John Micklethwaite

John Thomas Micklethwaite (3 May 1843 – 28 October 1906) was an English architect and archaeologist. He had a long association with Westminster Abbey, and was noted for his criticisms of the current practices of church restoration.

Biography He was born at Rishworth House, Bond Street, Wakefield, Yorkshire (which stood on the site of what is now County Hall, Wakefield) to James Micklethwaite of Hopton, Mirfield, a worsted spinner and colliery owner, and his wife, Sarah Eliza Stanway of Manchester. He grew up in the Micklethwaite family’s ancestral home at Hopton Hall and was educated in Tadcaster and Wakefield. After moving to London where he attended King’s College, he was apprenticed, in 1862, to George Gilbert Scott, commencing independent practice in London in 1869.

St Mary Magdalene, East Ham In 1891, Micklethwaite prepared a report on St Mary Magdalene's Church, East Ham. This church, largely of the 12th-Century, was in poor repair and threatened with demolition. The report showed that the church could be repaired, and it was, between 1891-6.

He was one of the founders of the Alcuin Club, the Henry Bradshaw Society, and the St Paul's Ecclesiological Society. He was a member of the Art Workers' Guild to which he was elected Master in 1893, and took a leading part in the affairs of the Archaeological Institute and of the Society of Antiquaries.

Ground Plan and Longitudinal Section of Westminster Abbey, drawn in 1893Micklethwaite had a long association with Westminster Abbey, and published a number of articles describing various parts of the Abbey complex. Following the first of these, in 1870, he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. From 1898 until his death in 1906, aged 63, Micklethwaite served as Surveyor of the Fabric of the Abbey, where he is buried in the West Cloister. The Dean wrote: "Yesterday (October 31, 1906) we laid in the cloisters an eager, reverent, skilful worker. John Thomas Micklethwaite studied this Abbey during the main part of his life. He gave his whole heart to this place, and jealously guarded every fragment that could tell of its long history". 1884-1894 St Leonard's Church, Bengeo 1891 (with Somers Clarke) Reid's New Hotel, Funchal, Madeira 1894-1900 St Bartholomew's Church, Orford - reconstruction. 1897-1905 St Saviour Luton 1891 St Paul Morton re-building (except tower). 1892 Keble College, Oxford Side-chapel to house "The Light of the World" by William Holman Hunt. 1897 St Peter Bocking, Essex. 1907 St Michael Lydbury North, Shropshire - restoration.