Blacket, Edmund Thomas

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Blacket, Edmund Thomas (1817–83). English-born Australian architect who settled in Sydney in 1842, and became one of the leading members of the profession in New South Wales. In 1847 he was appointed Diocesan Architect, and in that capacity he designed more than fifty churches, of which St Philip, Church Hill (1848), All Saints, Woollahra (1874), St Mark, Darling Point (1847–75), and St Andrew's Cathedral (from c.1847), all in Sydney, and the Cathedral Church of St George, Perth, Western Australia (begun 1879), may be cited. His masterpiece is the Tudor Gothic University of Sydney (1854–60), the great hall of which is based on Westminster Hall, London, complete with hammer-beam roof structure. He also designed St Paul's College at the University, again in the Gothic style, but he could turn his hand to Classicism as well, as at his extensions to Sydney Grammar School (1856). From the 1850s onwards he designed a great many houses and commercial buildings, and his office became an important factor in the training of young Australian architects. In later years he was assisted by his son, Cyril (1857–1937), and the practice continued until the 1930s.

Bibliography

Cruickshank (ed.) (1996);
Herman (1954, 1963);
Jnl. Proc. Royal Australian Hist. Soc., xxxii (1946), 145–72;
Kerr (1983);
Jane Turner (1996);
Vine Hall (1983)

A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture

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