Sad memorial near St Peter and St Mary Magdalene, Barnstaple - geograph

Thomas Lee (Jnr) (1794 – 5 September 1834), the son of Thomas Lee of Barnstaple, Devon, was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

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 ...

. He was educated at Barnstaple Grammar School and left to train briefly in 1810 at Sir

John Soane Sir John Soane (; né Soan; 10 September 1753 – 20 January 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. The son of a bricklayer, he rose to the top of his profession, becoming professor of architecture at the R ...

's office, where his father no doubt placed him, but left for the office of David Laing. He was also admitted to the Royal Academy School in 1812 and won a Royal Academy silver medal in 1816, for a drawing of Lord Burlington's villa at Chiswick, and a gold medal from the

Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

, for a design for a British Senate House.The British Senate House design is conserved at 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 ...

library (Colvin) His first major work was the Wellington Monument, Somerset. Lee's further work was characterised as "eclectic" by

Howard Colvin Sir Howard Montagu Colvin (15 October 1919 – 27 December 2007) was a British architectural historian who produced two of the most outstanding works of scholarship in his field: ''A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840' ...

, who instanced the pared-down Soanean neoclassicism of Arlington Court, Devonshire (1820-23 for Col. J.P. Chichester), the Tudor Gothic Eggesford House, Devon (1822 for Hon. Newton Fellowes; now a ruin), several "Commissioners' Gothic" churches in Worcestershire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, as well as an unusually early neo-Norman one. In 1826 he designed the

Guildhall A guildhall, also known as a "guild hall" or "guild house", is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commonly become town halls and in som ...

in Barnstaple (finished 1828 and currently being restored) which makes an impressive frontage for the later Pannier Market. In 1834 he died in a swimming accident at Morthoe, near Barnstaple His brother,

Frederick Richard Lee Frederick Richard Lee (10 June 1798 in Barnstaple, Devon – 5 June 1879 in Vleesch Bank, South Africa) was an English artist. Life 1862 painting of the Rock of Gibraltar with Windmill Hill Barracks in view Lee was the son of Thomas Lee of ...

was a successful painter.

Notes

see "Some men who made Barnstaple..." 2010 by Pauline Brain {{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Thomas (1794-1834) 1794 births 1834 deaths 19th-century English architects British neoclassical architects Architects from Devon People educated at Barnstaple Grammar School