Macartney, Sir Mervyn Edmund

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Macartney, Sir Mervyn Edmund (1853–1932). Son of a Co. Armagh, Ireland, family, he was born in London, was a pupil of Norman Shaw, and a founder of the Art-Workers' Guild. He began practice in 1882, his work showing Shaw's influence with a strong dash of late-C17 and early C18 architectural elements. Among his buildings, 169 Queen's Gate (1899), 1–6 Egerton Place (1893), and the Public Library, Essex Road, Islington (1916), all in London, may be mentioned, but he was better known for his publications, including The Practical Exemplar of Architecture (1908–27) and (with Belcher) Later Renaissance Architecture in England (1898–1901), which celebrated the riches of English architecture in the age of Wren. He was Editor of Architectural Review (1905–20), and, as Surveyor to St Paul's Cathedral, London, carried out important works of conservation on Wren's building (1906–31), including the strengthening of the dome.

Bibliography

P. Davey (1980);
A. S. Gray (1985);
Macartney (1907–27, 1908);
Macartney & and Belcher (1901);
Ward (1998)