Benjamin Woodward

Benjamin Woodward (16 November 1816 – 15 May 1861) was an Irish architect who, in partnership with Sir Thomas Newenham Deane, designed a number of buildings in Dublin, Cork and Oxford.

Life

Woodward was born in Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland on 16 November 1816. He was the seventh child of Mary (died 1824) and Captain Charles Woodward (1781–1864), formerly of the Royal Meath Militia. He trained as an engineer but developed an interest in medieval architecture, producing measured drawings of Holy Cross Abbey in County Tipperary. These drawings were exhibited at the RIBA in London in 1846.

The same year he joined the office of Sir Thomas Deane and became a partner in 1851 along with Deane's son, Thomas Newenham Deane. It seems that Deane looked after business matters, and left the design work to Woodward. and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford, (1854-1860). He was also responsible for the Kildare Street Club in Dublin (1858-1861) and Queen's College Cork, now University College Cork, (1845-1849). thumb

Among his admirers were Gabriel Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and William Morris and while in Oxford he was also commissioned to design the new Oxford Union building, upon which the Pre-Raphaelites were to become famously involved in painting the frescoes. Woodward brought with him from Ireland a team of carvers and stone masons, who lived in a temporary camp erected at the site which included an institute, complete with reading room and lecture hall. It was here that Ruskin addressed the workmen in April 1856, setting out his theories of Gothic architecture and the creative role of the ordinary craftsmen in making it a reality.

Woodward died of tuberculosis trying to return to Ireland from the French Riviera in the Hôtel de l'Univers on rue de Bourbon, Lyon on 15 May 1861. He was buried in the Cimetière de Loyasse.