Lincoln' (A. C. Benson's Edward White Benson, ii. 373). Benson acknowledged Grimthorpe's assistance on the church patronage bill of 1893, when he produced 'a set of amendments really helpful.' The measure was reintroduced and passed its second reading two years afterwards with Grimthorpe's approval. When, later, in 1895, Lord Halifax moved the second reading of a divorce bill, amending the Act by which the clergy were compelled to lend their churches for the remarriage of those guiltily divorced, Grimthorpe 'treated this relief as an attempt to secure the "supremacy of the clergy," and vituperated the archbishop of York as a Solon and Janus.' 'I never,' wrote Benson, 'saw spite so open in the house before ' (ibid. ii. 641). Not long before his death, Grimthorpe eagerly supported Sir William Harcourt [q. v. Suppl. II], who was denouncing ritualistic practices in a series of letters to 'The Times.' His standpoint through all his disputes was strongly erastian and orthodox, as he understood orthodoxy.
Architecture, especially on its ecclesiastical side, also long occupied Grimthorpe's mind. In 1855 he published 'Lectures on Gothic Architecture, chiefly in relation to St. George's Church at Doncaster.' This parish church, having been burnt down, was rebuilt by Sir George Gilbert Scott [q. v.], with suggestions from Grimthorpe, who contributed liberally to the funds. Grimthorpe, while expressing admiration of Scott's work, was mercilessly sarcastic at the expense of Scott's rivals; Scott on his side admitted Grimthorpe's generosity and strenuous support of sound architecture, but ungraciously added that 'he has an unpleasant way of doing things, which makes one hate one's best work' (Scott's Personal and Professional Recollections, 173). Grimthorpe next published 'A Book on Building, Civil and Ecclesiastical, with the Theory of Domes and of the Great Pyramid' (1876; 2nd edit., enlarged, 1880), which again contained many shrewd hits at the architectural profession. In it are enumerated the buildings which he himself had 'substantially designed,' including the Church of St. James, Doncaster, in which Scott had a hand (ib.); St. Chad's Church, Headingley; Cliffe parish church in the East Riding; St. Paul's, Burton-on-Trent; the tower-top of Worcester Cathedral; Doncaster grammar school, and the extension of Lincoln's Inn library. His influence is also to be traced in the injudicious restoration of Lincoln's Inn chapel in 1882, but his contemplated demolition of Sir Thomas Lovell's gatehouse in Chancery Lane was happily frustrated.
The architectural enterprise with which his name is inseparably connected came later. Living in a house at Batch Wood, St. Albans, designed by himself, the only architect with whom I have never quarrelled,' he was much interested in the unsound condition of St. Albans Abbey, and the endeavour of the St. Albans reparation committee to fit it for cathedral and parochial service. He subscribed generously to the funds, contributing, from first to last, some 130,000l., and interfered freely with Scott the architect. 'The leader,' wrote Scott in 1877, 'among those who wish me to do what I ought not to do is Sir Edmund Beckett' (ib. 357). In 1880, various parts of the building being in danger of falling down, and the committee having exhausted its funds and being 3000l. in debt, Grimthorpe obtained a faculty to 'restore, repair and refit' the church at his own expense. He set to work with characteristic zeal, and by 1885 the nave was finished. But his arbitrary treatment of the roof and new west front and his insertion of windows in the terminations of the transepts excited the fiercest criticism, and he returned blow for blow. In favouring a high-pitched roof, instead of the existing flat roof, he found himself at sharp issue with George Edmund Street [q. v. Suppl. I], but nothing could divert him from his purpose (A. E. Street's Memoir of George Edmund Street, 242-7). Meanwhile Henry Hucks Gibbs, afterwards Lord Aldenham [q. v. Suppl. II], had obtained a concurrent faculty to restore the high altar screen, and a conflict of authorities ensued. In 1889 the case came before Sir Francis Jeune [q. v. Suppl. II], chancellor of the diocese, the point really at issue being Gibbs's right to fill up the central place on the high altar with a crucifix. Grimthorpe conducted his own case against Sir Walter Phillimore and Mr. C. A. Cripps, Q.C. Neither side was completely successful, but Gibbs was eventually allowed to erect the crucifix. Grimthorpe described his part in the St. Albans controversies in 'St. Albans Cathedral and its Restoration' (1885; 2nd edit., revised and enlarged, 1890), which, though purporting to be a guide-book, is also a somewhat vehement review of old arguments with 'Street and Co.,' 'sham critics of shams,' and others.
Through his long life Grimthorpe was further busy over mechanical inventions,
