Thomas Ivory

Thomas Ivory (1709–1779) was an English builder and architect, active in Norwich.

Life

He was admitted a freeman of Norwich as a carpenter 21 September 1745, and lived in the parish of St. Helen.

He obtained a license for his company of actors, the Norwich Company of Comedians, to perform in Norwich in 1768, and in the same year sent competition drawings for the erection of the Royal Exchange, Dublin. He died at Norwich on 28 August 1779. In his will Ivory is described as ‘builder and timber merchant.’

Works

At Norwich he designed

• the Assembly House (1754), later used as the Freemasons' Hall;
• the Octagon Chapel in Colegate Street (1754–6), in the Corinthian style; and
• the theatre (1757), called Concert Hall before 1764, of which he is said to have been the proprietor. Its interior was a copy of the old Drury Lane Theatre, and Ivory is said to have been assisted in his design by Sir James Burrough (1691–1764).

Ivory is also said to have designed the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.

Family

His widow died on 18 June 1787, aged 80. A monument to the memory of the couple is in the Norwich Cathedral. Of his two sons, Thomas was in the revenue office, Fort William, India; and William, architect and builder in Norwich, erected a pew in St. Helen's Church in 1780, and died in King Edward VI Almshouses, Saffron Walden, on 11 December 1837, aged 90.

References

• Dictionary of National Biography, Ivory, Thomas (1709–1779), architect, by Bertha Porter. Published 1891.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.