James Essex (1722–1784) was an English builder and architect, of Cambridge.
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Essex was the son of a builder who had fitted the sash windows and wainscot in the Senate House (1724-5), under James Gibbs; and also worked on the hall of Queens' College, Cambridge (1732-4). He died in February 1749.[1]
James Essex the younger was born in Cambridge in August 1722. He had a grammar education at the school of King's College, Cambridge, and studied under Sir James Burrough. On his father's death Essex took up his business, and in September 1749 built the Mathematical Bridge at Queens' College.[1]
In the next 25 years he was occupied with work for Cambridge colleges. In 1751 he fitted up the 'dome room' at the library for manuscripts; in 1754 he rebuilt the Magdalene Street Bridge; in 1757 he designed and built the Ramsden building at St. Catharine's College; and in 1758 he repaired and altered Nevile's Court of Trinity College. In 1760 he designed and built the new west range at Queens' College; in 1764 he repaired and altered the hall at Emmanuel College; in 1766 he designed and built the stone bridge at Trinity College; in 1768 he completed the west end of the Senate House, left unfinished by Gibbs. In 1769 he ashlared the quadrangle of Christ's College and completed the chapel at Clare College after the death of Burrough. In 1775 he rebuilt the combination-room of Trinity College, and designed and built the west front of Emmanuel College; in 1776 he designed and set up the altarpiece at King's College, with the wainscot round the sacrarium, and altered the south side of the first court of St John's College; between 1778 and 1782 he made the bookcases for the library, and designed and built the chapel at Sidney Sussex College; and in 1784 he designed and built the old Cambridge Guildhall.[1]
In the transformation of older structures which Essex was instructed to carry out, as well as in his original works (except the altarpiece at King's College), he adopted the Italianate style of the day, which he had learnt from Burrough; but he was an admirer of the then despised Gothic style, and was a pioneer professional architect in imitations of old English architecture.[2]
Essex was consulted by the dean and chapter of Ely Cathedral in 1757. In the course of the following five years he restored the east front to the perpendicular, and repaired the roof of the eastern limb of the church, together with the woodwork of the lantern, which neglect had brought into a dangerous condition. Finally, he removed the choir from its original position to the east end of the presbytery (work not completed until 1770). The repairs executed between 1757 and 1762 were carried out conservatively, the old timber being, where possible, preserved; but Essex recommended the destruction of the west porch, as "neither ornamental nor useful".[3]
In 1760 he built the doctors' gallery in Great St. Mary's Church (Burrough, architect). In 1761 he accepted another major commission, at Lincoln Cathedral, where substantial repairs were needed. Besides these he constructed an arch under the west tower, repaved the entire church, repaired the choir screen, and designed an altarpiece and bishop's throne. These works still remain. Here, also, Essex tried to get the choir removed to the same position as at Ely, but without success. In 1775 he designed and put up the four spires and battlement of the central tower.[3]
Essex also restored the tower of Winchester College Chapel, altered Madingley Hall, Cambridge, built the steeple of the parish church at Debden, Essex, and the cross to commemorate Queen Catherine of Aragon erected at Ampthill, Bedfordshire in 1773 by the Earl of Ossory. In building this cross Essex followed a rough sketch by Horace Walpole.[3]
Essex died in Cambridge of a paralytic stroke on 14 September 1784, in his sixty-third year. He was buried in St. Botolph's churchyard, Cambridge, on the south side of the church, where a tomb commemorates him, his father, mother, wife, and children. He and his children are further commemorated by a tablet in the north aisle.[3]
He was the intimate friend of Michael Tyson, Thomas Kerrich, Richard Gough, James Bentham, William Cole (whose house at Milton, Cambridge he built, and who made him his executor), Horace Walpole, Burrough, and other well-known antiquaries. He was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries 23 January 1772, through Gough, and contributed papers to Archæologia on architectural history. In 1756 he issued proposals for engraving views, plans, and sections of King's College Chapel; the scheme of this work, with plates drawn by his own hand, was among the manuscripts which after his death passed to Thomas Kerrich, who bequeathed to the British Museum. The same collection contains the manuscript and many of the illustrations for an unfinished history of Gothic ecclesiastical architecture.[3]
In 1748, when Essex was a young man of twenty-six, he became involved in a controversy with the Rev. R. Masters, fellow and historian of Corpus Christi College, over the authorship of a plan for adding a new court to the college. In December 1747 Masters had employed Essex to draw a plan, which he then had engraved and circulated as his own. Essex published proposals for engraving and printing by subscription his own design, and (February 1749) published a pamphlet, in which he criticised Masters's design and conduct.[3]
The works which Essex acknowledged are the following:[4]
Besides these, his description of the old chapel of Sidney Sussex College, and his "Journal of a Tour through part of Flanders and France in August 1773", have been printed since his death in the Architectural History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge, by the Rev. R. Willis and J. W. Clark, and the Cambr. Antiq. Soc. Octavo Publ. No. xxiv. respectively.[4]
The name of Essex is also connected with six engraved designs:[4]
Essex married Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Thurlbourne, bookseller, of Cambridge, by whom he had two children—James, who died an infant in 1757, and Millicent, who married, 10 May 1785, the Rev. John Hammond, sometime fellow of Queens' College. She died in January 1787.[3]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Clark, John Willis (1889). "Essex, James". In Leslie Stephen. Dictionary of National Biography. 18. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 5,6,7.