Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Charles Watson (1771-1836), ‘Yorkshire’s leading architect’ 

Christopher Webster, Architectural Historian

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, Watson really was the county’s leading architect with a succession of fine buildings across this county, in Co. Durham and in Lincolnshire. His building included several impressive country houses, churches, chapels and court houses. His Lunatic Asylum in Wakefield was a building of national significance. After decades of neglect, the speaker’s forthcoming book on Watson will enable him to shine as an outstandingly significant provincial architect.

A flyer with details of Christopher Webster’s forthcoming book about Charles Watson is attached below and will be available at the lecture:

Watson flyer final design

Image: York Assembly Rooms, new front (1825-8). Image courtesy of Victoria Hopgood. 

2.30pm in the Tempest Anderson Lecture Theatre in the Yorkshire Museum on Tuesday 8 September.

YPS Members and students free, non members £5.

Member’s report:

Howard Colvin described Charles Watson as ‘the leading architect in Yorkshire’ of his day and yet in recent years his reputation seems to have been completely overshadowed by that of his business partner, J. P. Pritchett. Christopher Webster, author of a forthcoming major new biographical and critical study of Watson and his work, set out to address this problem and to redress the balance.

Watson’s career began in what, in architectural terms, was John Carr’s Yorkshire. Scion of a dynasty of stonemasons and quarrymen, he was apprenticed to the Doncaster architect William Lindley (himself a pupil of Carr) in 1787 and on completion of his training, he joined the practice as a partner. Dr Webster discussed his skill in dealing with clients and the good networks he made through his advantageous marriage into the ranks of minor Yorkshire gentry and through his lawyer brother. These enabled a blossoming career with such early works as the excellent late Georgian terraces in St John’s Square and St John’s Street we still see in Wakefield today, and, framed by the latter, the church of St John. In 1800 he struck out on his own with major commissions such as comprehensive alterations to St Peter’s, Sheffield (now the cathedral) and works for the Justices of the Peace in the court houses at Beverley, Pontefract and Wakefield. When John Carr died in 1807, Watson moved to York, no doubt hoping to pick up where Carr had left off (and in Colvin’s estimation, clearly succeeding). Work for the county gentry was won at Kirklees Hall, Parlington, Scampston and Gateforth, although not all the plans saw the light of day.

Disaster struck in 1811 when his wife, Mary, died leaving him with five young sons to care for. Although one of their aunts arrived to pick up much of the childcare burden, nevertheless Watson clearly found the bereavement hard to bear and succumbed to a depression. Dr Webster has shown, through careful reading of the contemporary family letters, that in fact he suffered from what would now be described as bipolar disorder (a common enough illness in creatives, both then and now). It was decided to appoint a partner, and so Pritchett arrived on the scene.

While Watson and Pritchett worked as equal partners, Dr Webster’s research identifies the fact that Pritchett had trained as a surveyor, not as an architect, and that he took over the technical and site supervisory side of the business, while Watson remained the principal designer and negotiator with clients. It was a wildly successful collaboration, seeing major work across all three Ridings. Dr Webster showed us a dazzling array of projects from Rise Hall to Saltmarshe Hall and for the established church and the dissenters; in York alone the Deanery (now demolished), the Song School (now a restaurant) and the Friends’ Meeting House. Queen Street chapel in Huddersfield was a particular triumph. Groundbreaking innovations were made at the Pauper’s Lunatic Asylum in Wakefield. And there were many more, for which an eager audience awaits Dr Webster’s book.

What came out as the principal message of the talk was that the Watson and Pritchett partnership was one of equals, but also one of differentiation, with Watson continuing as the presiding design genius. While work by Ted Royle and Victoria Hopgood reflects this state of affairs, there are other sources that do not – some of which, I fear, may have allowed errors of attribution to creep into my revision of Pevsner’s Yorkshire: the North Riding. Dr Webster has done Watson a great service in restoring his reputation to that of the leading architect of early 19th century Yorkshire.

Jane Grenville