Sir Mervyn E. Macartney FSA FRIBA (16 September 1853 – 28 October 1932) was a British architect and Surveyor of the Fabric of St Paul's Cathedral between 1906 and 1931.[1][2] Macartney was a leading figure in the Arts and Craft movement, being a founder of the Art Workers' Guild and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, and an influential voice as the editor of The Architectural Review[3] and via his publications The Practical Exemplar of Architecture and Later Renaissance Architecture in England with John Belcher. The English House 1860–1914: Catalogue to an Exhibition of Photographs and Drawings in 1980 stated that Macartney did not deserve the comparative obscurity that he has today,[4] while Peter Davey in his 1980 book Arts and Crafts Architecture: The Search for Earthly Paradise described Macartney as the least Ruskin of the architects that came from Richard Norman Shaw's tutorage.[5]

Early life

Macartney was born in London on 16 September 1853 to Maxwell, a doctor, and Elizabeth Macartney, and was the youngest of Maxwell's four sons.[2] His half brother was painter C. H. H. Macartney. He was privately educated[6] until 1873 when Macartney completed his education at Lincoln College, Oxford, before working under the tutorial of Richard Norman Shaw.[7][8] Before he started his own practice he travelled across Europe visiting  France, Italy and Germany. There are various dates to when Macartney started his own practice, ranging from 1877,[9] which must be inaccurate as he was articled to Shaw at this time, to 1882.[6] It was in 1882 that his first design from his own practice, Kent Hatch in Westerham, Kent was completed.[10][11] In 1891, he married the Hon. Elizabeth Wilhelmina Ritchie, the daughter of Charles Ritchie, 1st Baron Ritchie of Dundee.

Architectural practice

Examples of buildings and estates that Macartney worked on are Swaylands in the Kentish Weald, a rebuilding of St Leonard's Church, Downham in Lancashire, 169 Queen's Gate in South Kensington, London, St Leonard's, Shoreditch, in London, St James Garlickhythe in the City of London, and St John the Baptist, Egglescliffe in County Durham. As well as his architectural commissions, Macartney served as editor of The Architectural Review from 1905 to 1920.[12][8]

Arts and crafts

Macartney was a member of the St. George's Art Society, which along with fellow society, the Fifteen, promoted the unity of the arts. However, in 1884, both the Royal Academy of Arts and the Royal Institute of British Architects were seemingly trying to work against this.[13] Macartney, along with fellow Shaw apprentices W. R. Lethaby, Edward Prior, Ernest Newton and Gerald C. Horsley, plus metal worker W. A. S. Benson, designer Heywood Sumner, painter and brother C. H. H. Macartney, sculptors Hamo Thornycroft and Edward Onslow Ford,[14] and the architect John Belcher[15][16] set about founding the Art Workers' Guild. Six years later in 1890, he was one of the co-founders of the furniture company Kenton & Co., based in Kenton Street, Bloomsbury, London. His co-founders were William Lethaby, Ernest Gimson, Reginald Blomfield and Sidney Barnsley. However, the business was disbanded two years later in 1892.[8]

Honours and later life

Memorial plaque to Macartney in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral

Macartney was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1889, before resigning in 1891 over a dispute before being reinstated in 1906. He was made an Honorary Corresponding Member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and was elected the Master of the Art Workers' Guild in 1899.[17][18] Macartney died on 28 October 1932.[12][8]

Publications

  • Later Renaissance Architecture in England (1901)
  • English Houses and Gardens in the 17th and 18th Centuries (1908)
  • The Practical Exemplar of Architecture (1908–27)

References

  1. ↑ "Sir Mervyn Edmund Macartney (1853-1932)". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Macartney, Sir Mervyn Edmund". Who's Who.
  3. ↑ Service. Alistair (1979). London 1900. p. 249. ISBN 9780847802142.
  4. ↑ International Architecture (1980). The English House 1860–1914:Catalogue to an Exhibition of Photographs and Drawings. p. 27. OCLC 10772810.
  5. ↑ Davey. Peter (1980). Arts and Crafts Architecture:The Search for Earthly Paradise. p. 105. ISBN 9782870092699.
  6. 1 2 Ward. Jan (1998). Mervyn Edmund Macartney, architect, 1853–1932: the life and work of Sir Mervyn Macartney, BA, FRICA, FSA. ISBN 0953464105.
  7. ↑ "(Sir) Mervyn Edmund Macartney". Scottish Architects. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
  8. 1 2 3 4 "Macartney, Mervyn Edmund 1853–1932". Biographical Dictionary of British and Irish Architects 1800–1950 – Art History Research net. Retrieved 30 December 2023.
  9. ↑ London: Technical Journals Ltd (1914). Who's Who in Architecture 1914.
  10. ↑ "Kent Hatch Westerham". ,Archiseek. Retrieved 25 November 2021.
  11. ↑ Davey. Peter (1980). L'Architecture Arts & Crafts. p. 131. ISBN 2-87009-269-5.
  12. 1 2 "Sir Mervyn Edmund Macartney (1853—1932)". A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Oxford University Press. 2006. Retrieved 2020-12-30.
  13. ↑ Whyte. W (4 October 2007). "Founder members of the Art-Workers' Guild (act. 1884–1899)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/96545. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  14. ↑ Harriet Bridgeman, Elizabeth Drury (1975). The Encyclopedia of the Victorian. p. 188. ISBN 9780600331230.
  15. ↑ "The Art Worker' s Guild". Victorian Web. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
  16. ↑ "UCL Bloomsbury Project – Art Workers Guild". UCL. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
  17. ↑ Ward. J (1998). Mervyn Edmund Macartney, architect, 1853-1932. Jan Ward. ISBN 0953464105.
  18. ↑ "(Sir) Mervyn Edmund Macartney". Scottish Architects. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
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