Edmund March Wheelwright (September 14, 1854 – August 15, 1912) was one of New England's most important architects in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and served as city architect for Boston, Massachusetts from 1891-1895.
Wheelwright was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, educated at Roxbury Latin School and graduated from Harvard University in 1876. He studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later in Europe, after which he worked in the offices of Peabody & Sterns and of firms in New York and Albany. In 1883 he started a business of his own and afterwards became a member of the firm of Wheelwright & Haven, more recently Wheelwright, Haven & Hoyt. In June 1887, Wheelwright married Elizabeth Boott Brooks. In 1893 Wheelwright and R. Clipston Sturgis were chosen by the trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts to spend a year studying art museums throughout Europe; they later they designed the museum's building on Huntington Avenue.
Wheelwright was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, serving on its Board of Directors from 1892-1894 and 1898-1900, as well as a fellow of the Boston Society of Architects. He published two books on school architecture: "The American Schoolhouse" and "School Architecture." Charles Donagh Maginnis was his apprentice.
Contents |
Wheelwright designed the following:
In addition, he was a consulting architect for:
Mid-career, Wheelwright worked as an architect for the firm of McKim, Mead, and White. By 1897 he had formed a partnership and created the firm of "Wheelwright & Haven." This later became "Wheelwright, Haven and Hoyt," and (after Wainwright's death) "Haven and Hoyt." The firm operated until c. 1930. The Haven and Hoyt Collection at the Boston Public Library holds a variety of materials related to Wheelwright, including renderings and photographs.