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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
The British Architectural Library (RIBA) possesses a collection of 81 letters written by J. F. Bentley to Charles Hadfield (including a few to his father or son), together with the draft of one letter from Hadfield to Bentley, as well as 6 letters which he received from W. R. Lethaby. The letters from Bentley cover the whole period of their acquaintance, from a few months after their first meeting in 1862 (when Bentley was 23 and Hadfield 22), until two days before his death in 1902. They are here published in full, with a running commentary.
Charles Hadfield’s father, Matthew Ellison Hadfield (1812–85), was born at Lees Hall, Glossop, Derbyshire. Matthew’s grandfather Charles had been farm and gamekeeper to the Duke of Norfolk at Lees Hall, and his father Joseph (described as ‘of Lees Hall, gent.’) married Mary Ellison, whose father, Matthew Ellison, was steward of the Duke of Norfolk’s Glossop estate. Matthew Ellison Hadfield entered the office of his uncle, Michael Ellison, who was steward of the Duke’s Sheffield estate, in 1827, when he was 15.
1 There seems to be no record of when or how the letters reached the RIBA, but it is likely that they were presented by Charles Hadfield’s son, C. M. E. Hadfield, at some time between his father’s death in 1916 and his own in 1949.
2 Bentley’s writing is not easy to read, and a few words whose decipherment is uncertain have been left in square brackets. Some letters bear annotations, presumably by either Charles Hadfield or his son. These have been taken into account, but not always transcribed. Bentley’s erratic punctuation has sometimes been supplemented in the interests of clarity, but occasional ungrammatical wordings have been left uncorrected. The ‘HAD …’ numbers (in square brackets) are those used when the letters were catalogued at the RIBA.
3 The Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson collection in the Sheffield Central Library contains two sheets of plans and elevations of Robinson’s scheme.
4 ‘His desire, after a life of hard work, was to die in harness, and this was in great measure granted him’ (Building News, xlviii (1885), p. 406). Prof. Welsh claimed that Charles only took over the designing of buildings in about 1875, after which an improvement in quality can be observed, but the letters show that this is an over-simplification.
5 Mrs de l’Hôpital (p. 350) claims that when the term of his pupilage expired, in August 1860, Bentley was actually offered a partnership by Clutton, but Prof. Welsh thought that this must have been an exaggeration.
6 He was the first person to be baptized in it, and the font was not yet installed.
7 De l’Hôpital, p. 355.
8 The restoration was under way by 20 September 1862—Builder, xx (1862), p. 683. For further details see Builder, xxi (1863), p. 354.
9 Hadfield, C., ‘The Pre-Reformation Churches of Hallamshire and the Surrounding District’, in The British Association Handbook and Guide to Sheffield (1910), pp. 76–77.Google Scholar Matthew Hadfield published an account of it in the Transactions of the RIBA (1862–63), pp. 240–41: this is probably what is meant by‘the promised memoranda’.
10 De l’Hôpital, pp. 355 and 382.
11 There is a puzzle over this commission: Mrs de l’Hôpital tells us on p. 355 that his visit to Ushaw came about because he was working at Crook, whereas on p. 382 she suggests that he received the Crook commission on his visit to Ushaw.
12 De l’Hôpital, p. 349; see also p. 339.
13 De l’Hôpital, pp. 383 and 520.
14 These included the ‘Study for a Chancel’ which he showed at the RA in 1861 (Official Catalogue of the International Exhibition: Fine Art Dept No. 2082); ‘a stone reredos executed by Earp of Lambeth’ (see l’Hôpital, p. 380. It may have been the one for St Peter and St Edward’s, but ‘Earp of Lambeth was entrusted with all his stone carving at this period’ — de l’Hôpital, pp. 373–74); some iron gates, made by Hart and Son (de l’Hôpital, p. 357); and a magnificent brass lectern, also made by Hart and Son (now in Gloucester Cathedral — de l’Hôpital, pp. 556–57). (The reredos, gates and lectern must have been reckoned in the Official Catalogue … : Industrial Dept under No. 2427 Earp, T. — Architectural and decorative carvings, and No. 6307 Hart and Son — Ecclesiastical metal-work). Bentley was, in addition, responsible, together with Westlake, for the cartoon for ‘A 14th century window. Subject “Our Lord Sitting in Judgment”’, exhibited by Lavers and Barraud (Industrial Dept No. 6745. This window has not been traced.) Bentley’s friendship with T. C. Lewis brought him many commissions to design organ-cases: see de l’Hôpital, pp. 356–57, 619 f.
15 De l’Hôpital, p. 358.
16 SeeM. E. Hadfield’s article in the Transactions of the RIB A (1862–63), pp. 240–41.
17 De l’Hôpital, pp. 341–42.
18 De l’Hôpital, pp. 343–46.
19 Bodleian Library, MS. English Letters e.28, f.112. Even that stern critic F. T. Palgrave liked it (Essayson Art (1866), p. 311).
20 It was moved in 1898 (by Edward Goldie) to St John’s Wood, as part of the Hospital of SS. John and Elizabeth. See Builder, xxii (1864), pp. 827–28Google Scholar; lxxv (1898), p. 364; Little, B., Catholic Churches since 1623 (1966), p. 140.Google Scholar
21 William Butterfield (1971), p. 347. Many would consider Henry Woodyer the exception to this rule.
22 Kaye, B., The Development of the Architectural Profession in Britain (1960), pp. 99 f.Google Scholar; also Fletcher, H. M. in The Growth and Work of the RIBA, ed. Gotch, J. A. (1934), p. 87.Google Scholar Hadfield’s certificate hangs in the office of Messrs Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson & Partners. The examiners in 1864 were Ashpitel, A., Scott, G. G., and Hayter Lewis, T.. He was ‘the first local man’ to pass the examination (Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society, i (1918), p. 243).Google Scholar
23 B. Kaye, pp. 99 and 101.
24 B. Kaye, p. 100.
25 RIBA Journal, xxiii (1916), p. 210.
26 At the time of their father’s death in 1885 she was at their house in Brighton ( Building News, xlviii (1885), p. 406 Google Scholar).
27 Building News, ibid.; Prof. Welsh’s notes.
28 Register of elections of Associates at the RIBA.
29 De l’Hôpital, p. 668.
30 Builder, xxii (1864), p. 120 Google Scholar; Sheffield Telegraph, 3 February 1864, p. 3; Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 6 February, 1864, p. 8.
31 He ‘regarded the system as unreasonable theoretically, while in effect misleading as to the discovery of true merit or inventive power, and positively hurtful when estimated cost and actual expenditure come to be taken into account’ (de l’Hôpital pp. 348–49, quoting T. J. Willson’s memoir in RIBA Journal, July 1902).
32 Rottmann, A., London Catholic Churches (1926), pp. 60–64 Google Scholar; Survey of London, xxxiii (1966), pp. 79–80.Google Scholar
33 De l’Hôpital, pp. 449–52.
34 Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 23 March 1916, p. 4; de l’Hôpital, p. 385. A window (showing St Joseph) on the Oratory stairs in St Marie’s, Sheffield, commemorates Charles Rimondi, sometime of Halifax, who died in 1861, and Constance Rimondi, died 1879. These were presumably Emily’s parents. The window was designed by Bentley in 1884, as was another in the Baptistery, also commemorating them, which has now been replaced.
35 De l’Hôpital, p. 351.
36 Builder, xxiii (1865), p. 252.Google Scholar The chapel was opened on 5 February 1867: see Building News, xiv (1867), p. 578 Google Scholar; Builder, xxv (1867), p. 398 Google Scholar. There is an interesting critique of the chapel in East- lake’s, C. L. History of the Gothic Revival (1872), p. 350 Google Scholar: he sees it as a remarkable instance of a good contemporary of Pugin (he much admired M. E. Hadfield’s churches — see pp. 242–43) keeping pace with the times and ‘remodelling his manner of design’. How much this was really due to Charles Hadfield is an interesting question.
37 Information from Sister Lois Francis, S.N.D.
38 Hadfield, C., A History of St Marie’s Mission and Church (1889), p. 98 Google Scholar; Builder, xxv (1867), p. 718 Google Scholar. Thomas Hayball was contractor for the carpenter’s work at St Marie’s.
39 Builder, xxiii (1865), p. 416.Google Scholar
40 Building News, xiii (1866), p. 454.Google Scholar
41 De l’Hôpital, p. 386. The details may well have included the corbels on the corners, which took the form of athletes supporting the angle above and bearing the railway company’s armorial badges: they were carved by T. Phyffers ( Builder, xxvii (1869), p. 74 Google Scholar; see also pp. 26–27). Photographs of the Hotel were shown at the Architectural Exhibition in 1869 ( Building News, xvi (1869), p. 451 Google Scholar), and in the next year a‘fine drawing’ of it, ‘lately completed’, was shown (ibid., xviii (1870), p. 427; Builder, xxviii (1870), p. 400 Google Scholar). This drawing is presumably the one which now hangs in the office of Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson & Partners. There are working drawings in the firm’s collection in Sheffield Central Library (123/28/1–10 — one is dated September 1867). The upper storeys were rebuilt (after a fire) in 1906. The hotel (which is in Wellington Street) is now called the Wellesley Hotel.
42 Del’Hôpital,p. 354.
43 (1889) pp. 142 f.
44 xxiv(1866), p. 893.
45 Del’Hôpital, p. 353.
46 Fr Rawes was an Oblate of St Charles. It was he who paid for the building of St Francis’, and gave Bentley his first commissions there.
47 Basil Champneys, Coventry Patmore (1900), ii, p. 226.
48 De l’Hôpital, p. 662.
49 Del’Hôpital, p. 386.
50 In the Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson collection in the Sheffield Central Library (124/18/1–2). The ‘enclosed tracing’ referred to in the letter does not survive.
51 De l’Hôpital, p. 349.
52 ‘Sculpture in High Victorian Architecture’, in The High Victorian Cultural Achievement, Victorian Society Second Conference Report, 2nd edition (1967), p. 33.
53 Building News, xiv (1867), p. 578.
54 Del’Hôpital, p. 333.
55 Del’Hôpital,p. 362.
56 C. Hadfield, A History of St Marie’s Church and Mission (1889), p. 144.
57 De l’Hôpital, pp. 353–54. She dates the ‘serious professional disagreement’ which ‘resulted in the death of friendship and the unhappy termination of all communication between the two men’ to ‘about 1883’ (p. 525), but there is evidence to suggest that it did not occur until 1885 or even 1886.
58 For the reredos see de l’Hôpital, p. 607; for the altar rails p. 561. The stained glass which Bentley designed for the apse (p. 551) may survive. The tympanum, and the font which he designed in 1883 (p. 617), were destroyed. Since the article was written, six drawings for the church have come to light (they are now on loan to the RIBA Drawings Collection). They include the drawing for the tabernacle referred to in this letter (which is dated 10 June), as well as the original design for the high altar and (presumably unexecuted) reredos, an alternative design for the 1875 reredos and throne, the working drawing for the font (dated August 1883), and details for the street elevation of the Presbytery.
According to an article copied from the Doncaster, Nottingham and Lincoln Gazette for 2 August 1867 (kept at the new Presbytery), the statue of St Peter on the front of the church was carved by Earp with the aid of ‘Mr Lee of Retford’.
The statue of the BVM referred to in the previous letter may be the stone figure representing Our Lady of Doncaster now in the Lady Chapel of the new church. One at least of the Bentley windows (that of St Elizabeth) is stored in the church boiler-room. The other two may be at St Peter’s School.
The crucifix at present on the Bentley altar must date from considerably later than 1867, as it has a Renaissance flavour.
59 Champneys, Basil, Coventry Patmore (1900), i, pp. 84, 85 n., 132, 210.Google Scholar
60 De l’Hôpital, p. 481.
61 Champneys, i, p. 226.
62 Champneys, i, p. 229.
63 Anon. [Patmore, C.], How I managed and improved my estate (1886), p. 57 Google Scholar.
64 Ibid., pp. 43 f.
65 De l’Hôpital, pp. 481–85; see also Champneys, i, p. 226.
66 Champneys, i, p. 233.
67 It seems possible that Mrs de l’Hôpital may have misunderstood the letter from her father which she quotes on p. 481: the ‘woodwork for the two great windows’ may have been the surrounding joinery work.
68 Del’Hôpital, p. 525; see also p. 670.
69 Thompson, P., William Butterfield (1971), p. 245.Google Scholar
70 Perkins, T., A Short Account of Romsey Abbey (1907), p. 24 Google Scholar.
71 Pevsner, N., Buildings of England: Hampshire (1967), p. 478 Google Scholar.
72 Victoria County History of Hampshire, iv (1911), p. 463.Google Scholar
73 Perkins, pp. 21—22.
74 Victoria County History of Hampshire, v (1912), p. 55.Google Scholar
75 Builder, xxv (1867), p. 914.Google Scholar
76 C. J. Innocent, FRIBA (1839–1901), who had been articled to the firm of Weightman, Hadfield & Goldie, was a Congregationalist. He and his partner T. Bower Brown later specialized in Board Schools (W. Odom, Hallamshire Worthies (1926) ).
77 Dictionary of National Biography. M. E. Hadfield had designed a memorial to Locke at Barnsley RC School ( Builder, xx (1862), p. 296 Google Scholar).
78 Building News, xiv (1867), p. 580.Google Scholar
79 Building News, xiv (1867), p. 578.Google Scholar
80 A memorial in the north transept of St Marie’s, Sheffield, commemorates a son who died in 1874 at the age of six months, and a daughter who died in 1875 aged eight days.
81 De l’Hôpital, pp. 383–84.
82 De l’Hôpital, p. 386.
83 De l’Hôpital, p. 393.
84 De l’Hôpital, pp. 499 f.
85 Building News, xv (1868), pp. 346–47Google Scholar.
86 Building News, xiv (1867), p. 208 Google Scholar; reproduced in Architectural History, xi (1968) as Fig. 20a.
87 Summerson, J., Victorian Architecture: Four Studies in Evaluation (1970), p. 111 Google Scholar. E. W. Godwin made the same accusation in print: see Building News, xvii (1869), p. 435 Google Scholar.
88 Port, M. H., ‘The new Law Courts competition 1866–67’, Architectural History, xi (1968), pp. 90–91 Google Scholar.
89 De l’Hôpital, p. 394. The house (on the site of the present No. 30 John Adam St) has been demolished.
90 Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson collection, Sheffield Central Library, 123/21/1. For details of the restoration see Builder, xxv (1867), p. 34; xxvii (1869), p. 653; Building News, xxxvii (1879), p. 598; Hunter, J., Hallamshire (1869), p. 495 Google Scholar; Hadfield, C., ‘The Pre-Reformation Churches of Hallamshire’, in British Association Handbook and Guide to Sheffield (1910), pp. 73–75 Google Scholar. It is odd that in this work Hadfield makes no reference to Bentley.
91 De l’Hôpital, p. 531.
92 Builder, xxiv (1866), p. 690 Google Scholar.
93 Builder, xxv (1867), p. 702 Google Scholar.
94 Builder, xxix (1871), p. 1034 Google Scholar.
95 Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson collection, Sheffield Central Library, 124/1.
96 De l’Hôpital, p. 353; see also pp. 381; 391; 524; R. Gunnis. Dictionary of British Sculptors. According to the Art Journal (New Series, iv (1858), p. 48) it was Sir Charles Barry who invited him over.
97 Thieme-Becker s. v. Geerts.
98 According to J. B. Philip and J. R. Clayton, who were associated with him in the work: see Barry, A., The Architect of the New Palace at Westminster (1868), pp. 89–90 Google Scholar.
99 According to Rottmann, A., London Catholic Churches (1926), p. 73 Google Scholar.
100 Building News, xv (1868), p. 226 Google Scholar.
101 Building News, xiv (1867), p. 578 Google Scholar.
102 He was one of the four sculptors said to have died in poverty ‘within about two years’ by Sir Gilbert Scott (Personal and Professional Recollections (1879), p. 307). The others were J. B. Philip (died 1875); Alfred Stevens (died 1875); and J. F. Redfern (died 1876): see Stamp, G., Architectural History, xix (1976), p. 68 Google Scholar. A search through the notices of deaths in the Tablet tot 1874–77 failed to turn one up for Phyffers. The statement in Boase, F., Modern Biography, vi (1921)Google Scholar, that Phyffers was in partnership with R. T. Fallonfrom 1876 until 1883, must be mistaken: Fallon had no doubt taken over the‘business’, and continued to use Phyffers’ name.
103 Martin Harrison, Victorian Stained Glass (1980). For the Endell St works, see Builder, xvii (1859), p. 360 Google Scholar.
104 Builder, xxvii (1869), p. 653 Google Scholar.
105 Born in 1825, he was the nephew of Bishop Gradwell, Wiseman’s predecessor in London. See Gillow, J., Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, ii (1886), pp. 555–56Google Scholar.
106 Information on Notre Dame Convent supplied by Sister Lois Francis, S.N.D.
107 After burning his fingers in politics early in his career, J. A. Hansom avoided them in later life, when his opinions moved to the right (information from Mr Denis Evinson).
108 See, for example, a letter written by J. H. Newman to Wiseman in 1847: Letters and Diaries of], H. Newman, xii (1962), p. 52.
109 Ecclesiologist, xiii (1852), p. 112 Google Scholar. Both these churches were built for the Jesuits.
110 See de l’Hôpital, pp. 568–69, with plates LXXXVIII-IX.
111 Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson collection, Sheffield Central Library, 99/6/1.
112 Pevsner, N., Buildings of England: Yorkshire, West Riding (1967), p. 478.Google Scholar
113 Hunter, J., Hallamshire (1869), p. 172 Google Scholar.
114 Builder, xxvii (1869), p. 692 Google Scholar; see also xxviii (1870), p. 510.
115 Snead-Cox, J. G., The Life of Cardinal Vaughan (1910), p. 239 Google Scholar.
116 Ibid., p. 267.
117 Builder, xxvii (1869), p. 653 Google Scholar.
118 The spire was damaged by lightning in 1875, and Charles Hadfield was consulted about repairs ( Builder, xxxiii (1875), p. 221 Google Scholar).
119 Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson collection, Sheffield Central Library, 117/1/1. The design is described in the Architect (iv (1870), p. 380) as ‘on the model of old Lincoln parish churches’: the tradi tional plan-type was suggested by the steeply sloping site. The designs were exhibited in a window in the High St (Architect, v (1871), p. 122; Builder, xxix (1871), p. 293).
120 Pevsner, N. and Harris, J., Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (1964), p. 160 Google Scholar.
121 Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson collection, Sheffield Central Library, 117/1/3.