25) in Oxfordshire for John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and Castle Howard (1699–1726) in Yorkshire for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle. John Vanbrugh made Hawksmoor his deputy as Comptroller of the Works in 1721. Hawksmoor also took on commissions on his own and it is mainly for these that he is most well-known. In 1702, he designed the baroque country house of Easton Neston (1695-1710) in Northamptonshire for Sir William Fermor. In 1713 he was commissioned to complete King's College, Cambridge but Hawksmoor's scheme was never executed. He conceived grand rebuilding schemes for central Oxford, most of which were not realised. However, he designed and completed the Clarendon Building at Oxford (1711-1715); the Codrington Library and new buildings at All Souls College, Oxford (1716-34); parts of Worcester College, Oxford with Sir George Clarke in 1720 and the High Street entrance gate at The Queen's College, Oxford (1733-36). In 1711 Hawksmoor was appointed one of two surveyors to a commission to build 50 new churches in the Cities of London and Westminster and their immediate environs. In this capacity he designed and completed the six churches for which he is most well known: St. Anne’s (1714–24; consecrated in 1730) in Limehouse, St. George-in-the-East (1714–29) in Wapping Stepney, Christ Church (1714–29) in Spitalfields; St. Mary Woolnoth (1716–24) in the City of London; St. Alphege’s (1712-1718) in Greenwich and St. George’s (1716-1731) in Bloomsbury. Hawksmoor died on 25 March 1736 in his house at Millbank, London.

Kerry Downes, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2005): https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-12692?rskey=1byvzL&result=2