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Liardet versus Adam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Frank Kelsall
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Extract

The use of Liardet’s stucco by Robert and James Adam has often been noted. The dispute with John Johnson, about alleged infringement of the patent, is well known because of the pamphlet warfare which occurred in 1778 and because it was for many years regarded as a leading case in patent law. But Liardet v. Johnson was only the first of three major lawsuits which embroiled the brothers between 1777 and 1787. Although they were successful it was a pyrrhic victory. By 1780 the deficiencies in the stucco were becoming apparent. The brothers faced a major claim for damages from Lord Stanhope and their agreement with Liardet collapsed in recrimination.

Type
Section 2: London
Information
Architectural History , Volume 27: Design and Practice in British Architecture , 1984 , pp. 118 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1984

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References

Notes

1 Gwynn, John London and Westminster Improved (1766), pp. 82—83.Google Scholar

2 Patent No. 834, 1765; S(cottish) R(ecord) O(ffice)/TD77/142/4/22.

3 An Appeal to the Public on the Right of using Oil-Cement or Composition for Stucco, etc. (1778), pp. 62-64.

4 Patent No. 1040, 1773; P(ublic) R(ecord) 0(ffice)/C.i2/92i/n; Act of Parliament 26 George III cap. 29; SRO/ TD77/142/4/238 contains Liardet’s Irish patent, dated ioApril 1777.

5 PRO/C. 12/1346/22. The case has been discussed recently by John Adams at the Legal History Conference at the University of East Anglia injuly 1983; I am grateful to Mr Adams for allowing me to read and make use of his text. His conclusion is that Liardet v. Johnson is not the landmark in the history of patent law that many legal historians have taken it to be.

6 An Appeal to the Public ... as in Note3; Observations on Two Trials at Law respecting Messieurs Adams’s new- invented Stucco (1778); both these are pro-Johnson. The Adams’ view is found in A Reply to Observations on Two Trials at Law, 1778.

7 SRO/TD77/142/4/3.

8 The letters from William Adam to Liardet are recited in full in PRO/C. 12/921/11.

9 The course of Liardet v. Adam can be traced through PRO/C. 33/460-68; the first reference to the case is in the Chancery Cause Book, PRO/IND 4172.?

10 SRO/TD77/i42/4^l84 and Vi94-

11 SRO/TD77/142/4/215.

12 SRO/TD77/142/4/1.

13 Quoted in a letter from W. P. D. Stebbing, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 45, 12 September 1938, 99114 SRO/TD77/142/4/230.

15 PRO/E. 12/50.

16 SRO/TD77/142/4/213. The reference to Lord Mahon rather than Lord Stanhope suggests that he was the key figure in the case, though he did not succeed his father as third Earl Stanhope until 1786.

17 Survey of London, xxix, 123-24.

18 Bolton, A. T. The Architecture of Robert and Adam, James (1922), 1, 315.Google Scholar

19 SRO/GD164/177/3.

20 Victoria and Albert Museum, MS86NN (vn).

21 Kent Archives Office, U1590/C110/5.

22 A Practical Essay on Cement and Artificial Stone (1774), a translation of Loriot’s treatise in French.

23 Williams, J. D. ‘The Landowner and his Town House’, Essex Journal, 18, No. 2 (1983), 50.Google Scholar

24 British Library, King’s Maps, xxvii, 26.

25 Geoffrey Beard, Decorative Plasterwork in Great Britain (1975), p. 225.

26 A Reply to Observations . . ., pp. 16-19; Charles Rawlinson, A Dictionary of Patent Slating (1772).

27 SRO/TD77/142/4/3.

28 PRO/C. 12/921/11.

29 Patent No. 1207, 1779; Bryan Higgins, Experiments and Observations made with a view of improving the art of composing and applying calcareous cements and of preparing quicklime (1780).

30 Guildhall Library, MS 8232/1.

31 Alistair Rowan, ‘After the Adelphi: Forgotten Years in the Adam Brothers’ Practice. I. William Adam and Company ’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, cxxn (1974), 659-78; this is the only available description of the Adam businesses. Cf. James Simpson, ‘Robert Adam — the Scottish Family Background’, Bulletin of the Scottish Georgian Society, 5 (1978), 23-31.

32 SRO/TD77/142/4/1.

33 SRO/TD77/142/4/215.