William Wilkins (architect)

Wilkins was born in the parish of St Giles, Norwich, the son of William Wilkins (1751–1815), a successful builder who also managed the Norwich Theatre Circuit, a chain of theatres. His younger brother George Wilkins became Archdeacon of Nottingham. He was educated at Norwich School and then won a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He graduated as 6th wrangler in 1800. With the award of the Worts Travelling Bachelorship in 1801, worth £100 for three years, he was able to visit the classical antiquities Greece, Asia Minor, and Magna Græcia in Italy between 1801 and 1804. On his tour he was accompanied by the Italian landscape painter Agostino Aglio, whom Wilkins had commissioned as a draughtsman on the expedition. Aglio supplied the drawings for the aquatint plates of monuments illustrating Wilkins' volumes from the expedition, such as The Antiquities of Magna Graecia (1807). Wilkins was a member of the Society of Dilettanti from 1817. He published researches into both Classical and Gothic architecture, becoming one of the leading figures in the English Greek Revival of the early 19th century. His architectural career began in 1804 with his Greek-revival designs for the newly established Downing College, Cambridge. In 1815, Wilkins inherited his father's chain of six theatres. He continued to manage them for the rest of his life, and rebuilt or remodelled several of them, occasionally also designing scenery. In 1822–26, he collaborated with John Peter Gandy on the Clubhouse for the new United University Club, in Pall Mall, London. He was made an associate of the Royal Society in 1824 and given full membership in 1826. John Summerson concluded in 1962 that although Wilkins' frontage has many virtues "considered critically as a façade commanding a great square, its weakness is apparent". In 1827–28 Wilkins designed two other major London buildings in a severe Classical style: University College in Gower Street, and St George's Hospital (now The Lanesborough Hotel) on Hyde Park Corner. His other Greek Revival works include the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds 1819, St. Paul's Church, George Street, Nottingham 1822 and the Yorkshire Museum (1830). He was responsible for two columns commemorating Admiral Nelson, Nelson's Pillar in Dublin and the Britannia Monument in Great Yarmouth. Both predate William Railton's design for Trafalgar Square. He also produced buildings in the Gothic style, such as Dalmeny House for Lord Rosebery in 1814–17 and Tregothnan for Lord Falmouth in 1816. He used the style at several Cambridge colleges: in 1823 he won the competition to design a set of new buildings for King's College, Cambridge, comprising the hall, provost's lodge, library, and a stone screen towards Trumpington Street, and in the same year started work on the King's court of Trinity College, and new buildings, including the chapel, at Corpus Christi College. . Wilkins is buried in the chapel at centre. In 1827, Wilkins was appointed architect to the East India Company, and the next year made alterations to its building in Leadenhall Street. He entered the competition to design the Duke of York's Column, and in 1836 that for the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament. After failing to win the latter he attacked the plans of his rivals and the decision of the committee in a pamphlet signed "Phil-archimedes". He was appointed professor of architecture at the Royal Academy following the death of John Soane in 1837, but gave no lectures before he himself died at his house in Cambridge on 31 August 1839. He was buried in the crypt under the chapel of Corpus Christi College. ==List of publications==