Bedford, Francis Octavius

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Bedford, Francis Octavius (1784–1858). English architect. With J. P. Gandy and William Wilkins he was engaged by the Society of Dilettanti to accompany Sir William Gell on a tour of Greece and Asia Minor to collect material. Their researches led to the publication (1817) of The Unedited Antiquities of Attica and (1840) the third volume of The Antiquities of Ionia. Much later (1912) the fifth part of The Antiquities of Ionia, containing work by Bedford, Gandy, and Gell, was published, edited by Lethaby.

As an architect he produced some of the finest essays in the Greek Revival style, including the Churches of St John, Waterloo Road, Lambeth (1823–4), St George, Camberwell (1822–4—gutted), Holy Trinity, Southwark (1823–4—now the Henry Wood Hall, as converted by Arup Associates), and St Luke, West Norwood (1823–5—altered by Street (1870–9)), all in London. His pre-ecclesiological Gothic Revival churches are thin and spindly.

Bibliography

B. Cherry & and Pevsner (1983);
Colvin (1995);
Crook (1972a)

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Bedford, Francis Octavius

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