Thomas Garner

Thomas Garner (1839–1906) was one of the leading English Gothic revival architects of the Victorian era. His name is usually mentioned in relation to his almost 30-year partnership with George Frederick Bodley. Garner never received full recognition for his remarkable abilities, scholarly knowledge and extraordinary achievements in designing and constructing ecclesiastical, private and public buildings. This is attributable, according to Edward Prioleau Warren, a fellow architect, to his singularly shy and retiring disposition and to the fact that his name was for so many years coupled with that of the distinguished Mr. Bodley, leading to frequent confusion of their individual efforts and a mistaken attribution of their designs.

Early life

Born at Wasperton Hill Farm in Warwickshire, Thomas Garner grew up in a rural setting that inspired deep appreciation for the simple country life. His instinctive feeling for country crafts and construction, for "ancientry" of all sorts, was derived from his frequent archeological journeys on horseback, shared by his family and friends. These instincts were never weakened by long years spent in London. He returned to the countryside for his final home, Fritwell Manor in Oxfordshire, the Jacobean house that he restored in 1893^[1] and where he died in 1906. His interest in conservation was fostered throughout his life by his study of history, fine arts and literature. He and Stratton wrote The Domestic Architecture of England during the Tudor Period, which B.T. Batsford published in 1911).

Career

Thomas Garner was articled to the architect Sir Gilbert Scott at the age of 17. One of his immediate predecessors at "Scott's" was George Frederick Bodley, who was already beginning to establish his own reputation. A warm friendship developed between two. When he returned to Warwickshire, Garner undertook various small works as a representative of Sir Gilbert Scott, including the repair of the old chapel of the Leicester Hospital at Warwick, which he buttressed into security.

Garner got married to Rose Emily Smith on 6 October 1866. In 1868 he returned to London to help his friend Bodley, and they established the long and fruitful partnership at their office at 7 Gray's Inn Square. The partnership benefitted Bodley in more ways than one. Garner was a happily married man — his wife is said to have read to him while he drew his designs — but Mr. Bodley was not, so the Garner household was a haven.

At first, their collaboration was close and produced such homogeneous work that there was little external evidence of dual authorship. What is noticeable in some of the earlier buildings by the "firm" is the replacement of the French influences which previously had shown themselves in Bodley's work, by a distinctively English style. This period of close collaboration produced the church of St. John at Tuebrook, Liverpool, soon followed and eclipsed by the churches of the Holy Angels at Hoar Cross, Staffordshire, and of St. Augustine's Church, Pendlebury, near Manchester — the former begun in 1871, the latter in 1873. They also designed St David's Cathedral, Hobart, in Tasmania.

As Bodley and Garner's commissions increased they became less exclusively ecclesiastical. Church building remained predominant but their practice widened to collegiate buildings in Oxford and Cambridge, and to private houses and offices. This broadening of scope reduced their actual collaboration.

Bodley and Garner's pupils included the garden designer Inigo Thomas. Thomas specialised in formal gardens with geometrical plans in 17th and 18th century styles, which suited the numerous 16th and 17th century houses that Bodley and Garner renovated for wealthy clients.

The ensuing period of dual practice under partnership left most of the secular opportunities to the control of the junior partner, Garner, while Bodley, with his penchant for Gothic forms and ecclesiastical work, devoted himself to church building and decoration. Garner was almost exclusively responsible for the design and supervision of most of the work at Oxford, including the alterations and tower at Christ Church, St Swithin's Quadrangle and the High Street Entrance Gate at Magdalen College, and the Master's Lodgings at the University College. He was entirely responsible for the subsequent President's Lodgings at Magdalen College. Garner also designed River House in Tite Street, Chelsea, and the new classroom building at Marlborough College. Hewell Grange, Lord Windsor's Worcestershire mansion, with all its elaborate details, terraced gardens and their architectural accessories, was also his work.

Garner continued to contribute to the firm's ecclesiastical work. He designed the altar screen in St Paul's Cathedral and several sepulchral monuments, including those of the Bishops of Ely, Lincoln, Winchester and Chichester, and that of Henry Parry Liddon. In 1889 he designed the decorated gothic case for the organ at Holy Trinity parish church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Despite Bodley's distaste for business and trade, he and Thomas Garner also set up a fabric company with Gilbert Scott the younger in 1874, to provide embroidered and textile goods, wallpaper and stained glass. The firm was called Watts & Co, trading initially from Baker Street in London, and today still continuing its traditions from premises near Westminster Cathedral. The name derives from Bodley's distaste for trade. When the founders were asked: "Who was Watts?" Bodley replied: "What's in a Name".

The final period of the Bodley and Garner partnership is best seen in the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Oxford, built for the Cowley Fathers in 1894–96.^[2]

In 1898 Garner was received into the Roman Catholic Church, and his partnership with Bodley was dissolved for fear that this might harm the latter's business. After dissolving the partnership, Garner designed and supervised the restoration of Yarnton Manor, Oxfordshire in 1897;^[3] the Slipper Chapel at Houghton-le-Dale; Moreton House, Hampstead; the Empire Hotel at Buxton by the Duke of Devonshire's estate. The crowning work of his life was the choir of Downside Abbey, near Bath, where his body now lies.

Epitaph

Thomas Garner was well respected by his contemporaries. When the architect John Francis Bentley, stricken by a fatal illness, was asked by Cardinal Vaughan which architect he would choose to carry on his work in the Cathedral at Westminster, he replied: "Garner, for he is a man of genius". His genius derived from the minutely careful finish of his work, based on his unremitting study and love of Mediaeval archeology, Gothic and Renaissance art, particularly its English manifestations. River House, Tite Street, Chelsea Embankment, completed in 1879, showed that he could design in a manner that was relatively little appreciated at the time: its sober early 18th-century character is singular as the design of a reputed Gothicist.

References

Sources

• Prioleau Warren, Edward (circa 1906). Article about Thomas Garner. (in Garner family possession).  Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Garner Family Bible
• Anson, Peter Frederick (1965) [1960]. Fashions in Church Furnishings 1840-1940. London: Studio Vista Ltd. 
• Connor, Rev. Geoffery (2002). Parish Church of St. John the Baptist, Epping. 
• Curl, James Stevens (2000). Oxford Dictionary of Architecture. Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks. ISBN 0-19-280017-5. 
• Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-071045-0. 
• Collins, David Mark (1992) The Architecture of George Frederick Bodley 1827-1907 and Thomas Garner 1839-1906 Peterhouse, Cambridge University

External links

• Entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography