John Gwynn

John Gwynn (1713 – 28 February 1786) was an English architect and civil engineer, who became one of the founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768. He advocated greater control over planning in London, for which he produced detailed suggestions. His buildings include Magdalen Bridge and the Covered Market in Oxford, and several bridges over the River Severn.

Life Gwynn was born and died in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. He worked initially as a carpenter, but then decided to practice as a (largely self-taught) architect and town planner, moving to London, where he became a friend of Samuel Johnson.

In 1749, when Sir Christopher Wren's drawings were sold, Gwynn obtained Wren's plan for the rebuilding of the City of London, and published it, adding some comments of his own. It was passed in June of the same year. in which he criticised the loose control over building in the West End, saying that "the finest part of town is left to ignorant and capricious persons", and called for development to be controlled by a general plan. He made more than a hundred suggestions for improvements to the capital. the construction of a "St, George's Bridge" in the position where Waterloo Bridge was eventually built; a "King's Square" on the site of the Royal Mews However proposals similar to many of Gwynn's were eventually implemented;

Gwynn influenced the drafting of the Building Act 1774 and others at Atcham (1769–71), Llandrinio (1769-1775) and Worcester (1781)

He was one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy in 1768, Samuel Wale, the academy's first professor of perspective had at one time been his assistant.

An anonymous publication of 1742 entitled The Art of Architecture: A Poem In Imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry has been generally attributed to Gwynn.

He died in Shrewsbury in 1786.