Alexandra Mary, Lady Wedgwood, (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Gordon Clark; born 30 July 1938) is an English

architectural historian An architectural historian is a person who studies and writes about the history of architecture, and is regarded as an authority on it. Professional requirements As many architectural historians are employed at universities and other facilities ...

and expert on the work of

Augustus Pugin Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin ( ; 1 March 181214 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, artist and critic with French and, ultimately, Swiss origins. He is principally remembered for his pioneering role in the Gothic Revival st ...

. She is the patron of the Pugin Society and the former architectural archivist of the House of Lords.

Early life and family

Alexandra Mary Gordon Clark was born on 30 July 1938 to the judge and crime writer Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark, who wrote under the pseudonym Cyril Hare, and Mary Barbara Lawrence (the daughter of

Sir William Lawrence, 3rd Baronet Sir William Matthew Trevor Lawrence, 3rd Baronet JP FSA (17 September 1870 – 4 January 1934) was an English horticulturalist, hospital administrator and collector. Early life Lawrence was born on 17 September 1870, the son of Elizabeth M ...

). She has a brother, the clergyman Charles Philip Gordon Clark, and a sister Cecilia Mary Gordon Clark (a wife of

Roderick Snell Roderick Saxon Snell is a British electronics engineer, born 1940, who co-founded Snell & Wilcox in 1973, working full-time for it from 1988. The company grew to about five hundred people in the late 1990s. Snell remained on the board during the ...

). She was educated at

Guildford High School Guildford High School is an independent day school for girls that was founded in 1888. Approximately 1,000 girls between ages 4 to 18 attend the school from Guildford and its surrounding towns and villages. The school comprises a Junior School ...

and received her advanced education at the

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious specialist coll ...

. In 1963, she married Sir Hugo Martin Wedgwood, 3rd Baronet (1933–2010), the stockbroker and linguist. They had one son,

Ralph Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf"). The most common forms ...

(born 1964) and two daughters, Julia and Frances.

Career

In 1966, Wedgwood was named as joint author with

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

of the Warwickshire volume in his

The Buildings of England ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

series after Pevsner began to use collaborators to speed the completion of the series. Wedgwood did the initial research for the volume, and then completed significant parts of the work, including the whole of the section on

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

. In January 1980, she was appointed architectural archivist to the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

on the recommendation of Sir Robert Cooke, member of Parliament and adviser to the Secretary of State, who wished to ensure the historically accurate restoration of the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...

. Her expertise in the works of

made her particularly suited to the job and she sought out material worldwide by Pugin,

Charles Barry Sir Charles Barry (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was a British architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsi ...

and others related to the Parliamentary estate. She retired in 1998.''House of Lords Record Office Report for 1998''.
House of Commons Vote Office Print Unit, London, 1999. p. 2. She revised the

entry for

volume London 6: Westminster (

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

, 2003). She was elected a fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

in 1983. She is also the painting curator at Dorking Museum, and is the patron, and former president, of The Pugin Society.Margaret Belcher: A Tribute from the Pugin Society.
Pugin Society. Retrieved 2 January 2017.

Selected publications

*''English Painting'', with

Michael Kitson Michael William Lely Kitson (30 January 1926 – 7 August 1998) was a British art historian who became an international authority on the work of the painter Claude Lorrain. His teaching career took in the Slade School of Fine Art and Courtauld ...

, Art of the Western World,

Paul Hamlyn Paul Hamlyn, Baron Hamlyn, (12 February 1926 – 31 August 2001) was a German-born British publisher and philanthropist, who established the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in 1987. Early life He was born Paul Bertrand Wolfgang Hamburger in Berlin, Ger ...

, London 1964. *''Warwickshire''. Penguin, London, 1966. (The Buildings of England) (With Nikolaus Pevsner) * ''Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects: The Pugin Family''. Gregg International, London, 1977. * ''Rebuilding the Houses of Parliament: Drawings from the Kennedy albums and the Thomas Greene papers''. House of Lords Record Office, London, 1984. * ''A.W.N.Pugin and the Pugin Family''. V & A Publications, London, 1985. * ''A History of the Church and Parish of St.Martin's, Dorking''. Trustees of the Friends of St Martin's, 1990. (Editor) * ''Guide to the Speaker's House''. HMSO, 1994.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wedgwood, Alexandra Augustus Pugin Living people 1938 births English architectural historians English non-fiction writers Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London People educated at Guildford High School Wives of baronets

Early life and family

Career

Selected publications

See also

References