Richard Cromwell Carpenter

Richard Cromwell Carpenter (21 October 1812 – 27 March 1855) was an English architect. He is chiefly remembered as an ecclesiastical and tractarian architect working in the Gothic Revival style.

Family

The parish church at Earl Shilton designed by Richard Cromwell Carpenter. Retaining the tower of the former church, the new building was in a medieval Gothic style. Carpenter was born on 21 October 1812 in Russell Square, London, the son of another Richard Carpenter, a magistrate and Sophia (Page) Carpenter. His parents had married in 1804 in St. James, Clerkenwell, London, and lived a moderately affluent family life in Russell Square.

He married Amelia Dollman, who was born about 1818 at Loders, Dorset. Their son Richard Herbert Carpenter (born 1841 in St. Pancras, London, died 1893) was also a Gothic revival ecclesiastical architect.

Carpenter died from tuberculosis His obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine said "it is in fact to be feared, that his laborious and zealous application to his profession tended to shorten his life." He soon became enthusiastic about Gothic architecture and was, possibly when aged only nineteen, commissioned to draw up plans for a large church in Islington by the Rev. Thomas Mortimer. The intended site was, however, used instead for an Irvingite chapel, and the first church that Carpenter built was St Stephen, Birmingham, in around 1841, At about this time he became a member of the tractarian Cambridge Camden Society (soon to become the Ecclesiological Society) to which he was introduced by Pugin. His next major commission, also in Birmingham, was the church of St Andrew.(1844). Construction of the less grandiose College at Hurstpierpoint began earlier, in 1851.

Carpenter was consulting architect to Chichester Cathedral, carrying out restorations there, and at Sherborne Abbey and many smaller churches. He also held the post of district surveyor for East Islington.

He died shortly after submitting grandiose plans for the new Inverness Cathedral; as a consequence his plan was not executed.

Influence Carpenter was the teacher and mentor of the eminent New Zealand architect Benjamin Mountfort. Heavily influenced by Carpenter's form of Gothic revival, Mountfort took many of Carpenter's ideals to New Zealand where he became the country's leading church architect, with over forty churches and other buildings in the Gothic style attributed to him. Many of Mountfort's New Zealand designs, especially those in the province of Canterbury, were openly borrowed from Carpenter.

One of Carpenter's designs, based on his All Saints Church, Brighton (since demolished) was executed in modified form in the United States, where it survives as St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His plans for a "town-church" approved by the Cambridge Camden Society were provided to the Saint Mark's vestry and given to architect John Notman, who altered them to better suit the site and local climate. Consecrated 1844. St Andrew's Church, Bordesley (1843–6). Chancel screen and stalls for the church at Kilndown, Kent. Monument to Lord and Lady Beresford, Kilndown, Kent. St James, Stubbings, Berkshire. St Nicholas, Kemerton. St Andrew, Monkton Wyld, Dorset. St Paul, Brighton (1846–48). All Saints, Brighton. St Peter the Great, Chichester (1848–52). Christchurch, Milton-next-Gravesend. St John Baptist, Bovey Tracey, Devon. St Mary Magdalene, Munster Square, London (1849–51). St Simon and St Jude, Earl Shilton.

Other works Almshouses at Belmont, Hereford. Alterations to Campden House, Gloucestershire. Alterations to Bedgebury Park, Kent. Lancing College (first designs 1848; construction began 1854).

Publications