Henry Price (architect)

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(John) Henry Price, c. 1905

John Henry Price (1867—10 April 1944) was Manchester's first city architect. He was responsible for a number of well known Manchester landmarks.

1 Career
2 Name
3 Notable Buildings

[edit] Career

John Henry Price started his career as an architect's assistant in Liverpool (1891 Census). He later became the building surveyor for Birmingham. He married Sarah Dallow in 1896. In June 1902, he was appointed as the first City Architect for Manchester. (Ref: HPD Autobiography)

[edit] Name

There is some confusion over his name, between John Henry Price (1891 Census, his marriage certificate, and the Manchester Corporation references to Didsbury Library), family photographs and many work attributions, where he is simply Henry Price, and the index in Pevsner, where for example the Ashton House reference uses both H. R. Price, at the same time as referring to him as the city architect. HPD refers to him as Harry when he was courting his sister, and as John Henry in reference to the engagement.

There was only one Manchester City Architect called Henry Price in the period 1902 to 192?, however there was an H. Price working earlier in the area. H.R. Price is listed by Pevsner as the architect for St Clements, Denmark Rd, Mosside Manchester, Mosside/Whalley Range, 1881, and St Edmund's Alexandra Rd South, Whalley Range 1881-2 and Price, H. R., for St Paul's Springfield Rd Sale Cheshire 1883-4, which must be an unrelated H.R. Price.

[edit] Notable Buildings

[edit] Victoria Baths

Manchester's Victoria Baths were built 1903-6 by Henry Price when the City Architect, based on designs of 1901-2 by the City Surveyor T. de Courcy Meade and his assistant Arthur Davies. Opened by Manchester Corporation in 1906, they were closed in 1993. Originally a prestigious complex, containing private baths and a laundry, Turkish Baths and, from 1952, the first public Aerotone (jacuzzi) in the UK, the Victoria Baths are listed grade II* on the List of Buildings of Architectural and Historic Interest, and many of its original features remain. In September 2003, Victoria Baths won the BBC2's Restoration competition, but progress on renovation has been slow.

[edit] Didsbury Library

John Henry Price was the architect of Didsbury Library, 692 Wilmslow Road and he described it as; 'designed in the fifteenth century gothic style with tracery windows and emblems of Science, Knowledge, Literature, Music and Arts and Crafts in stone distributed over the building'. Small in scale but with cathedral-like aspirations, Didsbury Library is a temple to reading at the centre of the village that many regard as Manchester's most desirable suburb.

Internally the electric light was designed to allow the public free access to the shelves, browsing and reading areas. The walls were tiled to dado height, the floor cork carpeted and the oak furniture, fittings and partitions were provided by Armitage and Wolfe of John Dalton Street for £600.

When the library opened on Saturday 15 May 1915 at 4.30pm the great and the good gathered for the occasion. Fletcher Moss, deputy chairman of the libraries committee, opened the door with a gold key, in front of civic dignitaries and the public who were keen to see the permanent free library.

During the English Civil War, Prince Rupert stationed himself in a building which earlier stood stood at the site, which is comemorated with a Blue Plaque on the library.

[edit] Withington Library

The library created partly from money donated by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie - was purpose built and designed by architect Henry Price, and opened its doors on May 30, 1927. There is a series of photographs on the Manchester City site, from site demolition in 1925, views in the 1950s and pre and post the 1970s interior modernisation.Andrew Carnegie, the industrial magnate and millionaire who believed passionately in free libraries, promised £5000 for libraries in Didsbury, Withington and Chorlton if suitable sites could be found. Four houses, including an old loom house, were cleared on Wilmslow Road to make way for the building.

[edit] Former Crumpsall & Cheetham District Library

Cheetham Hill Rd, 1909-11. Grade II Listed. Empty and unused in 2003.The Library was moved in July 1974 to new accommodation in the Abraham Moss Centre.

[edit] Hydraulic Power Station now People's History Museum

The former Hydraulic Power Station, constructed 1907-09. Now the People's History Museum.

The Pump House in Bridge Street on the banks of the River Irwell has only been the People’s History Museum since May 1994. Before that it was a hydraulic pumping station and is now the only surviving Edwardian pumping station in the city. It opened in 1909 and was the third and last station of the hydraulic pumping network in Manchester. The other two stations were situated on Whitworth Street and Pott Street.

The station used to supply power to the mills and warehouses that dominated the city at the beginning of the 19th century. It wound the Town Hall clock and even raised the curtain at the Opera House. The mighty water-powered pumping station also doubled up as an aquarium and a swimming pool. Legend has it that staff at the Pump House kept fish and swam in the large water tanks on the roof of the building. In 1972 the station closed when hydraulic power was superseded by electricity.

All that remains of the internal machinery is a pumping engine, a star exhibit at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry situated in the oldest passenger railway buildings in the world on Liverpool Road in Castlefield. The engine, 15ft high and weighing 25 tonnes, has been restored and is in full working order.

[edit] Ashton House

Women's lodging house, Dantzic Street, 1908-10

ASHTON HOUSE stands on Corporation Street in the area of Ancoats known as Angel Meadow. This was one of the worst slums of the Victorian city and many buildings here were designed to provide better housing for the poor. Ashton House, for example, was designed as model lodgings for women. It was built by the Corporation, 1908-10, by the City Architect H. Price. It catered for 222 women, who occupied dormitories with individual cubicles and cooked for themselves in communal kitchens. A lodging house for men existed nearby on Pollard Street. It stands on an island site, with a very narrow rounded end to the junction with Crown Lane. Free Style, red brick and cream terracotta. Nice details include ironwork with flower motifs, lettering in the gable to the corner with Aspin lane and voussoirs of tiles laid on edge.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

Henry P. Dallow (Henry Price's Brother in Law) Autobiography, notes his brother in law (referring to him as Harry, Henry and John Henry) as initially Birmingham surveyor, then first Manchester city architect.

Looking at Buildings, Pevsner's "The Buildings of England".

Manchester City Council list of listed Buildings

Categories: Architects