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James Elmes

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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JAMES ELMES (1782-1862), British architect, civil engineer, and writer on the arts, was born in London on the 15th of October 1782. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' school, and, after studying building under his father, and architecture under George Gibson, became a student at the Royal Academy, where he gained the silver medal in 1804. He designed a large number of buildings in the metropolis, and was surveyor and civil engineer to the port of London, but is best known as a writer on the arts. In 1809 he became vice-president of the Royal Architectural Society, but this office, as well as that of surveyor of the port of London, he was compelled through partial loss of sight to resign in 1828. He died at Greenwich on the 2nd of April 1862. His publications were: Sir Christopher Wren and his Times (1823); Lectures on Architecture (1823); The Arts and Artists (1825); General and Biographical Dictionary of the Fine Arts (1826); Treatise on Architectural Jurisprudence (1827), and Thomas Clarkson: a Monograph (1854).