Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/203

This page has been validated.
Papworth
197
Papworth

and at Kirkby Hall, Yorkshire; while his services as designer proved of value to manufacturers in the production of ornaments and presentation plate, furniture, chandeliers, candelabra, cut-glass girandoles and lustres. In 1822 he designed costly sets of cut glass for the pasha of Egypt and the shah of Persia.

Papworth was one of the eighteen original members of the ‘Associated Artists in Water Colours,’ founded 1 July 1807, and at the first exhibition, opened 25 April 1808, exhibited his fine water-colour drawing of ‘The Hall of Hela, the Regions of Eternal Punishment;’ in the preceding year he had exhibited it at the Royal Academy. Other drawings exhibited in 1808 were the ‘Palace and Valhalla of Odin,’ Priam's Palace, a sketch from the Iliad of Homer, two compositions of ruins from Palestrina, the ancient Præneste, and two smaller drawings. In 1809 he was secretary to the society, but in 1810 he became an honorary member (Roget, History of the Old Water-Colour Society, i. 230, 268, 365; Pye, Patronage of British Art, 1845, p. 305). He was one of the original members of the Graphic Society, founded in 1833.

In 1835 he gave evidence before Mr. Ewart's select committee of the House of Commons on arts and manufactures, and in 1836 was consulted by the government respecting the formation of a school of design. In December 1836 he was appointed director of the government school of design, which was intended to occupy the rooms in Somerset House vacant by the removal of the Royal Academy of Arts to the west wing of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. The details of the organisation and arrangements were in his hands, and he was assisted by his son John as secretary. The school was opened on 1 May 1837, but in the second year a more economical arrangement appeared to the council to be desirable, and Papworth and his son retired (Papworth, Life and Works, pp. 106–14; Loudon, Architectural Mag. 1837, iv. 350).

As a leading member of the architectural profession, he was consulted respecting the formation of the Institute of British Architects in 1834, and was one of the twelve who signed on 2 July 1834 the resolutions on which the society was based. He was eight times chosen a vice-president; he retired in 1846, and was elected an honorary member.

Owing to failing health, Papworth withdrew from his profession at the end of 1846 (Papworth, Life and Works, pp. 32, 93; The Literary Gazette, No. 1567, 30 Jan. 1847; The Builder, vol. v. No. 208, 30 Jan. 1847, p. 54). He left London on 6 Feb. 1847, and resided at Little Paxton, near St. Neots, Huntingdonshire. His family had long been connected with that place, and there he died on 16 June 1847, aged 72 years. He was buried in Little Paxton churchyard. In 1813 his portrait was painted by James Ward, R.A., who presented him with it; in the following year another was painted by James Green, and engraved in mezzotint by William Say; a third portrait was painted in 1833 by Frederick Richard Say.

He was twice married: first, to Jane, daughter of his former master, Thomas Wapshott (she died in 1806); secondly, in 1817, to Mary Ann, eldest daughter of William Say, mezzotint engraver, by whom he had three children—two sons and one daughter, viz., John Woody, Wyatt Angelicus Van Sandau, both of whom are separately noticed, and Julia.

Papworth's chief publications were:

  1. ‘An Essay on the Causes of Dry Rot in Timber, with some Observations on the Cure of Dry Rot by the Admission of Air into the parts of Buildings affected with that Disease,’ 4to, London, 1803.
  2. ‘Select Views of London, with historical and descriptive Sketches of some of the most interesting of the Public Buildings,’ 76 coloured plates, 4to, London, 1816 (reprinted from Ackermann's ‘Repository of Arts’).
  3. ‘Rural Residences, consisting of a Series of Designs for Cottages, small Villas, and other Buildings, with Observations on Landscape Gardening,’ 27 coloured plates, 4to, London, 1818; 2nd edition, 1832.
  4. ‘Hints on Ornamental Gardening, consisting of a Series of Designs for Garden Buildings, useful and decorative Gates, Fences, Railings, &c., accompanied by Observations on the Principles and Theory of Rural Improvement,’ 28 coloured plates, 4to, London, 1823. Of the ‘Poetical Sketches of Scarborough,’ 1813, illustrated by the drawings of James Green, he wrote fourteen chapters out of twenty-one.

He contributed four designs to the ‘Social Day’ (1823) of Peter Coxe [q. v.], viz. the breakfast-room, the dressing-room, the dinner-room, and the architecture of ‘the carriage at the portico;’ and he assisted W. H. Pyne in the description of Marlborough House, St. James's and Kensington Palaces, for the ‘Royal Residences,’ 4to, 1820. He wrote the articles ‘Antony Pasquin’ and ‘Somerset House’ reprinted from the ‘Somerset House Gazette’ in Gwilt's edition of ‘Sir William Chambers,’ 1825, and six descriptions of buildings for Britton and Pugin's ‘Public Buildings of London.’ He prefixed ‘An Essay on the Principles of Design in Archi-