Joseph John Scoles (1798–1863) was an EnglishGothic Revival architect, who designed many Roman Catholic churches.
Scoles was born in London on 27 June 1798, the son of Roman Catholic parents Matthew Scoles, a joiner, and Elizabeth Sparling. He was educated at the Roman Catholic school at Baddesley Green and then, in 1812, apprenticed for seven years to his relative,Joseph Ireland, an architect who was extensively employed byJohn Milner,[1] then the Roman Catholicvicar-apostolic of the Midland District.[2] Ireland built several Roman Catholic churches, one of the earliest of which was at Hinckley, in Nottinghamshire. He was probably advised on the Gothic detailing of these designs byJohn Carter.[2] Between 1816 and 1819 Scoles was resident atHassop Hall, Bakewell, and in Leicester, superintending works for Ireland.[1]
In 1822 Scoles left England in the company ofJoseph Bonomi the Younger for further study. He carried out archaeological and architectural research in Rome, Greece, Egypt, and Syria, often in the company ofHenry Parke andFrederick Catherwood. In 1829 he published an engraved map ofNubia, showing the area between the first and second cataracts of the Nile, from a survey made in 1824 jointly by him and Parke, and a map of the city of Jerusalem; his plan of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, with his drawings of the Jewish tombs in the valley ofJehoshaphat, was published by Robert Willis in 1849.[1]
In 1826 he returned home and resumed architectural work. In 1828 he planned and carried out the building of Gloucester Terrace,Regent's Park, for whichJohn Nash supplied the general elevation. Gloucester Villa, at the entrance to the park, was built completely to his design. At around this time he constructed a suspension bridge over theRiver Bure atGreat Yarmouth. It collapsed with fatal results in 1845, due to concealed defects in two suspending rods.[1]
Scoles designed three Anglican churches: St Mary's Chapel, Southtown, Yarmouth (1830), St Peter's Church, Great Yarmouth[1] (a commissioner's church, 1831),[3] andSt George's Church, Edgbaston, for Lord Calthorpe. His only other work for the established church consisted of some small additions and restorations toBurgh Castle andBlundeston churches in Suffolk.[1]
His works for the Roman Catholic church included Our Lady's Church, St John's Wood (1832),St Peter's Church inStonyhurst College, Lancashire (1832),Our Lady Church, Bangor (1834, now closed),St Ignatius, Preston, Lancashire (1835),St James the Less and St Helen Church, Colchester (1837), St Mary's, Newport, Monmouthshire (1840),St David's, Cardiff (1842),St John the Evangelist Church, Islington (1843), theImmaculate Conception, Farm Street, London (1844),St Francis Xavier's, Liverpool (1844),Our Lady Immaculate, Chelmsford (1847),St Mary's Church in Great Yarmouth (1848–1850), the chapel of Ince Hall, Lancashire (1859), and theHoly Cross, St Helen's, Lancashire (1860).[1]
His design for the church of St John in Duncan Terrace,Islington – a neo-Romanesque brick building with stone facings[4] – was censured by Pugin in an article on "Ecclesiastical Architectures" in theDublin Review in 1843.[1]
In 1853 he designed a group of buildings for the London Oratory at Brompton, consisting of the Oratory House – a building in a simple Italianate style, incorporating a chapel, known as the Little Oratory, and a library[5] – and a plain red brick temporary church, which survived until 1880.[6] He also built a convent nearby in Sidney Street.
The chapel ofPrior Park College, Bath, designed by Scoles, was erected after his death by his son.[1] Unlike Scoles' other ecclesiastical work, this was Neoclassical in style, in sympathy with the mansion to which it was attached. It was built to a simple aisledbasilican plan with anapse.[7]
Scoles was elected a fellow of theRoyal Institute of British Architects in 1835, was honorary secretary from May 1846 to May 1856, and vice-president in 1857–1858. Most of his contributions to the society'sProceedings were about the monuments of Egypt and the Holy Land, studied during his early travels.[1]
He died on 29 December 1863 at his home, Crofton Lodge, Hammersmith. He was survived by four sons and eight daughters from his marriage to Harriet Cory of Great Yarmouth, whom he had married in 1831.[1] The eldest wasIgnatius Scoles who followed his father as an architect, then joined theJesuits and designedGeorgetown City Hall andSt Wilfrid's Church, Preston.[8] His third son wasAlexander Joseph Cory Scoles who became aRoman Catholic priest andcanon and followed his brother and father in becoming an architect. He designed many lancet styleGothic Revival churches in the south of England.[9]
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