Thomas Roger Smith

Thomas Roger Smith (1830–1903) was an English architect and academic. He is now best known for his views and writings on public buildings, in terms of their style and acoustics, and their influence on other architects, particularly in relation to British imperial architecture.

Life Born at Sheffield on 14 July 1830, he was the only son of the Rev. Thomas Smith of Sheffield by his wife Louisa Thomas of Chelsea. After private education he entered the office of Philip Hardwick; and spent a year and a half in travel before beginning independent practice as an architect in 1855. Arthur John Gale was in partnership with him until 1891 and from 1888 his son, Ravenscroft Elsey Smith. His office was at Temple Chambers, Temple Avenue, E.C., London. An employee was the novelist Thomas Hardy, for a few months in 1872 as he was struggling to establish himself as a writer.

Smith lectured on architecture and became in 1851 a member of the Architectural Association, of which he was president in 1860–1 and again in 1863–4. At the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) he was elected an associate in 1856, in 1863 a fellow, and was for several sessions a member of its council. Smith had made the same case in a RIBA lecture in 1868. This style had the favour of Henry Bartle Frere, the governor, but was in fact a hybrid. Part of Smith's thesis denied a characteristically "English" architectural style.

Other works

In England Smith's work included the Technical Schools (and Baths) of the Carpenters' Company at Stratford, and the Ben Jonson schools at Stepney (1872), as well as other schools for the London School Board.

Smith designed also Emmanuel church and vicarage, South Croydon, and the Sanatorium at Reedham (1883). Its French-influenced style was a pattern repeated in hospitals built over the next two decades. Laboratories at University College London (opened 1892) formed part of an uncompleted scheme for the Gower Street front of the large quadrangle. and Beechy Lees at Otford, Kent.

Family Smith married in 1858 Catherine, daughter of Joseph Elsey of Highgate. He was survived by his widow, one daughter, and three sons, of whom Ravenscroft Elsey Smith became in 1899 professor of architecture at King's College, London.