Sir Peter Faulkner Shepheard
FRTPI FILA
Fila Holdings Corp. is a sportswear brand of shoes and apparel. The company was founded by Ettore and Giansevero Fila in 1911 in Coggiola, near Biella, Piedmont, Italy. In 2003, it was sold to United States-based Sports Brand International. Sub ...
(11 November 1913 – 11 April 2002) was a British
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
and
landscape architect.
Biography
He was born in
Oxton,
Birkenhead
Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...
and educated at
Birkenhead School
Birkenhead School is an independent, academically-selective, co-educational day school located in Oxton, Wirral, in North West England. The school offers educational opportunities for girls and boys from three months to eighteen years of ag ...
. His father was an architect. He also studied architecture at the
Liverpool School of Architecture
The School of Architecture is an architecture school in Liverpool, England, and part of the University of Liverpool. It was the first architecture school in the United Kingdom to be affiliated with a university, and the first to have degree pro ...
under Charles Reilly. He obtained a first-class degree in 1936 and won the graduate scholarship. From 1940 to 1943, he worked for the
Ministry of Supply, working on the design and construction of arms factories under tight time pressure. In 1943, his godfather,
Patrick Abercrombie
Sir Leslie Patrick Abercrombie (; 6 June 1879 – 23 March 1957) was an English regional and town planner. Abercrombie was an academic during most of his career, and prepared one city plan and several regional studies prior to the Second Worl ...
, offered Shepheard a job on the Greater London Plan for the postwar development of London. Shepheard then worked for William Holford at the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, and became deputy chief architect for the
Stevenage Development Corporation (1947–48).
He started in partnership with Derek Bridgwater and, after Bridgwater retired in 1962, the firm became Shepheard, Epstein and Hunter. He designed houses for
London County Council
London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...
, schools for local authorities and a new hall for
Winchester College
Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of ...
, teacher training colleges, and buildings for the universities of
Keele
Keele is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. It is approximately three miles (5 km) west of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and is close to the village of Silverdale. Keele lies on the A53 ro ...
, Liverpool,
Warwick
Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined with Leamington Spa and Whi ...
and
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
,
Chelsea College, London, the
Open University
The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...
and the
University of Lancaster
, mottoeng = Truth lies open to all
, established =
, endowment = £13.9 million
, budget = £317.9 million
, type = Public
, city = Bailrigg, City of Lancaster
, country = England
, coor =
, campus = Bailrigg
, faculty = ...
.
He became best known for many landscape projects such as
London Zoo, Bessborough Gardens,
Bunhill Fields in the
City
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
, the restoration of
Vanessa Bell
Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen).
Early life and education
Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...
's garden at
Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex and various gardens in the United States including Central Green at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
campus and the
Morris Arboretum
The Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania (37 ha / 92 acres) is the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Arboretum is open daily except for major holidays. It is located at 100 East Northwestern Avenue, Chestnut ...
.
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 ...
asked him to illustrate two books on ducks and woodland birds. He also produced all the line drawings for his own books, Modern Gardens (1953) and Gardens (1969). His painting of
Liverpool Docks
The Port of Liverpool is the enclosed dock system that runs from Brunswick Dock in Liverpool to Seaforth Dock, Seaforth, on the east side of the River Mersey and the Birkenhead Docks between Birkenhead and Wallasey on the west side of the r ...
after bombing is in the
Walker Art Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group.
History of the Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...
.
The
Architectural Association
The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme ...
elected him president in 1954, and he was soon serving on 17 committees. From 1969 to 1971 he was president of the
Royal Institute of British Architects
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supp ...
. Shepheard was also president of the
Landscape Institute from 1965 to 1966 and the
Royal Fine Art Commission
The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) was an executive non-departmental public body of the UK government, established in 1999. It was funded by both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for ...
(1968–71). He joined the
National Parks Commission (1966–68), the
Countryside Commission
The Countryside Commission (formally the Countryside Commission for England and Wales, then the Countryside Commission for England) was a statutory body in England and Wales, and later in England only. Its forerunner, the National Parks Commissio ...
(1968-71), the
Civic Trust and from 1976 to 2001 he was honorary artistic adviser to the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations m ...
. He spent six months a year for eight years from 1971 as dean of the graduate school of fine art at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1984 he was elected Master of the
Art Workers' Guild
The Art Workers' Guild is an organisation established in 1884 by a group of British painters, sculptors, architects, and designers associated with the ideas of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. The guild promoted the 'unity of a ...
.
National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C467/20) with Peter Shepheard in 1997 for its Architects Lives' collection held by the British Library.
[National Life Stories, 'Shepheard, Peter (1 of 18) National Life Stories Collection: Architects' Lives', The British Library Board, 1997]
Retrieved 10 April 2018
Awards
Shepheard received an
Honorary Doctorate
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
from
Heriot-Watt University in 1979.
He was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
in 1972 and on 7 January 1980 was appointed a
Knight Bachelor
The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are th ...
''for services to Architecture''. He was awarded the Landscape Institute Gold Medal in 2000.
Personal life
![Shepheard, Peter 2002](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Shepheard%2C_Peter_2002.jpg)
He and his wife, Mary Bailey, married in 1943 and they had a son, Paul,
[John Grindrod, ''Outskirts'' (2017)] and daughter, Sarah.
He died on 11th April, 2002 and was buried on the western side of
Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shepheard, Peter
20th-century English architects
English landscape architects
People educated at Birkenhead School
Alumni of the University of Liverpool
1913 births
2002 deaths
Burials at Highgate Cemetery
Knights Bachelor
Architects from Liverpool
Masters of the Art Worker's Guild
Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects
Presidents of the Royal Institute of British Architects