Isaac Thomas Shutt

His father was Jonathan Shutt (d.1840), who was for thirty years owner of the Swan Hotel, Harrogate (now the Old Swan Hotel), and his mother was Ann Shutt (1781 – 8 March 1848). Isaac Thomas Shutt was born in Harrogate on 21 February 1818, and baptised on 6 December 1818 at Christ Church, High Harrogate. In 1841 he was in Victoria Place, St Saviour, Southwark, an architect aged 22, lodging with grocer James Slater and his family. At St George, Hanover Square in 1849 he married Ann Staning (1825–20 February 1875), who was born in Winchester and died in Knaresborough. During his lifetime, the census tracks his comfortable lifestyle and steady acquisition of wealth. By 1851 he had become the proprietor of the Swan Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel) in Promenade Road, Harrogate, and he was listed as an architect, surveyor and land owner. He was 33 years old, his wife was 26, and they had two children aged one year and three months. There were ten servants, including two nursemaids and a groom. In 1861 they were still at the Swan Hotel, and Shutt was listed as an architect, farmer and hotel keeper. He was 43, his wife was 35, they had six children aged from 2 to 11 years, and ten servants including a nurse, gardener and gardener's boy. In 1871 he was again listed as a hotel-keeper and architect aged 53, and still living at the Swan Hotel, Harrogate with Ann aged 46 and five of their children aged 7 to 20 years. By 1878 he owned hunters and harness horses, and a groom to look after them and to drive a carriage. He moved to Cygnet House in Walker Road after the sale of The Swan. He was described at his death as an architect and land surveyor of Harrogate. His will was proved at Wakefield on 3 April 1879. ==Career==

Architecture and surveying By 1841, Shutt was an architect lodging in Southwark. In 1878 Shutt sold or rented the Swan Hotel to the Harrogate Hydropathic Company Ltd, of which he was one of the directors. The company was formed for the provision of a hydropathic curative treatment which made use of the local spa waters; the Swan Hotel was to be adapted and redecorated for the purpose. Agriculture and agricultural shows In 1847 he was vice-chairman of the Pannal and Harrogate Agricultural Society, and in that year its fourth annual exhibition was held in a field near the Swan Hotel, then run by Shutt's father and sisters, and in the Pump Room, now the Royal Pump Room Museum. In the same year he was listed as having a game certificate, that is, he was licensed to sell game from Bilton, Harrogate. Shutt had some success with livestock: he won first prize for "his celebrated prize bull, Baronet" at Ripley Agricultural Show on Tuesday 20 September 1859. At the dog-show section of the 1878 Ripon and Harrogate Agricultural Show, Shutt donated a special prize for the best animal in the broken-haired terrier classes. Business and finance In April 1841 he was dealing in property, advertising Cornwall House, Low Harrogate, for sale. He was at one point a stockbroker in Harrogate, in partnership with John Cheyne; this was dissolved on 20 November 1845, possibly due to bankruptcy. In 1862 Shutt was serving on a committee set up to sell shares in the Cheltenham Room and grounds in Harrogate. This was a public place of amusement which was up for sale, and the town did not want the establishment to fall into private hands and be closed. He was a member of the Harrogate Improvement Commissioners and Local Board of Health from about 1848 until at least 1971, when he replied to a speech at the opening of the Baths at Harrogate. ==Independent architectural designs==

Pump Room, Harrogate, 1842 In 1842 at the age of 24 years he designed the neo-classical Cheltenham Pump Room in Harrogate, a Grade II* listed building which is now known as the Royal Pump Room. In his obituary, the Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale Herald said, "Mr Shutt, as an architect, has left behind him numerous specimens of his skill, foremost amongst which is the Royal Sulphur Well – a piece of architecture surpassing in originality of design and suitability to its object any similar work of its day in Harrogate." The site, including the Crescent Inn, was cleared in the 1890s to make way for the present Crescent Gardens. Workhouse, Knaresborough, 1857 Shutt provided a specification and design for a workhouse on the east side of Stockwell Road, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. It was to replace an earlier 18th century one next to St John the Baptist church. Three buildings were later added to the site to form an infirmary, then the buildings were demolished in 1996 and the land was redeveloped for housing. ==Architectural designs in partnership==

Shutt, whose office was at the Swan Hotel, Harrogate, worked in partnership with Alfred Hill Thompson of 14 Park Square, Leeds, from 1870 to 1871, and possibly before and after that. Church of All Saints, Harlow Hill, 1870–1871 This is a Grade II listed building, built as a mission church, or chapel of ease, consecrated by the Bishop of Ripon in 1871. It has a "circular bell tower reminiscent of Irish bell-houses". It is not known whether Shutt drew plans or supervised construction, but Gothic Revival churches and towers require design skills which Shutt had not previously demonstrated. This raises the question as to whether the partnership came into being because Strutt had the connections by which to gain the commission, and Thompson ARIBA was the project architect. After some years of closure due to wet and dry rot, as of 2014 the building was being restored for use by a funeral director company. George Hotel, Harrogate, 1871 Thompson and Shutt designed the enlargement for the George Hotel, Harrogate, and advertised for tenders for building work to be received by 26 October 1871. The plans were kept at Thompson's office in Leeds, but both architects held the bills of quantities for the builders. This highlights a possibility that it was Thompson who was mostly responsible for the plans. ==Notes==