Henry Stock

Henry Stock (1824/5–1909) was a British architect. He served as the county surveyor for Essex for nearly 50 years, and as the surveyor and architect to the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers. The latter appointment led Stock to undertake a considerable number of educational commissions, but his primary field of activity was in the construction of manufacturing sites and warehouses in London.

Life and works Henry Stock was born in 1824/5. He came from a family of builders and developers located in London's East End. Articled to George Allen, of Tooley Street, Southwark, in 1840, Stock took over the business on Allen's death in 1847, going into partnership with a surveyor, William Snooke, at Allen's old offices at 69, Tooley Street.

Stock and Snooke's business was primarily industrial and commercial. Their buildings included a biscuit factory at Bermondsey for Peek Freans; day houses and School House (the former by Snooke in 1877–1878 and the latter by Stock in 1895–1896), the Chapel and Library (1860–1865), and the central block (Stock alone 1895–1896), all at Monmouth School for Boys; Haberdashers' Monmouth School for Girls in the Jacobethan style he favoured for schools, and West Monmouth School. Snooke and Stock also undertook residential developments at New Cross and at Telegraph Hill in south London. The New Cross estate had been purchased in 1614 to provide a source of funding for the school established at Monmouth by William Jones.

Stock held the post of County Surveyor for Essex from 1856 to 1900 and designed many public buildings and bridges in the county. In 1885 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He retired to Sandown on the Isle of Wight in 1904 and died there in 1909. His son, Henry William Stock, was also an architect and worked in his father's practice.

Works Monmouth School for Boys (1860–1890s) – work with Snooke and independently Tooley Street warehouses (1860) – by Snooke and Stock Buck's Row (Durward Street), Whitechapel (c.1861) – Manure works for George Torr, now the site of Swanlea School Church of St Mary, Stifford, Essex (1861–1863) – restoration School, Buck's Row, 6 Durward Street, Whitechapel (1862) – a ragged school sponsored by George Torr Braintree and Bocking Literary and Mechanics' Institution, Braintree, Essex (1863) – a gift to the town from George Courtauld St John the Baptist's Church, Finchingfield, Essex (1865–1866) – addition of a porch and restoration Bridge, Battlesbridge, Essex (1872–1873) – built by William Webster to Stock's design after the earlier bridge, designed by Stock's predecessor as County Surveyor, Thomas Hopper, was destroyed by a steam traction engine. Peek Freans factory, Clement Road, Bermondsey (1880s) - part of a large manufacturing and packing plant with workers’ housing, shops, an independent fire brigade etc., which saw the area nicknamed Biscuit Town. As of 2020, being redeveloped as residential accommodation. Ram Brewery (1882–1883) – rebuilding following a fire St Anne's Church, Kew (1884) – reconstruction of the southern end of the church Police station, Saffron Waldon, Essex (1884–1886) – undertaken in his role as County Surveyor The Counting House, Tooley Street, Southwark – rebuilding in 1887 following the 1861 Tooley Street fire Haberdashers' School for Girls (1890) Haberdashers' Monmouth School for Girls (1892–1896) Church of St Catherine, Pepys Road, New Cross (1893–1894) – much altered West Monmouth School (1897)

Gallery