Philip Speakman Webb

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Philip Speakman Webb 1831–1915, English architect. His influence, together with that of R. N. Shaw and W. E. Nesfield, established after the mid-19th cent. a revival of residential architecture based upon the Queen Anne and Georgian styles and upon the use of materials for their own artistic values. He became the assistant of G. E. Street , and he was an intimate friend of William Morris and a supporter of his aesthetic creeds. Webb's first commission was the historic Red House, Bexley Heath, built (1859) for Morris, in which the theories of both owner and architect received their practical crystallization. Its planning and specially designed furnishings led to the establishment (1861) of Morris's celebrated decorating business, the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company, important in the development of the arts and crafts movement. Webb was one of the six members of this firm, and for it he designed furniture, tiles, and stained glass.

Bibliography: See study by W. R. Lethaby (1935).