Thomas Edward Collcutt

Thomas Edward Collcutt (16 March 1840 - 7 October 1924) was an English architect in the Victorian era who designed several important buildings in London.

Biography

Collcutt was born in Oxford, England, and attended the Oxford Diocesan School and the Mill Hill school, in London. He was apprenticed to architect R. E. Armstrong, and then employed by the partnership Miles and Murgatroyd. He began working in the establishment of George Edmund Street, with Richard Norman Shaw, before setting up his own practice in 1873 and achieving recognition, winning the Wakefield Town Hall competition in 1877, the Grand Prix for Architecture at the Paris International Exposition in 1889, and the Royal Gold Medal in 1902. He was a Fellow of RIBA, and served as its president from 1904 to 1906.

His most important building in London was the Imperial Institute (1887-93), of which only the central tower remains as part of Imperial College. In 1899 Collcutt designed the Lloyd's Register of Shipping Building in London, extensively decorated with allegorical sculpture by George Frampton and a major landmark of the New Sculpture movement.

For Richard D'Oyly Carte, Collcutt designed the Savoy Hotel, which has been subsequently altered, and the Palace Theatre, London (1889) in Cambridge Circus, Charing Cross Road, which was built as the Royal English Opera House. Sir Arthur Sullivan's grand opera, "Ivanhoe", was the first production at the theatre. He also designed Wigmore Hall (1890). The Palace Theatre and Wigmore Hall both have strong terracotta ornamentation and remain in their original forms.

Collcutt died in Southampton on 7 October 1924.

References

* [http://historicfresno.org/bio/collcutt.htm "Thomas E. Collcutt" biography - Historic Fresno]