William Butterfield

William Butterfield 1814-1900, English Gothic-revival architect. Favored by the Ecclesiological Society for his Puginlike correctness in recalling Gothic forms, Butterfield rose to prominence in the middle of the 19th cent. The brilliant polychromy that he created through his combinations of brick, stone, and tile (e.g., All Saints' Church, London; 1849-59) introduced the High Victorian Gothic manner. The softer hues of the interior and the variously textured stone of the church at Baldersby St. James near Beverley in Yorkshire (1856) mark what is perhaps Butterfield's finest church. General interest in polychromy soon waned, but Butterfield continued in this mode with Keble College, Oxford (1868-70), and several buildings at Rugby School (1868-72).

Butterfield, William (1814–1900), architect. He was a keen Churchman who came under the influence of the Oxford Movement. He built a number of churches, including All Saints’, Margaret Street, London, Keble College, Oxford, and the Anglican cathedrals at Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne in Australia.

Butterfield, William (1814–1900). Architect. Undoubtedly the most original of Victorian Gothic Revival architects, though not to the taste of those who like their buildings restrained. He was greatly influenced by Pugin, and his early churches were at least as stylistically correct as the latter's. He then discovered north Italian Gothic, however, which seems to have liberated his spirit. His first characteristic masterpiece is All Saints, Margaret Street, in his native London (1859); his most famous—or notorious—is Keble College, Oxford (1873–6), to which a common reaction is ‘Who knitted it?’; and his biggest single building is that part of Melbourne Anglican cathedral (1877–84) which was built before its commissioners lost their nerve and contracted a duller architect to finish it. All are distinguished by their polychromaticism, and by their Anglo-catholic atmosphere; although in fact Butterfield hated ritual, and never worked for the Roman church on principle. Photographs of him make him appear dour, and he lived a monkish kind of life.

Bernard Porter