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William Jay’s English Works after 1822: Recent Discoveries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
Here is an opportunity to introduce further research by the author and others on the Anglo-American architect, William Jay, since the first monograph on him was written by Hanna Lerski in 1983.
Jay was born in 1792, later becoming articled to the architect and surveyor D. R. Roper in c 1807/8. His first independent commission was the Albion Chapel, Moorfields, London of 1815–16. He emigrated in 1817 to America where he designed a series of acclaimed Greek Revival villas in Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. They are generally regarded as amongst the earliest Greek Revival buildings in America. In 1822 the Georgian economy collapsed, and Jay had little option but to return to England to rebuild a once-promising career.
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- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2000
References
Notes
1 William Jay Itinerant English Architect 1712–1837 (University Press of America, Lanhem, New York & London).
2 Ex inf. Lynn Harvey.
3 P. 73. Griffith tells us that ‘The Literary Saloon was opened in the year 1822, by Messrs. Duffield and Weller. The library was originally designed for, and used as, an assembly room. From the extent of the building it is admirably adapted to its present purpose.’ There is stylistic evidence to suggest that Jay (or whoever) remodelled or added a fashionable modern façade to the 1784 Upper Assembly Rooms on the same site.
4 Cheltenham Chronicle, 1 May 1954.
5 Colvin, Howard, ‘Additions & Corrections’, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840, Architectural History, 42 (1999), p. 378 Google Scholar. For a full account refer to the author’s ‘Paragon Buildings, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire’, The Georgian Group Journal, 10 (2000).
6 Colvin, Howard, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840 (New Haven & London, 1995), p. 540 Google Scholar.
7 P. 334.
8 Nine miles from Cheltenham.
9 Most likely to be Paragon Buildings.
10 Dr Hodsdon summarizes the project on page 30 of his An Historical Gazetteer of Cheltenham, Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Record Series 9 (1997) under the entry ‘Cambray Parade (2). A projected road forming a grand crescent starting in Bath Road opposite the baths and sweeping southeast nearly as far as the line of Sandford Road. First reference to scheme is 31 Jan. 1825, when the Chronicle announced that a new street “on a magnificent scale comprising upwards of 200 houses of the first magnitude is about to be commenced in the Bath Road leading from the garden and premises of Colonel Ollney fa magistrate and town commissioner] and continuing in a circular form occupying nearly 14 acres of land. It will be 80ft wide and the houses built upon a plan and under the superintendence of Mr Edwards, architect.” Shown and named on Griffith’s 1825 map, but never built. Some laying-out of street lines probably did take place (see e.g. 1834 map), and traces (part of a curved line of trees) persisted until 1855-7.’
11 Cheltenham Journal, 22 November 1824 & 14 February 1825.
12 Lynn Harvey informs me (correspondence: 20 December 1999): ‘in his Statistics Robert Mills referred to Jay’s South Carolina Academy of Fine Arts building in Charleston as having exhibited “the hand of the artist”. So Mills, who considered himself to be an engineer more than an architect, recognised the art in Jay’s architecture even if he would not acknowledge him by name. Mills certainly didn’t seem to think that Jay’s courthouses were very scientific, but this could have more to do with the budgetary restrictions placed on Jay than any defect in his design.’
13 ‘Architect and Builder, Dealer and Chapman’, The Cheltenham Journal, 6 April 1829.
14 PA 78/112.
15 Certificates dating from 1825–27 provide extra confirmation of Jay’s work at Paragon Buildings and Columbia Place.
16 28 February 1825.
17 In the Cheltenham Art Gallery is a Victorian photograph (Fig. 3) of this vicinity prior to its late nineteenth-century redevelopment. A shopfront called ‘Haywood’ in the foreground of the photograph could well be a Jay possibility.
18 Originally laid out by John Forbes in 1825; see Blake, Steven, Pittville 1824-60 (Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, Cheltenham, 1988), p. 11 Google Scholar.
19 Colvin, p. 541.
20 Blake, p. 32.
21 3 November: Court Book 4, p. 119; GRO D855.
22 The High Street was photographed in a systematic manner in i960 (GRO D3867, slide no. 1V/2–7 2758), and this building which by 1957 had become No. 240 is documented.
23 Thursday, 12 April 1827.
24 Which is marked on the 1820 Cheltenham Post Office Map and the 1855-57 Old Town Survey.
25 Lerski, p. 250. In August 1828 Jay was declared bankrupt; 30/8/1828: GRO D6083 (XIV).
26 Ex inf. Sir Howard Col vin.
27 It is currently housed in the 1719 chapel’s 1908 replacement. Lerski does not seem to have been aware of its existence.
28 George Peters, Independent Press, 1950, Henley, p. 85.