Harry S. Fairhurst (3 April 1868 – 31 March 1945) was a prominent architect in Edwardian Manchester. He was responsible for many of the city's iconic
warehouses and his commissions include Blackfriars House, headquarters of the
Lancashire Cotton Corporation
The Lancashire Cotton Corporation was a company set up by the Bank of England in 1929, to rescue the Lancashire spinning industry by means of horizontal rationalisation. In merged 105 companies, ending up in 1950 with 53 operating mills. It was ...
and
Arkwright House, headquarters of the
English Sewing Cotton Company
Bagley & Wright was a spinning, doubling and weaving company based in Oldham, Lancashire, England. The business, which was active from 1867 until 1924, 'caught the wave' of the cotton-boom that existed following the end of the American Civil War ...
.
Work and professional life
Harry Smith Fairhurst was born in Blackburn on 3 April 1868. At age 15, he commenced articles in 1883 with James Wolstenholme and improved with
Maxwell and Tuke. He moved to Cardiff where he worked as assistant to William Frame.
He qualified in 1891 and started his own practice in Blackburn in 1895. He moved to Manchester in 1901 where he worked in partnership with James Harold France until 1905. From 1905 his assistant was James Alexander Mitchell Hunter who became his partner in 1908. The practice's first commissions were warehouses for Lloyds Packing Company.
[Dictionary of Scottish Architects Biography Report.]
Accessed 7 November 2012.
Fairhurst's commissions include
India House,
Bridgewater House and
Lancaster House which are Grade II or II*
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
s. York House in Major Street was another but has been demolished.
[
His warehouses were built using fire-proof techniques. He was known for his high standards. Some buildings were finished with ]Portland stone
Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building sto ...
façade
A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'.
In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...
s while the Lloyd's warehouses had Edwardian Baroque frontages built from red brick and orange terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, a ...
or faience
Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major ad ...
, and exposed glazed steel-frame backs.Manchester Society of Architects
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...
in 1926–27. He took his son Philip Garland Fairhurst (1900–87) also known as P. Garland Fairhurst (aka Garry), into partnership in 1929.[ Father and son were influenced by trips to North America and they perfected the steel and concrete technique. Buildings from this era were Lee House in Oxford Street and Rylands Warehouse in Market Street. They also designed Christie's Hospital and Holt Radium Institute.][
Harry Smith Fairhurst retired in 1941 and died in 1945, aged 76. The practice was continued by his son, Philip.][
]
Family
Philip Garland Fairhurst (1900–87)
Philip Garland Fairhurst continued his father's practice and was also president of the Manchester Society of Architects in 1947–49.
Harry M. Fairhurst OBE (1925–2011)
Like his father and grandfather, Harry M. Fairhurst was president of the Manchester Society of Architects in 1969–71. He left the practice in 1981 to work on conservation for English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
.Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, was awarded the OBE
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 o ...
and was President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society (1979–81).
Ian Fairhurst
Ian Fairhurst was involved in the family practice for many years and later changed his career to farming.
Mark Fairhurst
The fourth generation is represented by Mark Fairhurst who has a London practice.[Website of Mark Fairhurst, architect, London]
. Accessed 3 April 2024.
Notable projects
*National Buildings (1905-9)[
*Ship Canal House]
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
Photos of Harry S. Fairhursts works edited by Eamonn Cannife, Manchester School of Architecture
guttae.blogspot.co.uk. March 2011. Accessed 3 April 2024.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fairhurst, Harry S.
20th-century English architects
Presidents of the Manchester Society of Architects
Architects from Greater Manchester
1868 births
1945 deaths