Robert Frank Atkinson (1869 – 15 June 1923) was a British architect.

Career

Atkinson was born in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

and began his career as an

articled Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

apprentice to John Francis Doyle in the same city. He remained as Doyle's assistant for 6 years after completing his apprenticeship, before opening his own office in Liverpool in 1897, and in London in 1901. At his London office he had as an assistant Robert Atkinson (no known relation) who went on to become a famous architect. He died on 15 June 1923 in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

Notable works

Atkinson designed the

Waring & Gillow Waring & Gillow (also written as Waring and Gillow) was a noted firm of English furniture manufacturers and antique dealers formed in 1897 by the merger of Gillows of Lancaster and London and Waring of Liverpool. Background Gillow & Co. The firm ...

department store at 164–182 Oxford Street. It was built in 1905–06 and was made a Grade II listed building in 1973. In 1907, Atkinson collaborated with the Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham on the design of the steel-framed Selfridges store in London. In 1912 six leading architects of the day were chosen to submit designs for

Whiteley Village Whiteley Village, in Hersham, Surrey, England, is a retirement village, much of it designed architecturally by Arts and Crafts movement-influenced architect Reginald Blomfield. It is owned by the charitable Whiteley Homes Trust and is on land w ...

, Surrey, by the trustees of Whiteley Homes. Each architect received £50 for the plans they submitted. The winning architect was Atkinson, who received a prize of £150. Although a number of his original designs were altered because of cost, his distinctive octagonal "spider's web" design for the central portion of the village was retained. Also in 1912 Atkinson designed the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool for the

Midland Railway Company The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...

. On its opening in 1914 it was described as "the world's most palatial hotel" and is still the city's largest hotel.''The Britannia Adelphi Hotel Liverpool: The story of a great undertaking'' (booklet available from the hotel, undated, but published after 2007)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Atkinson, R. Frank 1869 births 1923 deaths Architects from Liverpool 20th-century English architects