John Repton was the son of
Humphry Repton, born at
Norwich,
Norfolk on 29 March 1775, and educated at
Aylsham grammar school and later in a Norwich architect's office. From 1796 to 1800 he was assistant to
John Nash of
Carlton House, the great
London architect, and he then joined his father at Hare Street near
Romford,
Essex preparing architectural designs as adjuncts to landscape gardening. In 1822 John Repton went abroad, and was consulted professionally at
Utrecht and at
Frankfort-on-the-Oder. Subsequently he restored the
Earl De La Warr's seat of
Buckhurst Park, near
Tunbridge Wells. Before 1835, when he sent in designs for the new
Houses of Parliament, he had retired to
Springfield near
Chelmsford; he gave his services as architect of Springfield church in 1843. He had been elected
F.S.A. in 1803, and was a frequent contributor to
Archæologia (see vols. xv, xvi, xix, xxi, xxiv and xxvii.). The last two of these communications treated of male and female headdress in England from 1500 to 1700. Another curious paper, "on the beard and the mustachio, chiefly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century," which was read before the
Society of Antiquaries, but not published, was printed at Repton's expense in 1839 (London, 8vo). In 1820 he displayed his
antiquarian learning in the production of an "olden-style romance", entitled
A trewe Hystorie of the Prince Radapanthus, of which he printed eighty copies in a very small size. His name is not on the title-page, but may be spelt out from the initial letters on turning over the pages. Many articles by him appeared in ''
The Gentleman's Magazine'' from 1795 and in the British Archæological Association's
Journal (cf. xvii. 175–80). In 1816, he contributed a series of drawings of
Norwich Cathedral to
John Britton's
Cathedral Antiquities of Great Britain. He was deaf from infancy and died unmarried at Springfield on 26 November 1860. ==References==