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Death of Sir Thomas Drew, Architect & Antiquarian

Sir Thomas Drew, Anglo-Irish architect and antiquarian, dies in Dublin on March 13, 1910.

Drew is born on September 18, 1838, in Victoria Place, Belfast, into the large family of Rev. Thomas Drew, son of a Limerick grocer, and Isabella Drew (née Dalton). He is one of four sons and eight daughters of the couple, although most of the children die young. His sister, Catherine Drew, is a prominent London journalist and an early champion of women’s rights.

Drew is educated in Belfast and in 1854 articled to the Antrim county surveyor and architect Sir Charles Lanyon, before moving to work in Dublin in 1862, where he becomes principal assistant to William George Murray. In 1865, he becomes the diocesan architect of the united dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore. From this point forward, church architecture is his principal activity. He is consulting architect for both St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin.

Drew marries Adelaide Anne, sister of William George Murray, in 1871.

Among other projects, Drew is responsible for the design of the Ulster Bank on Dame Street, Rathmines Town Hall and the Graduates’ Building at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). He takes an interest in historic buildings and is the first to draw serious attention to the architectural and historic importance of the St. Audoen’s Church, Dublin’s oldest parish church, in 1866. He produces detailed plans of the church for which he wins the Fitzgerald medal from the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), carries out excavations and draws up a paper on the church and its history.

From 1885 to 1892, Richard Orpen works with Drew as a managing assistant. Drew’s most significant work in Belfast is St. Anne’s Cathedral, completed in 1899.

Drew is knighted in the 1900 Birthday Honours and is the inaugural president of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA), serving from 1901 to 1903. In addition, he is president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI) and the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) and holds the chair in architecture at the National University of Ireland (NUI).

From 1879 onward Drew lives in Gortnadrew, one half of a pair of semi-detached houses of his own design, on Alma Road in Monkstown, County Dublin. For many years he serves as a commissioner of the local township of Blackrock, Dublin. He dies on March 13, 1910, a month after an unsuccessful operation for appendicitis. He is buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery in the suburban area of Deansgrange in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, County Dublin.

Drew is commemorated in a memorial brass in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. His wife survives him by three years and in her will bequeaths back to the RIAI the loving cup presented to her husband in commemoration of his knighthood, and to the Belfast Municipal Museum and Art Gallery (Ulster Museum since 1962) an 1852 portrait of his father Thomas. A portrait of Drew by Walter Osborne is held in the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) in Dublin.


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Birth of Charles Lanyon, Civil Engineer & Architect

Sir Charles Lanyon, DL, JP, civil engineer and architect, is born on January 6, 1813, at Eastbourne, Sussex, England, third son of John Jenkinson Lanyon, purser in the Royal Navy, and Catherine Lanyon (née Mortimer). His work is most closely associated with Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Following his local education, Lanyon becomes an apprentice civil engineer with Jacob Owen in Portsmouth. When Owen is made senior Engineer and Architect of the Irish Board of Works and moves to Dublin, Lanyon follows. In 1835 he marries Owen’s daughter, Elizabeth Helen. They have ten children, including Sir William Owen Lanyon, an army officer and future administrator of the Transvaal in southern Africa.

Lanyon is county surveyor in County Kildare briefly, a post he exchanges for its equivalent in County Antrim, based in Belfast, when the incumbent, Thomas Jackson Woodhouse, resigns in 1836. By 1842, he has built the Antrim coast road between Larne and Portrush, through spectacular natural surroundings. He designs the lofty three-arched Glendun viaduct on this route near Cushendun, an early example of his versatile talent for monumental display as well as the Ormeau Bridge over the River Lagan. He remains county surveyor of Antrim until 1861 when he resigns from the post to concentrate on private work and other interests.

Lanyon is elected Mayor of Belfast in 1862, and Conservative MP for the city between 1865 and 1868. In 1868 he is also knighted and serves on the Select Committee on Scientific Instruction.

Lanyon loses his Belfast parliamentary seat in 1868 to William Johnston but continues to serve as a Belfast Town councillor until 1871. From 1862 to 1886 he is Belfast Harbour Commissioner. He serves as Deputy Lieutenant for County Antrim and is appointed High Sheriff of Antrim in 1876. He is also a Justice of the Peace for many years.

Lanyon’s other business interests include being director of the Blackstaff Flax Spinning Company and chairman of several railway companies. He is made director of the Northern Counties Railway in 1870 but resigns in 1887 because of ill-health. Alongside his business activities he is an active Freemason and serves as Provincial Deputy Grand Master of Belfast and North Down between 1863 and 1868, Provincial Deputy Grand Master of Antrim between 1868 and 1883 and Provincial Grand Master of Antrim between 1883 and 1889.

Lanyon lives at The Abbey, a grand house in Whiteabbey, County Antrim, which eventually becomes a sanitorium during World War I and is now part of Whiteabbey Hospital. His wife dies in 1858, and his son William dies from cancer at the age of 44 in 1887. He dies at The Abbey on May 31, 1889, and is buried in Knockbreda Cemetery, Belfast, in a tomb also of his design.


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Birth of Sir Thomas Drew, Anglo-Irish Architect

Sir Thomas Drew, Anglo-Irish architect, is born in Victoria Place, Belfast, on September 18, 1838.

Drew is the son of the Rev. Thomas Drew, son of a Limerick grocer, and Isabella Drew (née Dalton), daughter of a Dublin attorney. He is one of four sons and eight daughters of the couple, although most of the children die young. His sister, Catherine Drew, is a prominent London journalist and an early champion of women’s rights.

Drew is trained under Sir Charles Lanyon before moving to work in Dublin, where he becomes principal assistant to William George Murray. In 1865, he becomes the diocesan architect of the united dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore, and from that point forward Church architecture is his principal activity. He is consulting architect for both St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin.

Drew marries Adelaide Anne, sister of William George Murray, in 1871.

Among other projects, Drew is responsible for the design of the Ulster Bank on Dame Street, Rathmines Town Hall (completed 1899) and the Graduates Memorial Building at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). He takes an interest in historic buildings and is the first to draw serious attention to the architectural and historic importance of the St. Audoen’s Church, Dublin’s oldest parish church, in 1866. He produces detailed plans of the church for which he wins an award from the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), carries out excavations and draws up a paper on the church and its history.

From 1885 to 1892, Richard Orpen works with Drew as a managing assistant. Drew’s most significant work in Belfast is St. Anne’s Cathedral, completed in 1899.

Drew is knighted in the 1900 Birthday Honours and is inaugural president of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects, serving from 1901 to 1903. In addition, he is president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI) and the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) and holds the chair in architecture at the National University of Ireland. He lives in Gortnadrew, Monkstown, County Dublin.

Drew dies on March 13, 1910, a month after an unsuccessful operation for appendicitis. He is buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery.

Selected works:


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Opening of Assembly’s College, Belfast

assemblys-college-belfast

Assembly’s College, Belfast, opens for the training of Presbyterian clergy on December 5, 1853.

The Renaissance Revival style building with its grand Doric porch and Baroque attic is designed by Sir Charles Lanyon, the architect of the main building at Queen’s University Belfast and built with Scrabo stone at a cost of £5,000. Jean-Henri Merle d’Aubigné of Geneva participates in the opening ceremony alongside Henry Cooke, President of the Faculty. The five other professors in the new college are John Edgar, Robert Wilson, William Dool Killen, James G. Murphy and William Gibson.

There is a large influx of students in the wake of the 1859 Ulster revival and the south wing with its dining hall and student accommodations is added in 1869. Princeton Theological Seminary has an important influence in the shaping of the ethos of the College during this period as the Reverend Roberts Watts, who is appointed Professor of Systematic Theology in 1866, hopes to make “Belfast another Princeton.” The north wing with its wood-panelled chapel is designed by John Lanyon, son of original architect, and completed in 1881. The first degrees under the Royal Charter are conferred in 1883. However, the death of Watts in 1895 marks the beginning of the end of the Princetonian influence. A partial union takes place between the faculties in Belfast and Magee in 1922.

The newly formed Parliament of Northern Ireland meets in Assembly’s College from 1921 until 1932 while Stormont is being built with the House of Commons meeting in the Gamble Library and the Senate in the College chapel. During this period the College conducts classes in a house and provides library resources in a house on University Square. In 1926 the College becomes a Recognised College of Queen’s University. During this period the College comes under criticism for its embrace of theological liberalism. This culminates in a charge of heresy being brought against Professor James Ernest Davey in 1926-27. The College officially reopens in October 1932 and the inaugural lecture is delivered by the Scottish Historian Robert Rait.

Between 1941 and 1948 the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the city police, use the College as its own headquarters are bombed in the Belfast Blitz. In 1953, to mark the College’s centenary year, Prof. Davey is elected Moderator of the General Assembly.

In 1976 theological teaching at Magee College in Derry, County Londonderry, ceases and the two colleges amalgamate in 1978. The new college, constituted by an Act of Parliament, is named Union Theological College.

Today Union Theological College offers a full range of courses in Theology. The professors at the College constitute the Presbyterian Theological Faculty Ireland (PTFI) which was granted a Royal Charter in 1881 to confer academic degrees. The PTFI still awards degrees, diplomas and certificates. The majority of students are enrolled for degrees and diplomas, undergraduate and postgraduate, through the Institute of Theology of the Queen’s University of Belfast, in particular the BTh, BD, MTh and PhD.


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National Gallery of Ireland Act, 1854

A statutory provision, the National Gallery of Ireland Act, 1854, is made on August 10, 1854, for the establishment of a national gallery of paintings, sculpture, and fine arts in Ireland.

The National Gallery of Ireland, which opens its doors ten years later, houses the national collection of Irish and European art. It is located in the centre of Dublin with one entrance on Merrion Square, beside Leinster House, and another on Clare Street. The Gallery has an extensive, representative collection of Irish painting and is also notable for its Italian Baroque and Dutch masters painting.

The façade of the National Gallery copies the Natural History building of the National Museum of Ireland which is already planned for the facing flank of Leinster House. The building itself is designed by Francis Fowke, based on early plans by Charles Lanyon.

The Gallery is unlucky not to have been founded around an existing collection, but through diligent and skillful purchase, by the time it opens it has 125 paintings. In 1866 an annual purchase grant is established and by 1891 space is already limited. In 1897, the Dowager Countess of Milltown indicates her intention of donating the contents of Russborough House to the Gallery. This gift includes about 223 paintings, 48 pieces of sculpture, 33 engravings, much silver, furniture and a library, and prompts construction from 1899 to 1903 of what is now called the Milltown Wing, designed by Thomas Newenham Deane.

At around this time Henry Vaughan leaves 31 watercolours by J.M.W. Turner with the requirement that they can only be exhibited in January, this to protect them from the ill-effects of sunlight. Though modern lighting technology has made this stipulation unnecessary, the Gallery continues to restrict viewing of the Vaughan bequest to January and the exhibition is treated as something of an occasion.

Another substantial bequest comes with the untimely death in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania of Hugh Lane (1875–1915), since 1914 director of the Gallery. Not only does he leave a large collection of pictures, but he also leaves part of his residual estate, and the Lane Fund has continued to contribute to the purchase of art works to this day. In addition to his involvement in the Gallery, Hugh Lane has also hoped to found a gallery of modern art, something only realised after his death in Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane. George Bernard Shaw also makes a substantial bequest, leaving the Gallery a third of royalties of his estate in gratitude for the time he spent there as a youth.

The Gallery is again extended in 1962 with a new wing designed by Frank DuBerry of the Office of Public Works. This opens in 1968 and is now named the Beit Wing. In 1978 the Gallery receives from the government the paintings given to the nation by Alfred Chester Beatty and in 1987 the Sweeney bequest purchases fourteen works of art including paintings by Pablo Picasso and Jack Butler Yeats. The same year the Gallery is once again given some of the contents of Russborough House when Alfred Beit donates 17 masterpieces, including paintings by Diego Velázquez, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Jan Steen, Johannes Vermeer and Henry Raeburn.

In the 1990s a lost Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ, known through replicas, is discovered hanging in a Jesuit house of studies in Leeson Street in Dublin by Sergio Benedetti, senior conservator of the gallery. The Jesuits generously allow this painting to be exhibited in the Gallery and the discovery is the cause of national excitement. In 1997 Anne Yeats donates sketchbooks by her uncle Jack Yeats and the Gallery now includes a Yeats Museum. Denis Mahon, a well-known art critic, promises the Gallery part of his rich collection and eight painting from his promised bequest are on permanent display, including Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph by Guercino.


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Opening of the National Gallery of Ireland

national-gallery-of-ireland

The National Gallery of Ireland, home of the national collection of Irish and European art, opens on January 30, 1864. It is located in the centre of Dublin with one entrance on Merrion Square, beside Leinster House, and another on Clare Street. The Gallery has an extensive, representative collection of Irish painting and is also notable for its Italian Baroque and Dutch masters painting.

In 1853 an exhibition, the Great Industrial Exhibition, is held on the lawns of Leinster House in Dublin. Among the most popular exhibits is a substantial display of works of art organised and underwritten by the railway magnate William Dargan. The enthusiasm of the visiting crowds demonstrates a public need for art, and it is decided to establish a permanent public art collection as a lasting monument of gratitude to Dargan. The moving spirit behind the proposal is the barrister John Edward Pigot (1822-1871), son of David Richard Pigot, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and he becomes one of the first Governors of the Gallery. The façade of the National Gallery copies the Natural History building of the National Museum of Ireland which is already planned for the facing flank of Leinster House. The building itself is designed by Francis Fowke, based on early plans by Charles Lanyon.

The Gallery is unlucky not to have been founded around an existing collection, but through diligent and skilful purchase, by the time it opens it has 125 paintings. In 1866 an annual purchase grant is established and by 1891 space is already limited. In 1897, the Dowager Countess of Milltown indicates her intention of donating the contents of Russborough House to the Gallery. This gift includes about 223 paintings, 48 pieces of sculpture, 33 engravings, much silver, furniture, and a library, and prompts construction from 1899 to 1903 of what is now called the Milltown Wing, designed by Thomas Newenham Deane.

At around this time Henry Vaughan leaves 31 watercolours by J.M.W. Turner with the requirement that they can only be exhibited in January, this to protect them from the ill-effects of sunlight. Though modern lighting technology has made this stipulation unnecessary, the Gallery continues to restrict viewing of the Vaughan bequest to January and the exhibition is treated as something of an occasion.

Another substantial bequest comes with the untimely death in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania of Hugh Lane, director of the Gallery since 1914. Not only does he leave a large collection of pictures, but he also leaves part of his residual estate, and the Lane Fund has continued to contribute to the purchase of art works to this day. In addition to his involvement in the Gallery, Lane has also hoped to found a gallery of modern art, something only realised after his death in Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane. George Bernard Shaw also makes a substantial bequest, leaving the Gallery a third of royalties of his estate in gratitude for the time he spent there as a youth.

The Gallery is again extended in 1962 with a new wing designed by Frank DuBerry of the Office of Public Works. This opens in 1968 and is now named the Beit Wing. In 1978 the Gallery receives from the government the paintings given to the nation by Chester Beatty and in 1987 the Sweeney bequest brings fourteen works of art including paintings by Pablo Picasso and Jack Butler Yeats. The same year the Gallery is once again given some of the contents of Russborough House when Alfred Beit donates 17 masterpieces, including paintings by Diego Velázquez, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Jan Steen, Johannes Vermeer, and Henry Raeburn.

In the 1990s a lost Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ, known through replicas, is discovered hanging in a Jesuit house of studies in Leeson Street in Dublin by Sergio Benedetti, senior conservator of the gallery. The Jesuits generously allow this painting to be exhibited in the Gallery and the discovery is the cause of national excitement. In 1997 Anne Yeats donates sketchbooks by her uncle, Jack Yeats, and the Gallery now includes a Yeats Museum. Denis Mahon, well known art critic, promises the Gallery part of his rich collection and eight paintings from his promised bequest are on permanent display, including Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph by Rembrandt.

The collection currently contains about 14,000 artworks, including approximately 2,500 oil paintings, 5,000 drawings, 5,000 prints, and some sculpture, furniture, and other works of art.