Reilly, Sir Charles Herbert

Reilly, Sir Charles Herbert (1874–1948). London-born British architect, important as a pedagogue and author. He gained his early experience in Belcher's office before working with Peach, with whom he designed the Power Station, Ipswich, Suffolk (1900–4) and the Grove Road Power Station, London (1902–4—demolished). He built up the School of Architecture at the University of Liverpool, where he was Professor from 1904 until 1933, adopting American Beaux-Arts principles. Under his direction it acquired an international reputation. At first, the School promoted Neo-Classical and Beaux-Arts styles, with a pronounced American flavour (e.g. Reilly's Student-Union Building (1908) and Gilmour Hall (1910–12), both in Liverpool), but later, as a consultant, he encouraged International Modernism in London with the Peter Jones Department Store, Sloane Square, London, designed by his former students, Crabtree, Slater, & Moberley (1934–9). Reilly himself designed few buildings, but those that were realized were of interest: they include the Church of St Barnabas, Shacklewell, Hackney, London (1909–29), a crescent of houses in the South-African Colonial style at Port Sunlight, Ches. (designed before 1914), the Accrington War Memorial, Lancs., and Durham County War Memorial (both 1920). His books include Some Liverpool Streets and their Buildings (1921), McKim, Mead, & White (1924), Some Manchester Streets and their Buildings (1924), Representative British Architects of Today (1931), and The Theory and Practice of Architecture (1932).

Bibliography

A. S. Gray (1985);
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004);
Richmond (2001);
Sharples et al. (1996);
Stamp & and Harte (1979);
Jane Turner (1996)