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George Myers, Pugin’s Builder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Patricia Spencer-Silver
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Extract

It should be universally acknowledged that a good architect needs a good builder. Pugin, one of the greatest of the Gothic Revival architects, was able to satisfy this requirement when he employed George Myers who was to become one of the great Victorian contractors. Until the present day no-one has attempted to find out anything about this man on whom Pugin depended not only for his building, but also for the direction and organization of his team and the training of his craftsmen. Neither has anything been written about the other members of the team: John Hardman who made Pugin’s stained glass and metal work, nor Grace the interior decorator and maker of beautiful furniture, nor Minton who made the tiles, nor Thomas Earley who did the intricate painting in the churches and in the House of Lords. This article is a short account of the basic facts of the life of Myers and of some of the commissions he carried out for Pugin.

Type
Other
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , October 1990 , pp. 262 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1973

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References

Notes

1 Sir Scott, G, G., Recollections Personal & Professional, 1879 p. 88/89 Google Scholar

2 William Comin’s Day Book, 1827–33, Beverley Local History Library

3 George Godwin’s obituary of Pugin, The Builder, 1852, p. 605.

4 Ibidem

5 Agreements between Messrs Myers & Wilson and the Town of Kingston-upon-Hull, the first dated 1831, (ics 167) in the Kingston-upon-Hull Archive Library and Memorials in the Humberside Record Office.

6 Humberside Record Office, PE 158 temp. no. 27.

7 Sheahan’s History of Hull, 1888, p. 674.

8 Contract, Leicestershire Record Office, G/7/32/1 DE 418/33.

9 Sir Scott, G. G., Recollections Personal & Professional, 1879 p. 88/89.Google Scholar

10 Trappes-Lomax, M. Pugin,: a Mediaeval Victorian, 1932, p. 28.

11 Ferrey, Benjamin, Recollections of Pugin, C. Wainwright edition 1978 p. 187.Google Scholar

12 Sir Summerson, John, The London Building World of the Eighteen-Sixties, 1973, p. 13.Google Scholar

13 George Myers’s list of buildings in the Survey of London office, Berners Street, London W.l.

14 St. Chad’s, Birmingham was built as a cathedral, the other three were elevated to that status later.

15 Hull Packet & East Riding Times, 17th June 1844.

16 A History of St. Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham, 1841–1904 compiled by the Cathedral Clergy in 1904, p. 11.

17 Recusant History, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 298.

18 The Hull Packet & East Riding Times of 21st June 1845, announced that on the 15th June 1845 the partnership subsisting between George Myers and Richard Wilson was dissolved “by mutual consent.” Until that time the building done by George Myers for Pugin was carried out by the firm of ‘Myers & Wilson’. All contracts were signed by them both.

19 Wedgwood, Alexandra, A. W. N. Pugin & the Pugin Family, 1985, p. 75, n. 39.Google Scholar

20 Archdiocese of Birmingham Archives, letter B 755.

21 Personal communications T. McCann.

22 St. George’s Cathedral Archives, Pugin Mss.

23 Ibidem

24 Ibidem

25 Ibidem

26 Ibidem

27 Ibidem

28 Building estimates, St. George’s Cathedral archives.

29 St. George’s Cathedral Archives, Pugin Mss.

30 Contract, Arundel Castle Archive Library.

31 Stanton, Phoebe, Pugin, 1971, p. 101.Google Scholar

32 All information concerning St. Oswald’s Church, Winwick and the Revd. James Hornby comes from the Pugin/Hornby/Myers Mss. kept in the vestry at St. Oswald’s, Winwick.

33 All information concerning St. Mary’s Church, Beverley and Myers’s work there is contained in the Pugin Mss. in the Humberside Record Office, Beverley.