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Schooled by Wren, or a School by Wren? The Conception and Design of Christ’s Hospital Writing School, London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Tom Foxall
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Extract

On 2 March 1692, Sir Christopher Wren visited the governors of Christ’s Hospital in London, bringing with him a design for a new writing school to be erected on the Hospital’s Newgate Street site. Seven drawings for the school building survive in the Wren collection at All Souls College, Oxford. However, rather than suggesting Wren’s authorship, these drawings are customarily attributed to his pupil and long-time assistant, Nicholas Hawksmoor. It is generally accepted that Hawksmoor received delegated commissions from Wren by at least the early 1690s, but, although the draughtsmanship and stylistic evidence of the Writing School drawings suggest consistency with this interpretation, the surviving documentary evidence by no means proves Hawksmoor’s involvement. In fact, Wren’s name appears no less than thirteen times in the surviving Hospital minutes of 1691 to 1696, while Hawksmoor is never mentioned.

The Writing School designs are briefly described in most architectural histories of the period, although they are considered remarkable more for heralding a shift in architectural taste than for the building shown in the drawings or for the social and ideological impulses that impelled its creation. This article considers the Writing School in the context of contemporary debates and anxieties concerning the provision of education for the poor, and within the wider sphere of late seventeenth-century charity-school building. Wren’s involvement is considered in relation to his philanthropic interest in the charity-school movement. The article concludes with an analysis of the designs and building history of the Writing School, and, on the basis of previously unpublished eighteenth- and nineteenth-century graphic sources, discounts Giles Worsley’s suggestion that Hawksmoor added a pediment to the final design. Wren and Hawksmoor’s specific responsibilities for the conception, design and execution of the building are considered, and it is argued that, although Hawksmoor was responsible for most of the surviving drawings relating to the project, Wren directed the process, taking responsibility for all designs produced in his office and claiming authorship for the drawings produced.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 51 , 2008 , pp. 87 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2008

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References

Notes

1 Christ’s Hospital, Horsham, Court Minutes, 1688–99, p. 180: ‘to this committee Sir ‘Xopher Wren presented the draft of the new intended Writing School’. Extracts from the Court Minutes of are given in A. T. Bolton and H. D. Hendry (ed.), The Wren Society (hereafter WS), 20 vols (Oxford, 1924–43), XI, 72–79.

2 All Souls College, Oxford (hereafter AS), Wren drawings collection, IV: 28–34; reproduced in Geraghty, Anthony, The Architectural Drawings of Sir Christopher Wren at All Souls College, Oxford: A Complete Catalogue (London, 2007), pp. 273–76.Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Summerson, John, Architecture in Britain 1530–1830 (New Haven and London, 1993), p. 254 Google Scholar; Downes, Kerry, English Baroque Architecture (London, 1966), p. 111 Google Scholar; Cast, David, ‘Seeing Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XVIII (1984), pp. 310–27 (p. 310)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hart, Vaughan, Nicholas Hawksmoor (New Haven and London, 2002), p. 80.Google Scholar

4 Downes, Kerry, The Architecture of wren, 2nd edn (Reading, 1988), p. 50 Google Scholar: ‘there is considerable evidence that Wren delegated particular projects to Hawksmoor [towards the end of the seventeenth century]’. Hart, Hawksmoor, p. 80: ‘[Hawksmoor] seems to have had a certain freedom from Wren [at Christ’s Hospital]’.

5 WS, XI, pp. 72–77.

6 For example, Summerson, Architecture in Britain; Downes, English Baroque Architecture.

7 Worsley, Giles, ‘Nicholas Hawksmoor: a Pioneer Neo-Palladian?’, Architectural History, 33 (1990), pp. 60–74 (p. 63).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Sheppard, Francis, London (Oxford, 1998), p. 242.Google Scholar

9 A charity school was built, for example, above a small house in Piccadilly in 1704, with the financial aid of parishioners of St James Piccadilly. See Survey of London, XXIX (London, 1960), p. 54.

10 Hart, Hawksmoor, p. 80.

11 Survey of London, X (London, 1926), 144.

12 Jones, M. G., The Charity School Movement (Cambridge, 1964), p. 6.Google Scholar

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14 The history of Appleby Magna School is outlined in Dunmore, Richard, This Noble Foundation: A History of the Sir John Moore School at Appleby Magna in Leicestershire (Leicester, 1992)Google Scholar, although the surviving Wren office drawings receive little attention. The drawings (All Souls IV: 47–49) are discussed further in Tom Foxall, ‘Schooled by Wren, or Schools by Wren? Designs for Two Charity Schools in the 1690s’ (MA thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2004), pp. 28–35, and reproduced in Geraghty, Drawings, pp. 276–77. The construction of Appleby School is well documented in a series of letters by John Moore, held at the Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Record Office, DE 1642, DE 1795, DE 4209 and NRA 29709; extracts are printed in WS, XI, pp. 86–107.

15 See correspondence, Wilson to Moore, dated 7 March 1702: printed in WS, XI, p. 106. For Wilson, see H. Colvin, M., A Biographical Dictionary of English Architects 1660–1840 (London, 1995), p. 1063.Google Scholar

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17 Letter to Thomas Moore (3 September 1700): printed in WS, XI, p. 105.

18 Letter of 18 September 1695: printed in WS, XI, p. 62.

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24 Fitch, Charity, p. 7.

25 Letter to Mr Hawes, 24 November 1694: transcribed in WS, XI, p. 74.

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28 Fissell, ‘Charity’, p. 126.

29 Jardine, Lisa, On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Career of Sir Christopher Wren (London, 2002), p. 70.Google Scholar

30 Fissell, ‘Charity’, p. 127; Jones, Charity, pp. 20–21 and 29.

31 Quoted in Duffy, , ‘Primitive Christianity Revived: Religious Renewal in Augustan England’, in Renaissance and Revival in Christian History, ed. Bater, Derek (Oxford, 1977), p. 288.Google Scholar

32 Locke, John, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (facsimile of 1693 edition, Indianapolis, 1970), p. 2.Google Scholar

33 Jones, Charity, pp. 20–21; Fissell, ‘Charity’, p. 124.

34 Jones, Charity, p. 4.

35 Duffy, ‘Primitive’, p. 289, where he refers to William Cave, Primitive Christianity, 1673.

36 Fissell, ‘Charity’, p. 130; Jones, Charity, p. 23.

37 Letter, Osterwald to SPCK, 11 March 1701: cited in Fissell, ‘Charity’, p. 130.

38 Wilson, Adrian, ‘The Politics of Medical Improvement in Early Hanoverian London’, in The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Cunningham, Andrew and French, Roger (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 4–39 (p. 21).Google Scholar

39 Dated 20 August 1711: printed in Jones, Charity, p. 28.

40 Whinney, Margaret, Wren (London, 1971), p. 7.Google Scholar

41 Jardine, Grander, pp. 147–63.

42 Stevenson, Medicine, p. 127; Cast, ‘Vanbrugh’, p. 310. The Royal Charter for Greenwich Hospital provided for ‘the maintenance and education of the children of seamen happening to be slain or disabled’: Turner, H. D., The Cradle of the Navy: the Story of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich and at Holbrook 1694–1988 (York, 1990), p. 3.Google Scholar

43 Whinney, Wren, p. 158. Geraghty has revealed that Wren had a greater involvement in country house commissions than was previously recognized (Geraghty, Drawings, p. 8), but the total number of projects was, nonetheless, comparatively small.

44 WS, XIX, p. 103.

45 Geraghty, Drawings, p. 11.

46 Geraghty, Drawings, p. 13.

47 Geraghty, Drawings; Higgott, Gordon, ‘The Revised Design for St Paul’s Cathedral, 1685–90: Wren, Hawksmoor and Les Invalides’, The Burlington Magazine, CXLVI (2004), pp. 534–47.Google Scholar

48 Allan, George, Christ’s Hospital (London, 1949), p. 8.Google Scholar

49 Bradley, Simon and Pevsner, Nikolaus, London: the City Churches (Harmondsworth, 1998), pp. 53–54.Google Scholar

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51 Trollope, Arthur William, A History of the Royal Foundation of Christ’s Hospital (London, 1834), pp. 77–78.Google Scholar

52 WS, XI, p. 75.

53 AS, IV: 28–34. No. 28: ground-floor plan, with sections and exterior elevations; 29: east elevation, with half first-floor plan and half cross section; 30: first-floor plan; 31: north elevation and cross section (outline only); 32: north elevation (with ink washes); 33: east elevation (outline only); 34: east elevation (with ink washes).

54 Strype, John (ed.), Stow’s Survey of London, 2 vols (London, 1720), I, 181 Google Scholar. An inscription in Hawksmoor’s hand on AS, IV: 29 claims that there would be space for 336 boys.

55 Bodleian Library, Oxford, Gough Maps 20, 62v/b. Reproduced in WS, XI, pl. XLVIII (top).

56 Cast, ‘Vanbrugh’, p. 310.

57 The statue by Grinling Gibbons was moved from the interior to this niche in 1707: WS, XI, p. 78.

58 Worsley, ‘Hawksmoor’, p. 63.

59 WS, XI, p. 80; Downes, Kerry, Hawksmoor (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), p. 54 Google Scholar, says ‘this is not reliable, for the school stood until 1902’; Worsley, Classical Architecture in Britain: the Heroic Age (New Haven and London, 1995), p. 317, agrees: ‘The Wren Society […] says that the building was altered in 1776, although this is not entirely reliable as it also states that the Writing School was demolished in 1790, which it was not until 1902’.

60 The Richard Whittington library was destroyed in 1830, so is not evident in Figure 9.

61 Worsley, Classical, p. 317, n. 17: Worsley notes that ‘Mr John Newman has pointed out to me the similarity between the twin brackets and those in the entrance hall of Thomas Leverton’s 1 Bedford Square of 1780’.

62 Pearce, E. H., Annals of Christ’s Hospital (London, 1908), p. 151.Google Scholar

63 Downes, Hawksmoor, p. 53.

64 Summerson, Architecture in Britain, p. 254.

65 Downes, Hawksmoor, p. 54.

66 Geraghty, , ‘Nicholas Hawksmoor and the Wren City Church Steeples’, The Georgian Group journal, X (2000), pp. 1–14 (p. 3).Google Scholar

67 AS, V: 4.

68 Geraghty, ‘Hawksmoor’, p. 3.

69 Geraghty, Drawings, p. 10.

70 This similarity was noted in Geraghty, ‘Hawksmoor’, p. 154.

71 Geraghty argues that ‘after 1689 he [Hawksmoor] stopped setting out his designs with a scoring implement, favouring an exclusively pencil under-drawing technique instead’: Geraghty, Drawings, p. 13.

72 Hewlings, , ‘Hawksmoor’s ‘Brave Designs for the Police”, in English Architecture Public and Private: Essays for Kerry Downes, ed. Bold, John and Chaney, Edward (London, 1993), p. 222.Google Scholar

73 Higgott, ‘St Paul’s’, p. 539.

74 Geraghty, Drawings, p. 275.

75 Printed in WS, XI, p. 88.

76 AS, IV: 33.

77 Geraghty, ‘Laine’, p. 242.

78 Higgott, ‘St Paul’s’, p. 539.

79 WS, XI, pp. 72–77.

80 Christ’s Hospital, Court Minutes, 1688–99, p. 180.

81 Christ’s Hospital, Court Minutes, 1688–99, p. 166 (18 December 1691) and p. 180 (1 March 1692).

82 Pearce, Annals, p. 151.

83 WS, V, pis XXIX and XXX, and WS, XVII, pl. XLVII.

84 BM Sloane (Add.) 5238: The Monument, nos 69–78; Bethlem, nos 55–56.

85 Elevation and ground plan designs at the British Museum: BM Sloane, 5238, nos 51 and 50.

86 The design is now held in an unnumbered volume in the Witt Collection at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

87 Christ’s Hospital, Court Minutes, 1688–99, p. 180.

88 Downes, Hawksmoor, pp. 2–3.

89 Higgott, ‘St Paul’s’; Geraghty, Drawings.

90 Geraghty, ‘Hawksmoor’, p. 3.

91 Thurley, Simon, Hampton Court (New Haven and London), pp. 152–68.Google Scholar