He was born in
Oxton,
Birkenhead and educated at
Birkenhead School. His father was an architect. He also studied architecture at the
Liverpool School of Architecture under Charles Reilly. He obtained a first-class degree in 1936 and won the graduate scholarship. From 1940 to 1943, he worked for the
Ministry of Supply, working on the design and construction of arms factories under tight time pressure. In 1943, his godfather,
Patrick Abercrombie, offered Shepheard a job on the Greater London Plan for the postwar development of London. Shepheard then worked for William Holford at the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, and became deputy chief architect for the
Stevenage Development Corporation (1947–48). He started in partnership with Derek Bridgwater and, after Bridgwater retired in 1962, the firm became Shepheard, Epstein and Hunter as Shepheard was joined by
Gabriel Epstein and Peter Hunter. He designed houses for
London County Council, schools for local authorities and a new hall for
Winchester College, teacher training colleges, and buildings for the universities of
Keele, Liverpool,
Warwick and
Oxford,
Chelsea College, London, the
Open University and the
University of Lancaster. The
Architectural Association elected him president in 1954, and he was soon serving on 17 committees. From 1969 to 1971 he was president of the
Royal Institute of British Architects. Shepheard was also president of the
Landscape Institute from 1965 to 1966 and the
Royal Fine Art Commission (1968–71). He joined the
National Parks Commission (1966–68), the
Countryside Commission (1968-71), the
Civic Trust and from 1976 to 2001 he was honorary artistic adviser to the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission. He spent six months a year for eight years from 1971 as dean of the graduate school of fine art at the University of Pennsylvania. ==Awards==