Henry Price (architect)

Infobox Architect

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image_size =
caption =(John) Henry Price, c. 1905
name =Henry Price
nationality =English
birth_date =1867
birth_place =England
death_date =death date|1944|04|10
death_place =
alma_matter =
practice_name =Manchester City Architect's Department
significant_buildings=Victoria Baths, Manchester
Didsbury Library, Manchester
significant_projects =Hydraulic Power Station, Manchester
significant_design =
awards =

John Henry Price (1867 – 10 April 1944) – more commonly referred to as Henry Price – was the first person to hold the office of 'City Architect' in Manchester Corporation's newly created City Architect's Department of 1902. He was responsible for a number of well known Manchester landmarks.

Career

John Henry Price started his career as an architect's assistant in Liverpool.1891 Census of England and Wales] He later became the building surveyor for Birmingham. In June 1902, he was appointed as the first City Architect for Manchester.Henry P. Dallow Autobiography, notes his brother in law (referring to him as Harry, Henry and John Henry) as initially Birmingham surveyor, then first Manchester City Architect.] The Corporation of Manchester set up the City Architect's Department in response to an incident that was thought to be the result of improper co-ordination and demarcation of the roles of various staff positions of the City Surveyor's Department.cite web |url=http://www.victoriabaths.org.uk/Conservation_Plan.pdf |title=Victoria Baths Conservation Plan |author= [http://www.lep-architects.co.uk/ Lloyd Evans Prichard] and [http://www.architecturalhistory.co.uk/index.php Architectural History Practice] |publisher=victoriabaths.org.uk Retrieved on 26 July 2008.] Under Price, the roles of the offices of surveyor and architect were more clearly circumscribed. He married Sarah Dallow in 1896. ]

Name

There is some confusion over his name, between John Henry Price, [Marriage Certificate of John Henry Price and Sarah Dallow] cite web |url=http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/scripts/news_article.php?newsID=338 |title=Didsbury Library celebrates 90 years with exhibition and events |publisher= [http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/index.php Manchester City Council] Retrieved on 26 July 2008.] family photographs and many work attributions, where he is simply Henry Price, and the index in Pevsner [Looking at Buildings, Pevsner's "The Buildings of England".] , where for example the Ashton House reference uses both H. R. Price, at the same time as referring to him as the city architect. His brother-in-law, Henry P. Dallow, refers to him as Harry when Price was courting Dallow's sister, and as John Henry in reference to the engagement.

There was only one Manchester City Architect called Henry Price in the period 1902 to 192?, however there was an H. Price working earlier in the area. H.R. Price is listed by Pevsner as the architect for St Clements, Denmark Rd, Mosside Manchester, Mosside/Whalley Range, 1881, and St Edmund's Alexandra Rd South, Whalley Range 1881-2 and Price, H. R., for St Paul's Springfield Rd Sale Cheshire 1883-4, which must be an unrelated H.R. Price.

Notable buildings

Victoria Baths

Manchester's Victoria Baths were built 1903–6 by Henry Price when the City Architect, based on designs of 1901–2 by the City Surveyor T. de Courcy Meade and his assistant Arthur Davies. Price though was certainly responsible for the detailed plans, and possibly personaly for some of the terracotta detail . Opened by Manchester Corporation in 1906, they were closed in 1993. Originally a prestigious complex, containing private baths and a laundry, Turkish Baths and, from 1952, the first public Aerotone (jacuzzi) in the UK, the Victoria Baths are listed grade II* on the List of Buildings of Architectural and Historic Interest, and many of its original features remain. In September 2003, Victoria Baths won the BBC2's Restoration competition, but progress on renovation has been slow.

Withington Baths

Burton Road, Manchester. Built by Price in 1913 is of interest because it made no distinction between first- and second-class bathing and, in 1914, became the first baths in Manchester where mixed bathing was permitted. Refurbished in 2003 to include a fitness centre.

Harpurhey Baths

Rochdale Road, Manchester. Listed grade II (1994). 1909-10 by the City Architect, Henry Price. Exterior with Baroque motifs. Interior is fairly ornate, though much less so than Victoria Baths, and partially intact but in very poor condition. Harpurhey Baths finally closed completely in 2001 after serious defects were discovered in the building’s walls and machinery. Cracks in the baths’ walls that had previously been repaired had widened beyond repair and some of the walls were bowing. There were also problems with the baths’ steam boilers and the drainage system.

Carnegie libraries

Andrew Carnegie—the industrial magnate and millionaire who believed passionately in free libraries—promised £15,000 for libraries in Didsbury, Withington and Chorlton if suitable sites could be found. [cite web |url=http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/scripts/news_article.php?newsID=2516 |title=Withington library celebrates the big 80 |publisher=Manchester City Council Retrieved on 26 July 2008.] Four houses, including an old loom house, were cleared on Wilmslow Road to make way for the Didsbury building. The libraries are known as Carnegie libraries.

*Didsbury Library. Described by Price as "designed in the fifteenth century gothic style with tracery windows and emblems of Science, Knowledge, Literature, Music and Arts and Crafts in stone distributed over the building". Small in scale but with cathedral-like aspirations, the library is a temple to reading at the centre of the village that many regard as Manchester's most desirable suburb. Internally the electric light was designed to allow the public free access to the shelves, browsing and reading areas. The walls were tiled to dado height, the floor cork carpeted and the oak furniture, fittings and partitions were provided by Armitage and Wolfe of John Dalton Street for £600. When the library opened on Saturday 15 May 1915 at 4.30 pm the great and the good gathered for the occasion. Fletcher Moss, deputy chairman of the libraries committee, opened the door with a gold key, in front of civic dignitaries and the public who were keen to see the permanent free library. During the English Civil War, Prince Rupert stationed himself in a building which earlier stood at the site, which is commemorated with a Blue Plaque on the library.

*Withington Library. Purpose-built and funded partly from money donated by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, Withington Library opened its doors on 30 May 1927. There is a series of photographs on the Manchester City site, from site demolition in 1925, views in the 1950s and pre and post the 1970s interior modernisation.

*Crumpsall & Cheetham District Library. Grade II Listed. Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester M8 7JN. Empty and unused in 2008 after previously serving as the Manchester Black Resource Center. In July 1974 the library was moved to new accommodation in the Abraham Moss Centre.

Hydraulic Power Station, now People's History Museum

The former Hydraulic Power Station, constructed 1907–09. Now the People's History Museum.

The Pump House in Bridge Street on the banks of the River Irwell has only been the People’s History Museum since May 1994. Before that it was a hydraulic pumping station and is now the only surviving Edwardian pumping station in the city. It opened in 1909 and was the third and last station of the hydraulic pumping network in Manchester. The other two stations were situated on Whitworth Street and Pott Street. The station used to supply power to the mills and warehouses that dominated the city at the beginning of the 19th century. It wound the Town Hall clock and even raised the curtain at the Opera House. The mighty water-powered pumping station also doubled up as an aquarium and a swimming pool. Legend has it that staff at the Pump House kept fish and swam in the large water tanks on the roof of the building. In 1972 the station closed when hydraulic power was superseded by electricity.

All that remains of the internal machinery is a pumping engine, a star exhibit at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry situated in the oldest passenger railway buildings in the world on Liverpool Road in Castlefield. The engine, convert|15|ft high and weighing 25 tons (25 t), has been restored and is in full working order.

Ashton House

Women's lodging house, Dantzic Street, 1908–10

Ashton House stands on Corporation Street in the area of Ancoats known as Angel Meadow. This was one of the worst slums of the Victorian city and many buildings here were designed to provide better housing for the poor. Ashton House, for example, was designed as model lodgings for women. It was built by the Corporation, 1908–10, by the City Architect H. Price. It catered for 222 women, who occupied dormitories with individual cubicles and cooked for themselves in communal kitchens. A lodging house for men existed nearby on Pollard Street. It stands on an island site, with a very narrow rounded end to the junction with Crown Lane. Free Style, red brick and cream terracotta. Nice details include ironwork with flower motifs, lettering in the gable to the corner with Aspin Lane and voussoirs of tiles laid on edge. Ashton House is currently used as 54 student lodgings for Manchester Metropolitan University.

External links

* [http://victoriabaths.org.uk Victoria Baths ]
* [http://www.harpurheybaths.fotopic.net Harphury Baths ]
* [http://www.images.manchester.gov.uk/web/pages/common/imagedisplay.php?irn=14547&reftable=ecatalogue&refirn=73515 Withington Library]
* [http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/Default.aspx?id=458449&mode=quick Didsbury Library Photo (From Images of England) ]
* [http://82.71.77.169/index.html Peoples Pump House Museum]
* [http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk Manchester Hydraulic Power]
* [http://www.mmu.ac.uk/accommodation/manchester/halls/privately-owned/ashton-house.php Ashton House Student Lodgings]
* [http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/Default.aspx?id=388032&mode=quick Ashton House in 2001 (From Images of England)]

References

Looking at Buildings, Pevsner's "The Buildings of England".