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Charles Fowler (1792–1867): a centenary memoir

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Jeremy Taylor
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Extract

Charles Fowler was born in 1792 in the small Devonshire town of Cullompton, where his family had lived for several generations. In 1807 he was articled for seven years to the architect and builder John Powning of Exeter. Powning is mentioned as Surveyor to the Cathedral, and it seems that during this time Fowler was able to acquire that understanding of construction and materials for which he was later to become well known among his contemporaries.

At the end of this time in 1814 he left Exeter for London to work as an assistant in the office of David Laing. Laing, who had been a pupil of Sir John Soane, was appointed Architect and Surveyor to the Customs in 1810 and the same year saw the completion of his Custom House at Plymouth.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 11 , 1968 , pp. 57 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1968

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References

Notes

1 Builder, xxv (1867), p. 761. For further details of Fowler's career, cf. Taylor, Jeremy, ‘Charles Fowler: Master of Markets', Architectural Rev., cxxxv (1964), pp. 174–182.Google Scholar

2 R.I.B.A. Sessional Papers, 4 Nov. 1867, p. 3.Google Scholar At this time Fowler received a Society of Arts medal for a design for a new General Post Office.

3 Summerson, J., Georgian London (1962 ed.), p. 262.Google Scholar

4 Laing, D., Plans, Elevations and Sections of Buildings Public and Private (1818).Google Scholar

5 R.I.B.A. Papers, op. cit., p. 2.

6 For an account of this see Professional Survey of the Old and New London Bridges, a pamphlet published by Salmon, M., Fleet Street (1831).Google Scholar

7 Three drawings by Fowler, apparently of his winning design, are held by the Guildhall Records Office. Dated 11 Feb. 1823, they are for a five-span stone bridge with centre arch of 154ft span; they show block plan and elevation, centering, approach and bridge levels.

8 R.I.B.A. Papers, op. cit., p.7.

9 Architectural Mag., v (1838), p.675.Google Scholar A very similar point, about the character of the design of Exeter Lower Market, was made by Professor Richardson, A. E. in Regional Architecture of the West of England (1924), p. 40.Google Scholar

10 I.B.A. Papers, 9 May 1836. Fowler started the paper by saying: ‘It may generally be considered, that a flat roof is more convenient and beautiful than a sloping one …’

11 The tile roof had cost only £700 as opposed to £1,200 for one proposed by the Church Commissioners. See Gent's. Mag., 1842, pt.i, p.410. For other examples of contemporary Neo-Norman cf. Fedden, R. R., ‘Thomas Hopper and the Norman Revival', Studies in Architectural History, ii (1956), pp.58–69.Google Scholar

12 Architectural Mag., iv (1837), p.358.Google Scholar The pedestal was to carry a bust of William IV by G. Rennie. See also R.I.B.A. Papers, 4 Nov. 1867, p.8.

13 Architectural Mag., iii (1836), p.244.Google Scholar

14 ibid., ii (1835), p.381.

15 ibid., iii (1836), p.309.

16 ibid., iii (1836), p. 303.

17 Fowler's letter of resignation from this post is at the RIB A, dated 24 April 1843. His name appears, however, in 1845 as Joint Secretary with G. Bailey.

18 He went from his home at 1 Gordon Square to live at Wrotham in Kent 1853-57, then to Bucks, where he died on 26 Sept. 1867 at Western House, Great Marlo w. The RIBA Memoir gives his birth as May 1792. His London address prior to 1830 was 9 Great Ormond Street.

19 Architectural Mag., ii (1835), p. 129.Google Scholar St. John's Market has recently been demolished.

20 This drawing by Fowler, together with studies for a typical bay of the central avenue, are among documents relating to the design of Covent Garden held by the Bedford Estate Office. I am grateful to Mrs M. P. G. Draper of the Survey of London for bringing them to my attention.

21 To meet objections to the amount of space occupied by colonnades raised by the Duke's advisor, Mr Charlwood ( Architectural Mag., v (1838), p.668 Google Scholar).

22 ibid., p.670. This roof, which was slate covered, was removed in 1888 but part was re-erected on the north corner of Russell Street, where it still remains.

23 Dodd, G., The Food of London (1856), p. 370.Google Scholar

24 I.B.A. Papers, 15 Dec. 1862. This paper, subtitled with some irony ‘Just removed to make room for the Railway Station', was given by Fowler to mark the passing of his largest architectural work after only 30 years. This failure to establish the popularity of the market with the public can be compared with the later failure of Darbyshire's Columbia Market.

25 R.I.B.A. Papers, 4 Nov. 1867, p.7.

26 The contractors were Messrs Thomas Grissell & Henry Morton Peto, a newly formed partnership. They were principal beneficiaries under the will of their uncle Henry Peto, the ill-starred contractor for the Custom House. See Crook, J. Mordaunt, ‘The Custom House Scandal', Architectural History, vi (1963), pp.91–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sir George Gilbert Scott worked as a young man on the Hungerford project and recalled: ‘The work was constructed on principles then new. Iron girders, Yorkshire landings, roofs and platforms of tiles in cement, and columns of granite being its leading elements … Fowler's working drawings [were] some of the best and most perspicuous I have ever seen’ ( Scott, , Personal and Professional Recollections (1879), p. 72 Google Scholar).

27 Henry Roberts (1803–76) and J. M. Allen (1809-83) are the only two recorded pupils of Fowler. His son, also Charles Fowler, became an architect and was co-author with Peter Berlyn of an account of the construction of the Crystal Palace published 1851.

28 Fowler's signed copy of the Précis des Legons is in the RIBA library.

29 Illustrated in Giedion, S., Space, Time and Architecture (1962 ed.), p. 228.Google Scholar To test the principle of the central abutment a series of experiments on models were made by Messrs Bramah's (the contractors). It was found that the form ‘bore nearly double the weight of a straight bar of the same section’ (L.B.A. Papers, 15 Feb. 1836). This suggests therefore that the models must have been tested to breaking point in a scientific analysis.

30 Illustrated in Bauzeitung, 1838, and I.B.A. Papers, 9 May 1836. In the latter Fowler recommended three courses of tiles if the surface was to be used for walking on, two courses if it was no more than a roof cover. At Hungerford the cast iron bearers were at 3ft 8in centres.

31 The altered situation on the river front is shown in Tallis's Illustrated London(1839). This depreciation of the lower court may have been one contributory factor in the market's decline (I.B.A. Papers, 15 Dec. 1862, p. 57).

32 Second was Ambrose Poynter, third J. B. Bunning. Fowler is also mentioned as the architect of the Portman Market in the report in Architectural Mag., i (1834), p. 352.Google Scholar

33 The Exeter outbreak is described in Longmate, N., King Cholera (1966), ch. 12.Google Scholar

34 A drawing from a survey by Sir John Summerson (in NMR), made after the market's partial destruction by bombing, is a valuable source of information.

35 The south elevation was reproduced on a bronze medal by B. Wyon, struck in 1837 to commemorate the market's completion. See Taylor, Jeremy, ‘Nineteenth-century Architectural Medals', Architectural Rev., cxli (1967), p.231.Google Scholar

36 There are four drawings (Nos. 13,16,17,19) signed by Fowler during 1836–37 in the Muniment Room of the Exeter Reference Library. They include details of the cast iron work and trussed girders to the Subscription Room.

37 Papworth, Wyatt (ed.), Dictionary of Architecture (APS, 1852-92), s.v. ‘Laminated rib’.Google Scholar

38 ibid. s.v. ‘Bent timber’.

39 Two of the more obvious amendments were the omission of the horticultural gallery to the central avenue and, in the same area, the use of laminated tile roofs on cast iron bearers.

40 The whole of the front and some parts of the roof are given as plate glass in Aungier, G. J., History of Syon Monastery (1840).Google Scholar

41 Gardeners Mag., ii, p. 107.Google Scholar

42 ibid., xiv, p. 443. The general design is strongly criticized in M'Intosh, C., The Book of the Garden (Edinburgh, 1853).Google Scholar It is cited as being too narrow for its length with back walls solid instead of glass; with ‘ventilation… imperfectly effected … and to this may be attributed in a great degree that want of success which, for years after its erection, was found to exist’.

43 The original of this plan, signed by Fowler, is in the office of the Maristow Estates, Roborough, Devon, together with a presentation water-colour of the lodge gates - presumably that exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839.

44 R.I.B.A. Papers, 4 Nov. 1867, p. 10.

45 ibid., p. 12.

46 A letter from D. Mocatta ( Builder, vii (1849), p. 111 Google Scholar) claimed the idea as the one with which he originally won a competition for the Fever Hospital.

47 Builder, iv (1846), p.349.Google Scholar

48 Early Victorian Architecture in Britain, i (1954), p. 299.Google Scholar

49 Georgian London, op. cit., p. 264.