Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Richardson, Charles James
RICHARDSON, CHARLES JAMES (1806–1871), architect, born in 1806, was a pupil of Sir John Soane [q. v.] From 1845 to 1852 he was master of the architectural class in the school of design at Somerset House. In 1852 he designed the Earl of Harrington's mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens; in 1853 he carried out various works at Belsize Park, Hampstead, and in 1856 a block of mansions in Queen's Gate, Hyde Park, for W. Jackson. He died in 1871.
In the library of the South Kensington Museum is a collection of 549 original drawings by English architects, formed by Richardson, with several volumes of studies, including tracings from designs by Vanbrugh, R. Adam, Thorpe, and Tatham, and drawings of buildings, furniture, and ornaments, chiefly of the Elizabethan period. In the Soane Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields, are a sketchbook of views and details of his house at Ealing, and a collection of the drawings which he used at his architectural lectures. In the British Museum Library are two volumes of proofs of Richardson's designs, from the ‘Builder.’ Richardson published: 1. ‘Holbein's Ceiling of the Chapel Royal, St. James's,’ 1837. 2. ‘Observations on the Architecture of England during the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I,’ 1837. 3. ‘A Design for raising Holborn Valley,’ 1837; reissued in 1863. 4. ‘A Popular Treatise on the Warming and Ventilation of Buildings,’ 1837. 5. ‘Description of Warming Apparatus,’ 1839. 6. ‘Architectural Remains of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I,’ 1840. 7. ‘Studies from Old English Mansions,’ 4 vols. 1841–8. 8. ‘The Workman's Guide to the Study of Old English Architecture,’ 1845. 9. ‘A Letter to the Council of the Head Government School of Design,’ 1846. 10. ‘Studies of Ornamental Design,’ 1851. 11. ‘The Smoke Nuisance and its Remedy,’ 1869. 12. ‘The Englishman's House, from a Cottage to a Mansion,’ 1870.
[Dict. of Architecture; Brit. Mus. Library Catalogue; Universal Catalogue of Books on Art, Science and Art Department, South Kensington, 1870.]