William Butterfield (7 September 1814 – 23 February 1900) was a British Gothic Revival architect and associated with the Oxford Movement (or Tractarian Movement). He is noted for his use of polychromy.
William Butterfield was born in London in 1814. His parents were strict non-conformists who ran a chemist's shop in the Strand. He was one of nine children and was educated at a local school. At the age of 16, he was apprenticed to Thomas Arber, a builder in Pimlico, who later became bankrupt. He studied architecture under E. L. Blackburne (1833–1836). From 1838 to 1839, he was an assistant to Harvey Eginton, an architect in Worcester, where he became articled. He established his own architectural practice at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1840.
From 1842 Butterfield was involved with the Cambridge Camden Society, later The Ecclesiological Society. He contributed designs to the Society's journal, The Ecclesiologist. His involvement influenced his architectural style. He also drew religious inspiration from the Oxford Movement and as such, he was very high church despite his non-conformist upbringing. He was a Gothic revival architect, and as such he reinterpreted the original Gothic style in Victorian terms. Many of his buildings were for religious use, although he also designed for colleges and schools.
Butterfield's church of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, was, in the view of Henry-Russell Hitchcock, the building that initiated the High Victorian Gothic era. It was designed in 1850, completed externally by 1853 and consecrated in 1859.[1] Flanked by a clergy house and school, it was intended as a "model" church by its sponsors, the Ecclesiological Society. The church was built of red-brick, a material long out of use in London, patterned with bands of black brick, the first use of polychrome brick in the city, with bands of stone on the spire. The interior was even more richly decorated, with marble and tile marquetry.[1]
In 1849, just before Butterfield designed the church, John Ruskin had published his Seven Lamps of Architecture, in which he had urged the study of Italian Gothic and the use of polychromy. Many contemporaries perceived All Saints' as Italian in character, though in fact it combines fourteenth century English details, with a German-style spire.[1]
Also in 1850 he designed, without polychromy, St Matthias'inStoke Newington, with a bold gable-roofed tower. At St Bartholomew's, Yealmpton in the same year, Butterfield used a considerable amount of marquetry work for the interior, and built striped piers, using two colours of marble.[1]
Blue plaque, 42 Bedford Square, London
At Oxford, Butterfield designed Keble College, in a style radically divergent from the university's existing traditions of Gothic architecture, its walls boldly striped with various colours of brick. Intended for clerical students, it was largely built in 1868–70, on a fairly domestic scale, with a more monumental chapel of 1873–6. In his buildings of 1868–72 at Rugby School, the polychromy is even more brash.[2]
Butterfield received the RIBA Gold Medal in 1884. He died in London in 1900, and was buried in a simple Gothic tomb (designed by himself) in Tottenham Cemetery, Haringey, North London.[3] The grave can be easily seen from the public path through the cemetery, close to the gate from Tottenham Churchyard. There is a blue plaque on his house in Bedford Square, London.
Keble College Chapel, OxfordSt Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, AustraliaSt Ninian's Cathedral, Perth, ScotlandWilliam Butterfield's original design for the new Anglican cathedral (St Paul's) in Melbourne, AustraliaAll Saints, Margaret Street, London (detail of interior)St Mary's church, BrookfieldSt Andrew's Church, RugbySt Barnabas's Church, Horton-cum-StudleySt Mark's Church, Dundela, BelfastFont of Ottery St Mary Parish Church, DevonChalice designed by William Butterfield, 1856–1857 (hallmarked) V&A Museum no. CIRC.521–1962Chapel, Rugby School
St Andrew's parish church, Landford, Wiltshire, 1858[23]
Church of St John the Evangelist, better known as the Afghan Church, Mumbai: the reredos, the Afghan War Memorial mosaics, and the tiles, pews and screen, 1858
St John the Evangelist parish church, Hammersmith, 1858–59[24]
Gordon's School, Surrey, designed the central buildings comprising the Assembly Hall and Reception Building together with the sanatorium and dormitories.
1888
St Michael's Church, Woolwich: restoration, 1888[7]
Ecclesiological late Cambridge Camden Society, ed. (1847). Instrumenta Ecclesiastica (in Latin). with etchings from drawings by William Butterfield. London: Ecclesiological late Cambridge Camden Society – via John Van Voorst.
^O’Brien, Charles; Bailey, Bruce; Pevsner, Nikolaus; Lloyd, David W. (2018). The Buildings of England Hampshire: South. Yale University Press. p. 176. ISBN9780300225037.
