Bradshaw Gass & Hope

Bradshaw Gass & Hope is an English firm of architects founded in 1862 by Jonas James Bradshaw (1837–1912). The style "Bradshaw Gass & Hope" was adopted after J. J. Bradshaw’s death and referred to the remaining partners John Bradshaw Gass and Arthur John Hope.

Contents

History

The firm’s principal office is in Bolton, but branch offices were set up in Edinburgh and London when major projects were undertaken.

Although Bradshaw was capable of designing fine Gothic Revival houses, like Watermillock (1880–86) near Bolton, he mainly produced industrial buildings. The technical challenges of early iron and concrete framed factories led Bradshaw to employ engineers and quantity surveyors and thus founded one of the first multidisciplinary practices. The emphasis on engineering in the practice seems to have benefited John Parkinson (1861–1935), Bradshaw’s apprentice from 1877 to 1882, who immigrated to America where he designed a number of high-rise buildings including Los Angeles City Hall (1928).

In the early twentieth century, Bradshaw Gass & Hope gained national prominence after winning a number of architectural competitions; the firm built seven town halls between 1928 and 1939 and extended Bolton Town Hall. During this period, Bradshaw Gass & Hope attracted many architecture students; half a dozen of these students would later head council architects departments across the country.[1]

Until the 1960s most of the firm's work was in the Classical idiom.

Sir George Grenfell-Baines, the founder of Building Design Partnership, worked in the Bolton office from 1930 to 1934; he was impressed by the firm’s multidisciplinary nature but dismayed by its strict hierarchical structure (at that time).[2]

Bradshaw Gass & Hope operates from its Bolton office. In 2007 it was the subject of a monograph and its archive drawings were exhibited in London and Manchester.[3]

Selected buildings by Bradshaw Gass & Hope

Listed by date under practice title at the time:[4][5][6]

Jonas James Bradshaw with Leigh Hall

J. J. Bradshaw

Bradshaw & Gass

Bradshaw, Gass & Hope

Bradshaw Gass & Hope

Image gallery of Buildings by Bradshaw Gass & Hope

Some notable people who worked for Bradshaw Gass & Hope

Partners

Former pupils and technical staff

Notes

  1. ^ Austen Redman (2007), Bolton Civic Centre and the Classical Revival Style of Bradshaw Gass & Hope. in Clare Hartwell & Terry Wyke(editors), Making Manchester, Lancashire & Cheshire Antiquarian Society, ISBN 978-0-900942-01-3
  2. ^ George Grenfell-Baines (2000), interviewed by Louise Brodie at Preston, (January 5–11) Architects’ Lives, London: National Biographical Archive, C467/46/F7839.
  3. ^ Jane & Timothy Lingard (2007) Bradshaw Gass & Hope - The Story of an Architectural Practice, ISBN 978-0-9556035-01
  4. ^ A. Stuart Gray (1985) Edwardian Architecture: a Biographical Dictionary, ISBN 0-7156-2141-6.
  5. ^ Nikolaus Pevsner (1969), Lancashire 1: the Industrial and Commercial South, The Buildings of England, ISBN 0-14-071036-1.
  6. ^ Nikolaus Pevsner (1969), Lancashire 2: The Rural North, The Buildings of England, ISBN 0-300-09617-8.
  7. ^ Mather Lane Mill, Images of England, http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/details/default.aspx?id=213540, retrieved 2011-01-31 
  8. ^ Leigh Mill, Park Lane, Images of England, http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/details/default.aspx?id=213535, retrieved 2011-01-31 

External links