Joseph Pickford

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Joseph Pickford around 1770: Portrait (oil on canvas) of Joseph Wright of Derby

Joseph Pickford (baptized October 6, 1734 in Ashow , Warwickshire , † July 13, 1782 in Derbyshire ) was an English builder and architect who worked in Central England . During his practical training and activity he worked on the construction of several important structures in London and the surrounding area (such as the Horse Guards in Whitehall, which was designed in the Palladian style ). He created his own buildings mainly in Derby and Derbyshire in Georgian architecture , to which he occasionally used Palladian, Gothic, Classical and Chinese style elements. Even if in the provinces, his work has been a very important contribution to English architecture. - Joseph Pickford came into contact with the intellectual currents of his time, knew personalities of the Lunar Society in Birmingham and built houses for some of them. Such an approach, together with the influence of his time in London, was certainly not insignificant for the development of all his skills as an architect.

Family and becoming

Many building craftsmen came from Joseph Pickford's family: bricklayers and stonemasons in particular, who not infrequently carried out the responsible work of a master builder. They were originally based in Shropshire in the West Midlands . William Pickford, the grandfather of Joseph Pickford, is said to have come from the small town of Pitchford from there. From 1673 to around 1690 he lived in Badger with his wife Constance . During this time the couple had six sons: William (the architect's father), Joseph, Thomas, Richard, John and James; and two daughters: Elisabeth and Sarah.

St Mary's church in Warwick

After 1690, all Pickfords probably lived in Warwickshire. The young William Pickford (1673-1742) married Rachel Wincote in October 1694 in Warwick . The couple settled in the small village of Tanworth in Arden , from where William went to work in Central England for the next few years. Take Warwick, for example, where he and his brothers helped rebuild this town that was almost completely destroyed by a fire in September 1694. Under the direction of the builders and architects William Smith (1661–1724) and Francis Smith (1672–1738), the brothers did their first there, among other things, in the new construction of St. Mary's Church, based on plans by the architect William Wilson (1641–1710) had great experiences, and at least William, Joseph and Thomas became good builders afterwards.

When Rachel Pickford died in 1730, William Pickford remarried soon after: Mary Pickford, Joseph's future mother. The couple lived in Aschow and the marriage resulted in four sons: John (1732), Joseph (1734), Thomas (1737) and William (1742). - William Pickford died in July 1742. The family stayed in Ashow thereafter and Mary was supported in raising the children by her brother-in-law Thomas Pickford, who lived nearby. After Thomas's death, Joseph left Ashow in the autumn of 1748 to study and work with his uncle Joseph Pickford in London.

Joseph Pickford Sr. lived in London at the top of Piccadilly (between Brick Street and Down Street). And in such an environment Joseph would become a real Londoner in the next few years, as the entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) noted in a letter to one of his representatives many years later : “Mr Pickford… says we are likely to be imposed upon. He is a Londoner and knows all their tricks. "

Horse Guards in the 19th Century: A Watercolor by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd (1792–1864)

During Joseph's apprenticeship, his uncle was involved in two rather important works, in the Palladian style: the Horse Guards in Whitehall and the University Library in Cambridge . (The Horse Guards, built from 1751 to 1753, was designed by the architect William Kent (1685–1748) and the University Library, built from 1754 to 1758, by Stephen Wright .) In addition to the practical work on construction, Joseph in In some form (architects' office, academy) also acquired theoretical expertise and certainly worked very intensively on the work I quattro libri dell'architettura (The Four Books of Architecture) by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580), which in a translation by the English architect Isaac Ware (1704–1766) had been in England since 1738.

After completing his training, around 1756, Joseph Pickford left London and returned to Central England. There he probably carried out a wide variety of work up to 1759, perhaps on his own, and continued to gain experience in the process.

Builder and Architect

In the summer of 1759, Joseph Pickford was commissioned to oversee the construction of Foremark Hall in Derbyshire. The architect of this country house was David Hiorne of Warwick, who had worked with Joseph Pickford's father, William Pickford. Hiorne had died in 1758, so it is very likely that Joseph Pickford had been busy designing Foremark Hall in his Warwick office for some time. However, it is certain that Joseph Pickford directed the construction work on Foremark Hall from autumn 1759 and successfully completed it in 1761.

Longford Hall: Joseph Pickford's first work as a design architect. The photo from 2008 shows the two wings he added with the stone balustrades in the roof area

From 1759 on, Joseph Pickford always lived in Derby. He had never had any connections to this city before. In the beginning there was only one contact with the landowner and politician Wenman Coke (1717–1776) in Longford and his colleague Thomas Wilkins, who was soon to become the father-in-law of Joseph Pickford. At some point Wenman Coke gave him the job of expanding and converting his old country estate Longford Hall in Longford, a rather extensive project that was completed in 1762. In April of that year, Joseph Pickford married Mary Wilkins at Longford Church. - Professionally, too, things made good progress. Immediately after Longford Hall he was commissioned to build the County Assembly Rooms in Derby, which lasted until 1765. This building was designed by Washington Shirley (1722–1778), the 5th Earl Ferrers, an amateur architect and a very active mind who tried his hand at a wide variety of fields. (The interior of the County Assembly Rooms was designed in 1774 by the Scottish architect Robert Adam (1728–1792). The building was damaged by fire in 1963 and demolished in 1971.) In addition, Joseph Pickford built houses for the clockmaker and geologist John at this time Whitehurst (1713–1788) and the cartographer, engraver and engineer Peter Perez Burdett (1734–1793), who both became his friends. Another friend was the painter Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), who later (around 1777) portrayed the two sons, Thomas and Joseph, by Joseph Pickford. These men were all members of the Lunar Society, founded in Birmingham in 1765, through which Joseph Pickford got in touch with this circle and found some builders such as the porcelain manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood.

Entrance to Joseph Pickford's house at 41 Derby Friar Gate
St Helen's House in Derby, detail front view

In 1766 and 1767 one of Joseph Pickford's most important works was created: St Helen's House in Derby, a larger town house that he had designed in the Palladian style. (For the Venetian architect Gian Antonio Selva [1751–1819], who went on an information trip through England in 1781 and also came to Derby, St Helen's House was the most conspicuous and he noted, probably astonished, in his diary that the architect such a structure would never have been in Italy.)

In 1768 Joseph Pickford purchased three lots in Friar Gate, Derby and in 1770 built one of them, Friar Gate 41, into a home for himself and his family. (The house has housed the Pickford's House Museum , established by the City of Derby since 1988 , to commemorate the life of the architect and his time.) He sold the other two lots in Friar Gate to private individuals and built houses for them which shows that Joseph Pickford was also a good businessman. - But his order book has always been quite good, maybe often too good, so that he probably would sometimes have preferred one or the other order less. In addition to many residential buildings, Joseph Pickford built a church and a hospital, carried out building renovations and also construction work for other architects such as for the up-and-coming and well-known James Gandon (1742–1823) during the construction of the County Hall in Nottingham from 1770 until 1772. - But even Joseph Pickford will certainly have had a reputation during his lifetime that went beyond his place of work. An indication of this is given by the visit of Gian Antonio Selva in Derby in 1781, where the Italian certainly did not come by chance and will have had information beforehand that there would be a lot for him to see there.

Joseph Pickford died in July 1782 at his home in Nun's Green, somewhere in Derbyshire.

Creative cross-section

Sandon Hall: an 1818 engraving after a drawing by John Preston Neale
  • Foremark Hall, Derbyshire, 1759–1761, built for architect David Hiorne
  • Longford Hall, Derbyshire, 1762, remodeling (adding and remodeling) a 16th century country house
  • The Assembly Rooms, Derby, 1762–1765, built to designs by Washington Shirley
  • Full Street, Derby, 1765, Gothic style home for Peter Perez Burdett
  • St Helen's House, Derby, 1766–1767, Palladian style building
  • Ogston Hall, Derbyshire, 1768–1769, cottage remodeling
  • Etruria Hall, Staffordshire, 1767–1769, country house for Josiah Wedgwood
  • Etruria Works, Staffordshire, 1767–1770, pottery factory for Josiah Wedgwood
  • London Showroom, Great Newport Street, 1768, showroom for Josiah Wedgwood
  • Hams Hall, Warwickshire, 1768, country home for Charles Bowyer Adderley
  • Derby, Friar Gate 41, 1770, own home for his family
  • Sandon Hall, Staffordshire, 1769–1771, country residence for Lord Archibald Hamilton
  • The County Hall, Nottingham, 1770–1772, built for the architect James Gandon
  • Melbourne Hall, Derbyshire, 1772, manor for Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne
  • The Moot Hall, Derbyshire, 1772–1773, country residence for the Duke of Lancaster
St Mary's church in Birmingham: an engraving from 1842 after a drawing by Henry Burn
  • St Mary's Church, Birmingham, 1773–1774, octagonal church with tower
  • Holy Trinity Church, Coventry, 1775, restoration of windows in the east and south sides of the church
  • The Edensor Inn, Chatsworth, Derbyshire, 1776–1777, country house for the 5th Duke of Devonshire
  • The Devonshire Hospital, Full Street, Derby, 1777, reconstruction of a 16th century building
  • Darley Abbey, Derbyshire, 1775–1778, an abbey remodeled and expanded
  • Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, 1775–1782, construction of a country house for Lord Scarsdale

literature

  • Nikolaus Pevsner : Derbyshire: The Buildings of England , revised by Elizabeth Williamson, Penguin Books Ltd, London 2000
  • Maxwell Craven: John Whitehurst of Derby: Clockmaker & Scientist 1713-88 , Mayfield Books, Derbyshire 1996
  • Edward Saunders: Joseph Pickford of Derby: A Georgian architect , Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd, Phoenix Mill Far Thrupp Stroud Gloucestershire 1993, ISBN 0-7509-0380-5
  • Pierre DuPrey: Gianantonio Selva in England , Architectural History: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, vol .: 1982
  • Benedict Nicolson: Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light , Routledge and K. Paul, London 1968

Web links

Commons : Joseph Pickford  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. This architect, about whom there does not seem to be much information, has u. a. also designed Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire in 1775 and lived there until 1780.
  2. The diary is in the Biblioteca Querini Stampalia in Venice.