Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe KBE, R.A, F.R.I.B.A. (12 December 1883 – 12 December 1974) was an English architect and designer, noted chiefly for his work on places of worship and remembrance memorials. He was a skilled interior designer and designed many pieces of furniture. He was perhaps best known for designing Guildford Cathedral, the Air Forces Memorial and for his work on behalf of the Imperial War Graves Commission for which he received a Knighthood in 1954.
Born in Ilkley, Yorkshire, Maufe studied architecture, initially under the direction of William A. Pite in 1899 and later attended St John's College, Oxford. He designed his first blueprint, Kelling Hall in Norfolk, in 1912. From there he concentrated mainly on places of worship, often designing extensions and memorials to already established buildings. A late entry into World War I in 1917 meant a brief intermission from architecture, until his demobilisation in 1919.
Maufe returned to architecture and designed more than fifty buildings in a career which lasted over fifty years. In 1936, he started work on what is perhaps the most famous of all his designs, Guildford Cathedral. Work was not completed until its consecration in 1961, due to the outbreak of World War II. During WWII, Maufe became a principal architect of the Imperial War Graves Commission, later becoming chief architect and artistic advisor. He was associated with the Commission for more than 25 years.
Maufe retired in 1964 having just completed his final project, St Nicholas Church at Saltdean. He moved to East Sussex where he died ten years later on his 91st birthday. He was married and had a son, who predeceased him in 1968.
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Edward Maufe was born in Sunny Bank, Ilkley, Yorkshire on 12 December 1882.[1] He was the second of three children and younger son of Henry Muff (d.1910) and Maude Alice Muff née Smithies (d.1919).[1] Henry Muff was a linen draper who worked for the firm Brown, Muff & Co. Ltd.[1] His mother, Maude, was the niece of Sir Titus Salt, the founder of Saltaire.[1] Maufe was educated at Wharfedale School, Ilkley and later attended Bradford School.[1]
In 1899, he was sent to London to serve a five-year apprenticeship under the direction of the London architect William A. Pite[1] and as a result, the Muff family moved from Yorkshire to the Red House, Bexleyheath, London which was originally designed by Philip Webb for William Morris.[1] Muff later acknowledged the design of the house as an early architectural influence.[1] After completing his apprenticeship in 1904, he attended St John's College, Oxford, where he received a B.A and went on to study Design at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1908.[1] In 1909, he changed his surname to Maufe.[2] In 1910, he became an associate member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).[1]
At the outbreak of World War I Maufe decided to enlist in the army. Upon joining, the army forms submitted by Maufe showed that H.R.L.Sheppard had agreed to stand as guarantor, giving his address as "The Vicarage, Trafalgar Square." It later transpired that this was Dick Sheppard.[3] He enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery on 9 January 1917, was commissioned as a staff lieutenant on 9 April 1917[3] and saw action in Salonika.[3] Maufe was discharged on 26 February 1919[3] and became a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1920.[3]
Maufe set up in practice on his own in 1912 and was immediately commissioned by Sir Henry Deterding to design and construct Kelling Hall in Norfolk.[1] The building shows Maufe's early links with the arts and crafts movement due to its butterfly plan, knapped flint walls, and a grey tiled and gabled roof.[1] Maufe's other notable pre-war work included the decoration of St Martin-in-the-Fields, the chapels and alterations at All Saints Church, Southampton (which was later destroyed during the Second World War in 1940), and St John's, Hackney, which first brought him into notice in church circles.[1]
He came to prominence in 1924 with his design for the Palace of Industry at the British Empire Exhibition, Wembley and was a silver medallist at the Paris Exhibition of 1925[1] which resulted in him securing a wide variety of commissions.[1]
Two early buildings, particularly, made him notable among fellow architects:[1] incuding the church of St Bede at Clapham in (1922) and St Saviour's, Acton in (1924), both built for the Royal Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb.[1] The latter church was particularly admired for its structured simplification and for its likeness to contemporary Swedish architecture.[1] The church was loosely based on the design by Ivar Tengbom of Hogalids church in Stockholm,[1] which Maufe described as being the most completely satisfying modern Swedish building he had seen.[1] During this period, Maufe was a constant champion of modern Swedish architecture,[1] and was often vocal on this theme in the architectural press, citing his own buildings as having simplified elevations, painted ceilings, and applied sculpture, similar to those found in Sweden.[1] Maufe felt that Swedish architecture had a combined freshness without obviously breaking with tradition.[1]
In 1932, he won a competition to design the Guildford Cathedral, coming first among 183 entries.[1] When the building was dedicated in 1961, architectural taste had moved away from its Neo-Gothic designs.[1] The cathedral's exterior including the nave and aisles together with Maufe's use of space, won him general admiration amongst fellow architects.[1] As a result, Maufe was described as a designer of churches by conviction, as he attempted to produce buildings of austere simplicity aiming directly at the creation of a religious atmosphere.[1] At Guildford, he wanted to produce a design of the times, yet to keep in line with the great English cathedrals already established within the UK.[1]
In 1936 King George VI commissioned Maufe to conduct various alterations to the Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor Great Park.[1] The small private chapel stands in the grounds of Royal Lodge and was the Queen Mother's residence. Maufe designed a new ceiling for the chancel and a royal pew, new choir stalls and a casing for a new organ. In 1944, he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal for architecture.[4] Other works include the Festival Theatre in Cambridge, St. Thomas the Apostle in Hanwell, London and the Oxford Playhouse and St Columba's Church (Pont Street, London SW1). He designed buildings for Trinity and St John's College, Cambridge, Balliol and St John's College, Oxford (of which he was made an honorary fellow of in 1943).[1] Maufe was later commissioned to re design the war-damaged Middle Temple and of Gray's Inn, which made him an honorary master of the bench in 1951.[1]
From 1943 until 1969 Maufe was first principal architect and later, chief architect and artistic adviser to the Imperial War Graves Commission.[1] Among his many designs for war memorials are those at Tower Hill which was an expansion to the already established memorial by Sir Edward Lutyens and the Air Forces Memorial at Cooper's Hill overlooking Runnymede (1950–53).[1]
Maufe's domestic work had a stylish modernity, in direct contrast with the new functionalism. In the architectural language of the time it was called ‘modernity with manners’ and very much reflected the established taste of the inter-war period. Maufe often wrote and lectured on architecture chiefly on furnishing within the home including furniture, and on present-day architecture.[1] His interiors were considered by interior designers to be very stylish, with built-in fitments and pastel colour-schemes, particularly pink, mauve, and cream, contrasted with silver-lacquered furniture and mirrors.[1] One of his house designs was Yaffle Hill, Broadstone, Dorset, built in 1929 for Cyril Carter of Poole Potteries.[1] Other schemes included an extension to Baylins, Beaconsfield in 1927, for Ambrose Heal, Hanah Gluck's studio in Bolton Hill, Hampstead (1932), and the studio for religious services at Broadcasting House (1931). He also designed several branch banks for Lloyds, one of the best being at 50 Notting Hill Gate, London [1] in 1930.[1]
In 1910, Maufe left Bexleyheath and moved to 139 Old Church Street, Chelsea, London. On 1 October 1910, he married Gladys Evelyn Prudence (1882–1976), the daughter of Edward Stutchbury of the geological survey of India.[1] She was a designer and interior decorator, and later a director of Heal's.[1] They had a son who died in 1968.[1] Maufe and Gladys retired shortly after he had completed Guildford Cathedral to their second home, a farmhouse in Shepherd's Hill, Buxted, East Sussex which Maufe restored in the late 1920s.[1] Maufe died on 12 December 1974, his ninety-second birthday, in Uckfield Hospital.[1]
His architectural drawings and correspondence were deposited at the Royal Institute of British Architects headquarters at 66 Portland Place, Marylebone, London.[1] An oil on canvas portrait of him by John Laviers Wheatley was exhibited in 1956 and is in the Primary Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.[5]