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George Frederick Bodley

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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GEORGE FREDERICK BODLEY (1827-1907), English architect, was the youngest son of a physician at Brighton, his elder brother, the Rev. W. H. Bodley, becoming a well-known Roman Catholic preacher and a professor at Oscott. He was articled to the famous architect Sir Gilbert Scott, under whose influence he became imbued with the spirit of the Gothic revival, and he gradually became known as the chief exponent of 14thcentury English Gothic, and the leading ecclesiastical architect in England. One of his first churches was St Michael and All Angels, Brighton (1855), and among his principal erections may be mentioned All Saints, Cambridge; Eton Mission church, Hackney Wick; Clumber church; Eccleston church; Hoar Cross church; St Augustine's, Pendlebury; Holy Trinity, Kensington; Chapel Allerton, Leeds; St Faith's, Brentford; Queen's College chapel, Cambridge; Marlborough College chapel; and Burton church. His domestic work included the London School Board offices, the new buildings at Magdalen, Oxford, and Hewell Grange (for Lord Windsor). From 1872 he had for twenty years the partnership of Mr T. Garner, who worked with him. He also designed (with his pupil James Vaughan) the cathedral at Washington, D.C., U.S.A., and cathedrals at San Francisco and in Tasmania; and when Mr Gilbert Scott's design for his new Liverpool cathedral was successful in the competition he collaborated with the young architect in preparing for its erection. Bodley began contributing to the Royal Academy in 18J4, and in 1881 was elected A.R.A., becoming R.A. in 1902. In addition to being a most learned master of architecture, he was a beautiful draughtsman, and a connoisseur in art; he published a volume of poems in 1899; and he was a designer of wall-papers and chintzes for Watts & Co., of Baker Street, London; in early life he had been in close alliance with the Pre-Raphaelites, and he did a great deal, like William Morris, to improve public taste in domestic decoration and furniture. He died on the 21st of October 1907, at Water Eaton, Oxford.