Sir William Emerson (3 December 1843 – 26 December 1924) was a British architect, who 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 suppl ...

(RIBA) from 1899 to 1902, and worked extensively in India. He was the original architect chosen to build

Liverpool Cathedral Liverpool Cathedral is the Cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool, built on St James's Mount in Liverpool, and the seat of the Bishop of Liverpool. It may be referred to as the Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool (as recorded in the ...

Early life and education

Born in 1843, he was son of a silk manufacturer in

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

, London, and educated at

King's College, London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King G ...

. Around 1861, he was articled to William Gilbee Habershon, who soon thereafter entered into partnership with Alfred Robert Pite. Emerson subsequently became a pupil of

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...

Career

Early career

He went to India in 1864, initially to supervise the building of Bombay school of art in Bombay to Burges’s plan, which in the event was never built. Instead he stayed on to practice architecture in Bombay, returning to London in 1869, where he opened an office in Westminster. He continued however to do his best work in India. His first big commission was for Mumbai's Gothic

Crawford Market Crawford Market (officially Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Mandai) is one of South Mumbai's most famous markets. The building was completed in 1869, and donated to the city by Cowasji Jehangir. Originally named after Arthur Crawford, the first Municipal ...

(1865–71) with a fountain executed by

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

's father,

John Lockwood Kipling John Lockwood Kipling (6 July 1837 – 26 January 1911) was an English art teacher, illustrator and museum curator who spent most of his career in India. He was the father of the author Rudyard Kipling. Life and career Lockwood Kipling was b ...

, who was also responsible for the bas-reliefs on the main entrance.

Stints in Allahabad and Bhavnagar

Thereafter he moved to Allahabad where he designed his most important works,

All Saints Cathedral, Allahabad All Saints' Cathedral, also known as Patthar Girja (Church of Stones), is an Anglican cathedral located in Prayagraj, India. Modelled after 13th-century Gothic style churches, it is among the Gothic Revival buildings built by the British durin ...

(1869–93) and

Muir College Muir College is a semi-private English medium high school for boys situated in the suburb of Vanes Estate in Kariega (Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality) in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Muir caters for pupils from Grades ...

(1872-78). He then did two buildings for the princely

Bhavnagar State Bhavnagar State was a princely state with 13 Gun Salutes during the British Raj. It was part of Kathiawar Agency in Saurashtra. The State of Bhavnagar covered an area of 2,961 sq. miles and had a population of 618,429 in 1941. Its ruler ...

, Nilambag Palace (1894–95) and the Takhatsinhji Hospital (1879–83). In 1896, he designed the Clarence Memorial Wing St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London

Later work and Victoria Memorial

Eventually he designed his most known building, the

Victoria Memorial The Victoria Memorial is a large marble building on the Maidan in Central Kolkata, built between 1906 and 1921. It is dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria, Empress of India from 1876 to 1901. The largest monument to a monarch anywhere ...

(1905–21) in Calcutta. Victoria Memorial situated in Kolkata

He was admitted

ARIBA SAP Ariba is an American software and information technology services company located in Palo Alto, California. It was acquired by German software maker SAP SE for $4.3 billion in 2012. Company beginnings Ariba (now SAP Ariba) was founded in ...

on 12 February 1866, his proposers being Burges, Coutts Stone and Henry Edward Kendall; and was elevated to FRIBA on 21 April 1873, his proposers being Stone, Thomas Hayter Lewis and Thomas Roger Smith. He was President of the

(RIBA) from 1899 to 1902, and was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

in the

1902 Coronation Honours The 1902 Coronation Honours were announced on 26 June 1902, the date originally set for the coronation of King Edward VII. The coronation was postponed because the King had been taken ill two days before, but he ordered that the honours list shou ...

, receiving the accolade from King

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...

Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a London royal residence and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It ...

on 24 October that year. Most of his later work was in India; his most familiar being the design of the marble clad

Victoria Memorial Hall The Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall is a performing arts centre in the Central Area of Singapore, situated along Empress Place. It is a complex of two buildings and a clock tower joined together by a common corridor; the oldest part of the ...

in Calcutta (1905 onwards), described as "Britain's answer to the Taj Mahal". Although asked to design a building in the Italian Renaissance style, Emerson was against the exclusive use of European styles and instead incorporated Mughal elements into the structure. He died in

Shanklin Shanklin () is a seaside resort and civil parishes in England, civil parish on the Isle of Wight, England, located on Sandown Bay. Shanklin is the southernmost of three settlements which occupy the bay, and is close to Lake, Isle of Wight, Lake ...

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Isle of ...

in 1924.

Personal life

He had married in 1872 Jenny, the daughter of Coutts Stone and sister of fellow architect

Percy Stone Percy Goddard Stone (15 March 1856 – 21 March 1934) was an English architect, author and archaeologist who worked extensively on the Isle of Wight, where he lived for most of his life. He designed and restored several churches on the isl ...

Style

Emerson was a pioneer of the

Indo-Saracenic Indo-Saracenic architecture (also known as Indo-Gothic, Mughal-Gothic, Neo-Mughal, or Hindoo style) was a revivalist architectural style mostly used by British architects in India in the later 19th century, especially in public and government ...

style, which developed in the 19th and 20th centuries in British India.

List of Buildings

* 1869 -

, Bombay (now Mumbai), India * 1870 -

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

* 1872 -

, Allahabad Muir College
''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

'', June 9, 2006. * 1878 - St Mary the Virgin Church, Brighton, Sussex * 1879 - Takhatsinhji Hospital, Bhavnagar * 1894 - Nilambag Palace, Bhavnagar * 1896 - Clarence Memorial Wing St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London * 1905 - The

, Calcutta (now Kolkata), India His design for Liverpool cathedral won first prize in the first, abortive competition in 1883.

Gallery

File:Crawford Market.png,

, Mumbai File:Au science faculty.jpg, Muir College now part of

Allahabad University , mottoeng = "As Many Branches So Many Trees" , established = , type = Public , chancellor = Ashish Chauhan , vice_chancellor = Sangita Srivastava , head_label ...

File:Nilambagh Palace, Bhavnagar.jpg, Nilambagh Palace, Bhavnagar File:Clarencewing.JPG, Clarence Memorial Wing St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London File:St Mary the Virgin Church, Upper St James's Street, Brighton.jpg, St Mary the Virgin Church, Upper St James's Street, Brighton.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Emerson, William 1843 births 1924 deaths People from Whitechapel Architects from London Presidents of the Royal Institute of British Architects Alumni of King's College London Knights Bachelor Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects British people in colonial India