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Charles Robert Cockerell | |
|---|---|
 Charles Robert Cockerell (portrait byIngres, 1817) | |
| Born | (1788-04-27)27 April 1788 London, England |
| Died | 17 September 1863(1863-09-17) (aged 75) 13 Chester Terrace,Regent's Park, London, England |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 10, includingFrederick |
| Parent(s) | Samuel Pepys Cockerell Anne Whetham |
| Awards | Royal Gold Medal (1848) |
| Buildings | Ashmolean Museum |
Charles Robert CockerellRA (27 April 1788 – 17 September 1863) was anEnglish architect,archaeologist, and writer. He studied architecture underRobert Smirke. He went on an extendedGrand Tour lasting seven years, mainly spent inGreece. He was involved in major archaeological discoveries while in Greece. On returning to London, he set up a successful architectural practice. Appointed Professor of Architecture at theRoyal Academy of Arts, he served in that position between 1839 and 1859. He wrote many articles and books on both archaeology and architecture. In 1848, he became the first recipient of theRoyal Gold Medal.
Charles Robert Cockerell was born in London on 27 April 1788,[1] the third of eleven children ofSamuel Pepys Cockerell, educated atWestminster School from 1802, where he received an education inLatin and theClassics.[2] From the age of sixteen, he trained in the architectural practice of his father, who held the post of surveyor to East India House, and several London estates.[3] From 1809 to 1810 Cockerell became an assistant toRobert Smirke,[4] helping in the rebuilding of Covent Garden Theatre (the forerunner of today'sRoyal Opera House).
On 14 April 1810 he set off on theGrand Tour.[5] Due to theNapoleonic Wars much of Europe was closed to the British, so he headed forCadiz,Malta andConstantinople (Istanbul); from there he went toTroy, finally arriving inAthens,Greece by January 1811.[6] In Constantinople he metJohn Foster (architect) who would accompany him on his tour.[7] In April 1811 he was inAegina where he helped survey and excavate theTemple of Aphaea (which he called the Temple of Jupiter), finding fallen fragmentary pediment sculptures (these are now in Germany), which he discovered were originallypainted.[8] On 18 August 1811 he set out with three companions fromZakynthos on a tour ofMorea, aiming for the temple of Apollo Epicurius atBassae inArcadia.[9] The magnificentBassae Frieze that Cockerell discovered at the temple was eventually excavated and sold to theBritish Museum.[9] His tour continued visiting,Sparta,Argos,Tiryns,Mycenae,Epidaurus andCorinth returning to Athens.[10] It was there that he metFrederick North, who persuaded Cockerell and Foster to accompany him toEgypt,[11] setting off in late 1811, they travelled viaCrete, where North abandoned the idea, so Cockerell and Foster decided to visit theSeven churches of Asia and visitHellenistic sites along the way,[11] the itinerary was:Smyrna,Pergamon,Sardis,Ephesus,Priene andSide.[11] They arrived in Malta on 18 July 1812, where Cockerell was confined to bed for three weeks with a fever. By 28 August 1812 they were inSicily, where they stayed several months studying the chief Greek temples, drawing a reconstruction of theTemple of the Olympian Zeus, Agrigento.[11] From December 1813 to February 1814 he was inSyracuse, Sicily working on drawings for a projected book onAegina,Phigalia and the Bassae Frieze, he left to return to Athens where he continued work on the book, only to fall ill again on 22 August, he was still ill on 10 November, when he wrote to his sister.[11] On his recovery he continued his travels, in January 1814 he was inIoannina, where he had an audience withAli Pasha.[12] Returning to Athens, before going on in May 1814 toZakynthos to attend the sale of the Bassae Frieze. Back in Athens he met an old school friendJohn Spencer Stanhope and his brother, between August and October he was struck down by the fever again, but was well enough to attend a celebration of the anniversary of theBattle of Salamis atPiraeus on 25 October.[12] In December 1814 he returned to the Temple of Aphaea for a fortnight to check and correct his drawings.[13] In a letter of 23 December 1814 he details his re-discovery ofentasis, he enclosed a sketch for Robert Smirke of one of theParthenon columns showing its outline.[14]
Thanks to the abdication ofNapoleon in April 1814, theKingdom of Sicily and Rome were now open to the British, so on 15 January 1815 Cockerell left forNaples in the company ofJakob Linckh, they visitedPompeii and only reached Rome on 28 July.[14] The circle he mixed with in Rome included:Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres,Antonio Canova,Bertel Thorvaldsen,Peter von Cornelius,Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow,Heinrich Maria von Hess,Ludwig Vogel,Johannes Riepenhausen,Franz Riepenhausen and the Knoering brothers.[15] Writing to his father in August 1815 he said 'I should be out of my wits at the attention paid me here, I have an audience daily of savants, artists & amateurs who come and see my drawings; envoys and ambassadors beg to know when it will be convenient for me to show them some sketches; Prince Poniatowski and Prince Saxe-Gotha beg to be permitted to see them...'.[15] Much of his time in Rome was spent on preparing his drawings for publication.[16] Writing to his father on 28 December saying he had purchased copies ofDomenico Fontana'sDella transportatione dell'obelisco Vaticano e delle fabriche di Sisto V and Martino Ferraboschi'sArchitettura della basilica di S. Pietro in Vaticano.[17] In 1816 Cockrell moved on toFlorence.[18] Cockerell was presented toFerdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany and was awarded the diploma of Academician of theAccademia delle Arti del Disegno.[19] While in Florence in early 1816 Cockerell produced a design forWellington Palace forArthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, it would have been in the style ofGreek Revival architecture on a scale to rivalBlenheim Palace, though in the end nothing came of the proposal.[20] In June he suffered another bout of ill health. From Florence Cockerell continued his tour visitingPisa for a month,[21] returning to Florence, he set out on 13 September forBologna,Ferrara, then travelling by boat along thePo toVenice where he stayed three weeks.[22] From Venice, Cockerell visitedAndrea Palladio's buildings along theBrenta (river) and atVicenza,[23] passing on toMantua and thePalazzo del Te,Parma, Milan,Genoa and back to Rome from where he set off in March 1817 to return home via Paris.[24]
Cockerell returned to London on 17 June 1817, over seven years since his departure, originally the plan had been for a three-year Grand Tour.[25] Cockerell set about preparing his drawings of Greek antiquities for exhibition at the Royal Academy.[25] Cockerell was living and working at 8 Old Burlington Street, it was owned by his father, where his office remained until 1830, he lived elsewhere on marrying in 1828.[26] From 1832 to 1836 he rented as his office 34Savile Row (which was at the bottom of the garden of 8 Old Burlington Street).[26] Cockerell was a member of threegentlemen's clubs:Athenaeum Club,Travellers Club (he was a founder member, 5 May 1819) andGrillion's to which he was elected in 1822.[27]
In 1819 he was appointedSurveyor of the Fabric of St Paul's Cathedral,[28] where his works included the replacement, in 1821, of the ball and cross on the dome.[3]
WithJacques Ignace Hittorff andThomas Leverton Donaldson, Cockerell was also a member of the committee formed in 1836 to determine whether theElgin Marbles and other Greek statuary in theBritish Museum had originally been coloured (see Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects for 1842).
He was elected an Associate of theRoyal Academy on 2 November 1829,[29] and an academician on 10 February 1836,[29] his diploma work being his design for thePalace of Westminster competition.[29] In September 1839, he was appointed Professor of Architecture at the Academy, following the death ofWilliam Wilkins.[30] He won the firstRoyal Gold Medal for architecture in 1848[31] and became president of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1860.[31]
In 1833, following the resignation of SirJohn Soane, he became surveyor to theBank of England, and made additions to its London building, as well as designing branch offices inManchester,Liverpool,Bristol, andPlymouth.[3]
His exhibits at the Royal Academy included reconstructions of ancient Rome and Athens and acapriccio entitled "Tribute to the Memory of Sir Christopher Wren, being a Collection of his Principal Works"; these became well known through published engravings[3]
As an archaeologist, Cockerell is remembered for removing thereliefs from the temple of Apollo atBassae, nearPhigalia, which are now in the British Museum. Replicas of these reliefs were included in the frieze of the library of theTravellers Club.
TheRoyal Academy of Arts composed a brief commemorative biography of Cockerell, including the following sentiment which speaks of his great work as a student of architecture:
At the heart of Cockerell's emotional experience of the power of the antique to fire the imagination lay an extraordinary visual sensitivity to themass and volume of the components of architecture, which for him were never mere abstract, weightless forms or quotations borrowed from the past, but acted together as a constantly renewable expression of man's innate need to create beauty on earth.
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Cockerell had grave doubts about the wisdom of usingGreek Revival architecture in nineteenth-century England, in his diary of 1821 he had this to say:
Until the attention of the world was drawn to the study of Greece by the spirit of the last century byBarthélemy's Anacharsis & thence to the study of Greek architecture by the researches ofStuart &Revett architecture had for its guide this Country the Old Italian masters & their valuable commentaries & publications of the anc[ien]t arch[itectur]e of Rome and Italy. No great enormities could arise under such guidance, but since the rage for Greek has been amongst us all the rules which formerly protected us are now set aside & we are at sea without compas ...we stick a slice of an anc[ien]t Greek Temple to a Barn which is called breadth & simplicity, than which nothing can be more absurd, as the Greek Houses were certainly of wood & brick & plaister [Sic] painted & temporary things. I am sure that the grave & solemn arch[itectur]e of Temples were never adopted to Houses, but a much lighter style, as we may judge by the vases, the object being space & commodiousness.[32]
Cockerell's first building (1818–20) was in the style ofTudor architecture, the brick building atHarrow School, now known as the 'old schools' has twincrow-stepped gables.[33] His next commission was the classicalHanover Chapel (1821–25)Regent Street, with its twin towers and projecting tetrastyle Ionic portico, later demolished (1896).
On 23 March 1828 he proposed marriage to, and was accepted by, Anna Maria Rennie (daughter ofJohn Rennie the Elder) while strolling in the grounds ofDalmeny House, Scotland, she was twenty-five, and he was nearly forty.[34] The engagement ring was bought for £27 10s 0d inEdinburgh on 29 March and the wedding took place on 4 June 1828 inSt James's Church, Piccadilly, the Bishop of LondonWilliam Howley officiating.[34] The honeymoon started atLiphook, moving on toChichester, theIsle of Wight, crossing toPortsmouth where they toured theDockyard, and finally on 14 JuneThe Grange, Northington.[35] The couple set up home at 87Eaton Square.[36] In 1838 the family moved to Ivy House, North End,Hampstead.[31]
The first of their ten children, a son, Robert Charles was born in 1829 but died five years later, followed in 1832 by the second son John Rennie, a daughter in 1832, then in 1833 a sonFrederick Pepys Cockerell who became an architect, followed in 1834 by Robert who became a soldier and died aged twenty in theBattle of Alma, then two more daughters and three sons, the youngest Samuel Pepys (1844–1921) would edit and publish in 1903 his father's travel diaries.[31]
By 1851 Cockerell was in poor health and spent that summer recuperating at his sister Anne Pollen's house inSomerset,[37] from this time on his architectural practice virtually ceased. The family moved to 13Chester Terrace, where he died on 17 September 1863, aged 75.[37] He was buried in the crypt ofSt Paul's Cathedral,[28] a perk of being the cathedral's surveyor,[38] his marble tomb consists of his profile portrait, suspended from an Ionic column, surrounded by rich embellishment.[39]
Whilst in Edinburgh and working on theNational Monument with fellow Freemason,William Henry Playfair, Cockerell was Initiated into Scottish Freemasonry in Lodge Holyrood House (St Luke's), No.44 on 18 May 1824.[40]
Cockerell's published works include:[41]
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