![Cincinnati Masonic Temple](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Cincinnati_Masonic_Temple.jpg)
John Robert Hamilton ( – 21 September 1874) was a nineteenth-century Scottish-American architect, active between 1840 and 1870.
Hamilton was born in Scotland, and had a significant practice in England before moving to North America in 1850. Between 1852 and 1859, in
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
, Hamilton's business thrived, with a long list of private homes, churches, and several major public buildings. He then moved to New York City, can be found in the American south as a traveling graphic journalist during and after the Civil War, and was again practicing architecture from New York in 1870.
He died in 1874 in New York.
Life
England
Hamilton first appears in 1841 as a new partner of
Samuel Daukes
Samuel Whitfield Daukes (1811–1880) was an English architect, based in Gloucester and London.
Family background
Daukes was born in London in 1811, the son of Samuel Whitfield Daukes, a businessman with coal mining and brewery interests, who b ...
(1811-1880). Daukes was established in practice in
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
and
Cheltenham
Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...
, designing for the rapidly developing railways. Among other commissions for mansions and churches, Daukes and Hamilton designed the main building of
Royal Agricultural College
;(from Virgil's Georgics)"Caring for the Fieldsand the Beasts"
, established = 2013 - University status – College
, type = Public
, president = King Charles
, vice_chancellor = Peter McCaffery
, students ...
near Cirencester, in Victorian Tudor style. Construction began in 1845.
In 1848, the firm won a competition for the
Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum
Friern Hospital (formerly Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum) was a psychiatric hospital in the parish of Friern Barnet close to a crossroads which had a hamlet known as Colney Hatch. In 1965, it became part of the London Borough of Barnet and in th ...
, moved offices from the Midlands to London, took into the partnership
James Medland
James Medland (3 February 1808 - 18 June 1894) was county surveyor for Gloucestershire from 1857–89 in which capacity he designed many of Gloucester's public buildings such as the grade II listed Tredworth Road Cemetery chapel (1857).
Early li ...
(1808–94), and changed its name to Hamilton & Medland. (Daukes continued as an unnamed partner.) That firm is credited for
Welford Road Cemetery
Welford Road Cemetery is a public cemetery in Leicester, England.
History
The Leicester General Cemetery Company was founded in 1845, and the cemetery itself opened in 1849. The buildings and plan of the cemetery were designed by J. R. Hamilton ...
in Leicester,
Ford Park Cemetery
Ford Park Cemetery is a cemetery in central Plymouth, England, established by the Plymouth, Stonehouse & Devonport Cemetery Company in 1846 and opened in 1848. At the time it was outside the boundary of the Three Towns and was created to alle ...
in Plymouth,
Warstone Lane Cemetery
Warstone Lane Cemetery, (), also called Brookfields Cemetery, Church of England Cemetery, or Mint Cemetery (from the adjacent Birmingham Mint), is a cemetery dating from 1847 in Birmingham, England. It is one of two cemeteries in the city's J ...
, Birmingham, and insane asylums in Lincoln and
Powick Hospital
Powick Hospital, which opened in 1847 was a psychiatric facility located on outside the village of Powick, near Malvern, Worcestershire. At its peak, the hospital housed around 1,000 patients in buildings designed for 400. During the 1950s the h ...
in Worcester.
Americas
![Old Woodward 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Old_Woodward_1.jpg)
Hamilton came to North America in 1850. A single source has an architect, with the same name, designing a residence for British emissary Louis Lewis in
San Felipe, Panama
San Felipe is a corregimiento within Panama City, in Panamá District, Panamá Province, Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning ...
in 1851. The structure still stands on Plaza Simón Bolívar as the Simón Bolívar School in San Felipe.
Hamilton arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio in approximately 1852. In city business records he was listed on his own in 1853-1855, as partners with James C. Rankin, 1856–1857, and then with
James W. McLaughlin
James W. McLaughlin (November 1, 1834 – March 4, 1923) was a Cincinnati, Ohio architect. He studied to be an architect working under famed James Keys Wilson. He fought in the American Civil War serving in the Union Army. During the ...
in 1857-1858.
Hamilton's 1855
Woodward High School building stands among the first buildings in America to use terracotta for exterior decoration. The historian of Cincinnati's schools noted that Hamilton had urged the adoption of terra cotta because of his extensive travels in Italy. "Unfortunately, however, its manufacture was then an untried process here, and within a few years it began to disintegrate in the walls of the structure, and it became necessary to cut it out and replace it with stone. This unfortunate state of affairs
brought the building into disrepute. Nevertheless, as an architectural design, it was eminently satisfactory."
Hamilton may have been in New York City at 36 Wall Street by 1859. According to Haverstock, page 369, "he served during the Civil War as special artist for ''
Harper’s Weekly
''Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization'' was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor, ...
'', traveling as far south as Port Hudson, Louisiana," and was in Richmond, Virginia, from about 1864 to 1866. In 1870 advertised his services from a New York office at 1267 Broadway.
Hamilton was an early member of the Literary Club of Cincinnati (1857), and was made a
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of the fledgling
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...
on April 3, 1860. Prominent Cincinnati architect
Samuel Hannaford
Samuel Hannaford (10 April 1835 – 7 January 1911) was an American architect based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Some of the best known landmarks in the city, such as Music Hall and City Hall, were of his design. The bulk of Hannaford's work was do ...
, also born in England but brought to the Cincinnati area as a child, got his start in Hamilton's office in 1857.
Henry Clay monument
In 1854, Hamilton entered and won a national design competition for the
Henry Clay
Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state, al ...
monument, to be built in
Lexington Cemetery
Lexington Cemetery is a private, non-profit rural cemetery and arboretum located at 833 W. Main Street, Lexington, Kentucky.
The Lexington Cemetery was established in 1848 as a place of beauty and a public cemetery, in part to deal ...
,
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...
. Hamilton's entry was accepted by the committee from more than 100 entries. The ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' described it as,
:a gothic temple of circular form with thirteen sides, intended to illustrate the thirteen original States of the Confederacy... The upper portion of the building is to be used as a record room to contain relics of the great statesman, an original and admirable idea. Altogether this will make the most complete and graceful mausoleum in the world.
Other sources noted it was to be "constructed entirely and innovatively of cast-iron". It was never built. Citing costs, the monument committee turned to a far more conventional column design by Julius W. Adams, a Lexington civil engineer and architect.
Work
![Advertisement for architect John R](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Advertisement_for_architect_John_R._Hamilton_02.jpg)
*
Woodward High School building, 1855 (razed 1907)
*
First Presbyterian Church, Aurora, Indiana, which Hamilton designed for the Gaff family in a Greek Revival Style, 1855
*
Saint Mary's Episcopal Church
The Scarborough Historic District is a national historic district located in the suburban community of Scarborough-on-Hudson, in Briarcliff Manor, New York. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, and conta ...
,
Hillsboro, Ohio
Hillsboro is a city in and the county seat of Highland County, Ohio, United States approximately 35 mi (56 km) west of Chillicothe, and 50 miles east of Cincinnati. The population was 6,605 at the 2010 census.
History
Hillsboro was p ...
, 1855
* the (new) National Theater on Sycamore Street, 1857
* Masonic Temple, NEC Third and Walnut, 1859
* Institute of Fine Arts (razed), 625 Broadway, New York City, for the Dusseldorf Gallery of Art, 1860
* Derby's Building (razed), southwest corner of Third and Walnut,
date unknown
* University Club, formerly the Edmund Dexter Mansion, NEC Fourth and Broadway streets, Cincinnati
* First Presbyterian Church, 1101 Bryden Rd, Columbus, Ohio, which "survives with its terracotta exterior elements"
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, John R.
1820s births
1870s deaths
19th-century Scottish architects
Scottish emigrants to the United States
Architects from Cincinnati
Fellows of the American Institute of Architects
Architects from Gloucestershire