John Biagio Rebecca (died 1847), the son of Italian-born decorative painter

Biagio Rebecca Biagio Rebecca (1731–1808) was an Italian artist, active mainly as a decorative painter in England. Life Rebecca was born at Osimo, near Ancona, in the Marches, and served his apprenticeship in Rome. In England he became known for neoclassi ...

(1735–1808), was an architect of many buildings in Sussex and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. He lived in

's Leicester Square from 1825 to 1827 but many of his buildings were built in the seaside town of

Worthing Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...

in Sussex and he is credited as being the town's principal

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

architect. In Worthing Rebecca designed St. Paul's Chapel of Ease (now St. Paul's Church),

Beach House Beach House is an American musical duo formed in Baltimore, Maryland in 2004. The band consists of Victoria Legrand (vocals, keyboards) and Alex Scally (guitar, keyboard, backing vocals). Their self-titled debut album was released in 2006 t ...

and 19-20 Marine Parade, which housed Stafford's Marine Library in the 19th century. 19 Marine Parade was known as Rebecca House as it was believed that the architect himself stayed in the building. Rebecca was also the architect of Worthing's Royal Baths (now demolished) and several other buildings around the town. The Royal Sea House in Worthing, later the Royal Hotel, with

Ionic columns The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite ...

and pilasters was rebuilt to Rebecca's designs in 1829 (and destroyed by fire in 1901). Rebecca designed

Castle Goring Castle Goring is a Grade I listed country house in Worthing, in West Sussex, England about northwest of the town centre. One of Worthing's two Grade I listed buildings (deemed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to be of exc ...

Goring-by-Sea Goring-by-Sea, commonly referred to simply as Goring, is a neighbourhood of Worthing and former civil parish, now in Worthing district in West Sussex, England. It lies west of West Worthing, about west of Worthing town centre. Historically in ...

for

Sir Bysshe Shelley, 1st Baronet Sir Bysshe Shelley, 1st Baronet (21 June 1731 – 6 January 1815) was the grandfather of English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Life Shelley was born in Newark, Essex County, Province of New Jersey (present-day United States) on 21 June ...

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' ...

called the house "an extraordinary fantasy, suavely neo-classical on one side and romantically castellated on the other". Around 1813–16 Rebecca designed the facade of

Knebworth House Knebworth House is an English country house in the parish of Knebworth in Hertfordshire, England. It is a Grade II* listed building. Its gardens are also listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. In its surrounding park is t ...

, Hertfordshire, for Mrs Bulwer-Lytton. Also in the 1820s he restored

Penshurst Place Penshurst Place is a historic building near Penhurst, Kent, south east of London, England. It is the ancestral home of the Sidney family, and was the birthplace of the great Elizabethan poet, courtier and soldier, Sir Philip Sidney. The ori ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, in Tudor Gothic style, and it was probably to Rebecca's designs that Sir John Shelley Sidney rebuilt the Sidney Chapel. Around 1820 Buckingham House (originally 'Buckinghams' or 'Buckingham Place') in

Shoreham-by-Sea Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a coastal town and port in West Sussex, England. The town is bordered to its north by the South Downs, to its west by the Adur Valley and to its south by the River Adur and Shoreham Beach on th ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

was rebuilt to John Rebecca's designs. Its grounds are now Buckingham Park but the house itself lies in ruins. The Old Rectory at the village of

Crowell, Oxfordshire Crowell is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about southeast of the market town of Thame and southwest of the village of Chinnor. The 2001 Census recorded the parish's population as 100. Crowell village is a spring line settlement ...

was designed by Rebecca and built in 1822.

References

Sources and further reading

* * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rebecca, John 19th-century English architects 1847 deaths British people of Italian descent Year of birth unknown