William Richard Lethaby

William Richard Lethaby , 1857-1931, English architect. He was a founder and first principal (1893-1911) of the London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts, and professor of design at the Royal College of Art. He was also an influential writer on architectural subjects. Besides his important books Greek Buildings (1908), Mediaeval Art (1912), and Architecture (1912), he contributed to many periodicals.

Bibliography: See his Form in Civilization (with foreword by L. Mumford, 1957).

Lethaby, W. R. ( William Richard Lethaby) (1857–1931). British architect, designer, writer, and teacher. He was an architect by training, but he designed few buildings, and after the turn of the century he was active mainly as a teacher and writer. From 1894 to 1918 he was art adviser to the London County Council. In this role he helped to found the Central School of Arts and Crafts (see ST MARTIN'S SCHOOL OF ART) in 1896, and he was its principal from 1902 to 1911, introducing ‘a programme of workshop training with all the latest equipment to make it one of the most progressive European art schools of its day’ ( Dennis Farr, English Art 1870–1940, 1978). From 1901 to 1918 he was also professor of design at the Royal College of Art. Lethaby was an outstanding teacher, possessing a clear mind and an enthusiastic manner. He argued that art and architecture should be socially responsible and governed by reason. His books include Medieval Art (1904), Form in Civilisation: Collected Papers on Art and Labour (1922), which Farr describes as containing ‘much practical common sense expressed in an enviably crisp, rigorous manner', and two books on the architecture of Westminster Abbey (1906 and 1925) that are still considered standard works. He was surveyor to the Abbey from 1906 to 1927 and instituted a sensitive programme of conservation of the medieval fabric, halting the tide of 19th-century ‘restoration'.

Lethaby, William Richard (1857–1931). English architect, educator, and theorist. He trained with Norman Shaw before establishing his own office (1889). Influenced by William Morris, Ruskin, and Philip Webb, he was an important figure in the Arts-and-Crafts movement, being a founder-member of the Art-Workers' Guild (1884). He built in a Free style, not without historical references, and among his houses are Avon Tyrrell, Christchurch, Hants. (1891–2), High Coxlease, Lyndhurst, Hants. (1898), and the fine Melsetter, Hoy, Orkney (1898–1900). His All Saints' Church, Brockhampton, Herefs. (1901–2), while having Gothic allusions, is a free Arts-and-Crafts interpretation of church architecture of great beauty, while the Eagle Insurance Building, Colmore Row, Birmingham (1899–1900), shows Webb's influence, although it is boldly personal.

Lethaby helped to found the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London (1894), and was its first Principal. It was the earliest such school to have craft-teaching facilities and workshops. He was a leading member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and wrote several books including Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth (1892), Mediaeval Art (1904), Architecture (1912), Form in Civilization (1922), and Westminster Abbey (1906, 1925).

Bibliography

Backemeyer & Gronberg (eds.) (1984);
Garnham (1994);
A. S. Gray (1985);
Hitchcock (1977);
Lethaby (1935);
H. Muthesius (1979);
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004);
Rubens (1986)