Stories
& People - Paper
5
SIR
GEORGE OATLEY 1863-1950: AN
INDIVIDUAL NOTE
This Note is based on the magnificent new text:
Sir George Oatley: Architect of Bristol
Sarah Whittingham
Bristol
: Redcliffe Press 2011 439pp
IBSN 978-1-904537-92-2
All quotations are © Sarah Whittingham
INTRODUCTION
PERSONAL
AND SPIRITUAL LIFE
APPROACH
TO PROFESSIONAL LIFE
General
approach
Design
Ethics
and etiquette
Reflection
on business
BUILDINGS
Style
generally
Churches
University
of Bristol
Commercial
work
Domestic
work
Asylums
and hospitals
CONCLUDING
COMMENTS
INTRODUCTION
In this work, based on her PhD thesis (University
of Bristol 2005), Sarah Whittingham gives us a most comprehensive and
convincing insight into the life and practice of an English
Nonconformist architect, a true built environment professional, of the
second half of the 19th century
and the first half of the 20th.
Whittingham draws extensively not only on his design work and office
papers but also upon his reflective correspondence with family and
friends, and particularly at the end of each year, with himself.
Most of Oatley's life was lived, and most of his
work done, in or close to the city of Bristol. Most impressively, for
me, is the breadth of his mind and work. A wide range of building types
make up his portfolio with styles chosen for their appropriateness. He
always seeks to serve the needs and aspirations of his clients, both
civic and private, without forays into self-promotion. He never avoids
the inherent difficulties and frustrations of practical building and
professional life. Balancing his paid work is his voluntary work for the
parts of Bristol having great needs for housing, education and
spiritual sustenance. He was exceptionally fortunate in living at the
time when Nonconformist, practical churchmanship was at a high point.
The thriving Congregational churches
were the source and home of
his ethos for life and work, along with Baptist, Methodist, Quaker and
other branches of Nonconformity, and the Anglican, Roman Catholic and
other churches that made up his ecumenical hinterland.
Running through the whole of Oatley's life is the
deep sense that all skill and the
wealth it may bring come from God ,and that all work must ultimately be
offered back in praise. Therefore both the physical work and the
processes by which it comes into being must be as good as it is possible
to make them.
Piety? Yes. Commitment and competence? Yes. That
perhaps is the Victorian mix. In some respects it is not our way but it
behoves us to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it.
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PERSONAL
AND SPIRITUAL LIFE
The following brief quotations sharpen the
comments I have already made in general terms:
1.
The three
most important aspects of Oatley's life were: his religion; his humble
beginnings... and upbringing; his architecture. Oatley would have put
them in that order. He spent as much time on 'good works' as on his
profession. He started working at a Congregational Mission in Anvil
Street in the St Philip's area at the age of sixteen. He continued to
work there every Sunday for the rest of his life... Oatley also
sustained Clifton Down Congregational Church, both practically and
financially, and he continued the work of the Bristol YMCA that his
father had set up. (page 23)
2.
He never
turned his back on Congregationalism but he was always completely
ecumenical in his views on religion, both personally and professionally:
'Never in my whole experience have I known or felt any difference
between Church and Church, nor Christian and Christian, no matter of
what order or denomination.' (page 25)
3.
Oatley did
not tell any immediate member of his family about his knighthood before
they saw it announced in the papers. He certainly went alone to London
to receive it, 'I was glad to have it all over so simply... I then went
to the Royal Academy and saw this year's pictures. Had lunch and got
back to Bristol as quickly as possible'. (page 14)
4.
I suffer
increasingly from inferiority complex, not in one but in every
department of my life, religious, social, public and business. It gets
more acute and has to be fought by faith all the time.... What I suffer
is quite a different thing from false modesty. It is rather an honest
admission of the truth regarding oneself. I believe it to be of vital
necessity. Still: Nothing matters but SIN. (page 11)
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APPROACH
TO PROFESSIONAL LIFE
From Oatley's personal and spiritual life there
flows his approach to professional life generally, in relation to design
and in terms of conduct and etiquette. In the following comments,
Whittingham enables us to see and hear the man himself.
General
approach
In essence, Oatley was a Bristol architect who
practised quietly, conscientiously and successfully in the place of his
birth, serving his clients and his God. The buildings that he designed
houses, hospitals, banks, factories, offices, churches and chapels and,
in particular, those for its university, transformed the face of the
city. (page 21)
Oatley was elected FRIBA in February 1899 and was
President of the Bristol Society of Architects from 1904-06 (serving on
the RIBA Council). (page 75)
If the clients were committed Nonconformists, then
the chapel was a more important meeting place than the drawing room, and
if they were looking for 'conventional and reassuring' there was no
safer pair of hands than Oatley's, who believed that he served God
through serving his clients and that to do so meant following their
instructions and not imposing his own will. (page 95)
Nonconformists were the greatest single power
behind the Liberal Party and from 1905-10 Oatley was Liberal councillor
for Bedminster East ward, also serving on the Sites and Buildings
Committee of the Bristol Education Committee (pages 75-6)
Design
The following comments show Oatley as designer
responds to his visit to Israel/Palestine and to an area of Christianity
different from his own.
The ship then anchored off Haifa and a camping
party then set out for Nazareth followed by Hebron, Bethlehem, Jericho
and Jerusalem. The simple, clear lines and proportions of eastern
religious architecture greatly appealed to Oatley, [particularly noting
the Crusader Church of St Ann's and the Armenian Convent]. Oatley had
doubts as to the authenticity of some of the religious sites they saw,
and wrote that 'on the whole Jerusalem did not come up to my
expectations. But the situation, the walls, the Mount of Olives and
Gordan's Calvary and the tomb are worth travelling any distance to see'.
(page 80)
It may seem inconsistent in the light of emphasis
on the simplicity of Oatley's work and his Congregationalism, to state
that his most sublime works such as the Wills Memorial Building, have a
certain [Roman Catholic]mysticism about them.. It has to be remembered
that Oatley was always ecumenical in his approach to religion. He
believed that Christianity was not defined by any particular set of
outward observances, customs of forms of worship, but included all of
them, from the most elaborate ritual and ceremonial to Quaker
simplicity. (page 160)
Ethics
and etiquette
The following brief passages assembled together
start to make the outline of a professional
code. The italics are
mine.
Put your client first
To the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Herbert Isambard Owen:
You have had much more to do with the success of the building scheme
than I have. You laid down what it should be and were the inspiration at
its initiation. All that I have done is to try to carry out what was in
your mind'. (page 107)
Don't court publicity
for its own sake
As he believed that anything good about his work
came from God, Oatley was never self-promoting and relatively few of his
designs were published. Only if he thought that it would serve some
useful purpose did he let his plans be reproduced in the papers....
(page 13)
Observe the same
morality in your design as in your conduct
He would have agreed with the architect Charles
Voysey that 'Simplicity, sincerity, repose, directness and frankness are
moral qualities as essential to good architecture as to good men'. (page
146)
Oatley explicitly links aesthetics and morality
when he states his belief that 'there is that within even a child which
can discern between good and bad when put before it a conscience, an
intuition as it were, in beauty as in morals..' (page 150)
Obey the rules but give
space to your conscience
To the Tax Office: The etiquette of our profession
precludes us from accepting reduced fees as such, but in the case of all
charitable and religious works which are carried out under our
supervision, we make a donation towards the Building Funds in lieu of a
formal reduction of fees...(page 32)
Learn to live with the
difficult things
My great difficulty is with my partner.... The
psychological reason is colossal conceit. He is never wrong – Consequently other people, if they differ, are
never right. He brooks no contradictions. This caused him to leave our
church in 1932 – He has gone to no other – nor does he worship anywhere, I think. Beyond the
everlasting worship of himself, which can never cease .. all one can do
is endure in patience. (page 113)
Reflection
on business
There are good years
...
At the end of 1900: This has been a year of
business prosperity and in spite of innumerable responsibilities,
difficulties and anxieties all seems well today. I never in my life have
had a year more full of work and it has told upon my strength. God seems
to be testing me with prosperity. (page 75)
...and bad years
The years between 1906 and the First World War
were very lean ones for architects in Bristol... At the end of 1909 he
recorded: 'This makes the third very slack year. The financial
difficulties of this year have meant constant suspense but the climax
has not yet been reached! I think the difficulties have meant distinct
spiritual blessing – it is a trial to have to refuse to give to good
objects'. (page 93)
Things go wrong and can
be costly....
December 1933:
Nearly everything that could go 'wrong' in business has gone
wrong – I have had to pay from my own purse the cost of
making good so many things in buildings – the
result of what, in a worldly phrase, may be called ill-luck... In years
gone by, things never went wrong in buildings –
Now, there seem to be no contracts in which they don't! And I stand by
everything that I feel to be my responsibility. (page 110)
… but principles are for
life
The address given at Oatley's funeral noted: He
spent his whole life in the business of this city, but he never began to
understand the cynicism which said that 'Business is Business'. To
approach him with plans for making easy money by easy business virtue,
was not only useless, it was impossible. (page 28)
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BUILDINGS
In this paper I have pondered Oatley's spiritual
life and shown how it undergirds his approach to professional activity.
The purpose of it all is the production of buildings. It is in them, and
the detailed technical processes involved in their creation that values
and principles ultimately find form. My purpose here is to give just the
briefest taste of Whittingham's treatment of Oatley's massive output of
buildings.
Style
generally
Whittingham emphasises the fact that Oatley was
not only a Gothic architect: Because he used the Gothic style for his
best-known work, it is often thought that Oatley wished to use it to the
exclusion of all others. However, he actually had a belief in 'fitness
for purpose' that led him to use a variety of styles each, in the main,
for a particular building type. His educational buildings are Gothic,
his banks and offices are classical, his factories are a simple style
stripped of ornament, and so on (page145)
Churches
I will comment on just two of Oatley's church
buildings, All Hallows, Easton which was a new building for a High
Church client, and his restoration of
the Methodist New Room in Broadmead.
All Hallows, Easton
This church is cited by Whittingham as Oatley's
most important and impressive church (apart from the chapel of St
Monica's home of rest). It is most daring in its spatial effects and of
French-influenced, Decorated Gothic style that suited the High church
situation. The nave is fifty feet high with an open timber roof. A sense
of height and openness is a key element of the design, facilitated by
arches and arcades. The east end progressively rises, and the choir has
a raised floor enclosed by low walls. This, combined with the high
arches surrounding it, separates it as a liturgical space but means that
it is open to the rest of the church. Oatley designed a large suspended
rood, instead of a rood screen that would have destroyed the openness.
His ability to satisfy the High Church client by concentrating the power
of the church in the east end, while simultaneously creating an open
setting that enabled the whole congregation to feel part of the
proceedings, was doubtless a product of his Congregationalist
background.(pages 235,239)
Methodist New Room
I give here two comments from Whittingham, the
first on style and the second on spirituality.
After his restoration of Wesley's New Room in
Broadmead (the oldest Methodist chapel in the world) in 1930, the
guide-book recorded that the work had been carried out 'under the
direction of Sir George Oatley, the distinguished authority on
eighteenth century architecture'. Far from being thought of as a pure
Gothicist, this was a generally held view of the architect during his
lifetime. (page 151)
The New Room appealed to Oatley immensely, both
spiritually and aesthetically. Indeed, for him, the two were
inextricably linked. He wrote 'The building has turned out absolutely
charming... For simplicity, quaintness and purity it could hardly be
excelled.... It is profoundly interesting to have rescued and preserved
for coming generations this material monument.... but I feel deeply
impressed by the thought that it is in vain that we treasure the relics
of the saints of the Church – St Francis of Assisi, the Wesley's and the rest – unless we possess that Spirit by which they
lived, and wrought, and changed the current of men's lives'. (page 389)
University
of Bristol
Reading Whittingham's full and fascinating
treatment of Oatley's work for what would become his largest single
client, I say over and over, 'cometh the hour, cometh the man'. The
Nonconformist community, not yet fully accepted into Oxford and
Cambridge, needed a university; the Wills family in particular had the
money to endow many of its buildings; and George Oatley found within
himself the vision, skills and shear work ethic, to lead much of the
design work as particular needs and opportunities unfolded.
Wills Memorial Building.
In February 1913 George and Henry Wills announced
that they wanted to give a new building to the University in memory of
their father who had been its first Chancellor... and that Oatley would
be the architect. They initially planned to spend ₤100 000 but Oatley told them that to build the accommodation that they
required would cost at least ₤150 000. It was to
include offices for the Vice-Chancellor, Registrar and staff, a council
chamber, lecture rooms, libraries and a large hall. In 1948 he recalled
that the coming of the [Great] War, of course, vastly increased the
costs of materials, but the munificent donors never blenched. They were
simply anxious to complete and foot the bill whatever it might be, which
they did. The final account for the building (dated 26 July 1927) was,
in fact, ₤501,556 19s 10d. (page 319)
The Great Hall The largest room
in the building conjures up the image of Christ Church College dining
hall of 1529. the Oxford hammer-beam roof and wood panelled walls, lit
by large Perpendicular windows, externally separated by buttresses, are
echoed in Oakley's Great Hall. This room, which seats about 1000 people
and is used for ceremonial occasions, including graduation ceremonies,
embodies academic pride. It consists of six bays with an oak gallery at
the southern end and an apsidal recess at the northern end containing a
raised stage with seats and an organ. It was finished with a hammer-beam
roof made of sixty tons of English oak. (page 350)
The Entrance Hall The crowning glory of the Entrance Hall are the
three soaring bays of fan vaulting, probably the last fan-vaulted
ceiling to have been constructed in Britain... The technique was first
developed in the west country ・ at
the cathedrals of Gloucester and Hereford and Tewkesbury Abbey ・ so it is appropriate that
Oakley used it here. Other influences were the fan-vaulting over the
hall staircase at Christ Church College Oxford, c1638, and that at
King's College Chapel, Cambridge of 1512-15. (page 346)
The Tower The octagonal belfry also had a spiritual
resonance for Oatley; he wrote that: 'the severe finish of the crowning
parapet of the belfry (no pinnacles) is a poetical suggestion that
University education at the best leads so far only and that there is
something beyond it to which the spirelets of the great angle pinnacles
point. For Oatley, this 'something beyond it' was obviously God and
eternity. In Christian tradition the number eight is a symbol for
eternal salvation, which is reflected in the mathematical symbol for
infinity, a horizontal figure eight. (page 335)
HH Wills Physics
Laboratory
This project gives insights into the minds of both
Oatley and Henry Wills. For example: Wills had views on construction
which no argument could shake. One was that all fittings and materials
should be of such a quality that no repairs are required for 50 years;
hence bronze window frames to avoid rust … Another was that supply pipes or cables must not
run exposed along walls because they act like dust collectors; by all
means have them fully accessible, but in floor channels with hard
unshrinking teak covers and from which vertical pipes lead where
required to wall or table points. (page 356)
As with the majority of Oatley's buildings, the
ornament of the physics building is expressive of its function. In the
spandrels to the main entrance are carvings of early and 'modern'
discoveries in experimental physics: the dispersal of sunlight by a
prism by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666, and the tracks of alpha particles
from radium by Charles TR Wilson in 1911. (page 362) More
controversially Whittingham suggests,
is the ceiling of the main lecture theatre which includes a huge,
circular glass ceiling light with the sun from the Wills coat of arms
depicted in the middle, surrounded by the signs of the zodiac and floral
designs that are rather unusual for a 1920's science laboratory - the
decoration would seem to symbolise the
strong religious beliefs of Henry and Monica Wills, rather than
science.(page 363)
On the outside of the building there is more
Christian symbolism in the carved paterae: twelve-petalled flowers
(representing the disciples, eight-petalled roses (resurrection or
regeneration), ten-petalled flowers (the ten commandments),
eight-pointed stars (again regeneration or resurrection, five-petalled
flowers (the number of Jesus' wounds) and the Star of David or double
Trinity Star formed by two inter-linking triangles (the six points
standing for the six days of creation). (pages 363-4)
Commercial
work
In some ways it is a short step from the science
of the university to developing building technologies, and to
manufacture and commerce generally.
Oatley designed the Quaker Fry family's No 7
Factory (1901-05) in their cramped city centre site. At this time Oatley
was not yet convinced of the benefits of ferro-concrete, and the
building was constructed traditionally, with steel and concrete and
fireproof floors, and finished in red Cattybrook brick. Most of the
building was simple and functional, but although it was hemmed in on all
sides, Oatley gave the corner special treatment, in a modest, almost
Romanesque style. The No 8 factory which soon followed adapted the
technology by embedding steel stancheons buried n the piers, thereby
increasing the available window space to the maximum. It is unfortunate
that these buildings, now praised for their simplicity, have been
demolished.
Domestic
work
The advance of factory-based industries changes
the needs for housing. In her
section on Oatley's domestic work, Whittingham first gives extensive
descriptions of the many individual houses designed by Oatley. Some were
totally new, while others involved major conversion or the addition of
substantial wings. In all cases there is evidence of the closest
attention being given to the building, the locality and the needs and
wishes of the particular clients.
Of wider interest is Oatley's involvement with the
Bristol Garden Suburb Company Limited, of which he was a director, along
with the builder William Cowlin and other industrialists. Members of the
Fry, Wills and Robinson families were among the Nonconformist
subscribers. Oatley had the key additional role of Consultant Architect,
in which he can be linked with the full range of Nonconformists
associated with the Garden City Movement, including Titus Salt in
Bradford, WH Lever in Port Sunlight, the Rowntree's in York, the
Cadbury's in Bournville, Ebenezer Howard in Letchworth, and more locally
in Hambury near Bristol, the architect John Nash and his client the
Quaker banker John Harford. Proposals for a Bristol Garden Suburb were
developed and architectural competitions promoted. In fact only twenty
three houses were built before financial problems set in prior to 1914.
(pages 281-2)
Fortunately Oatley's concern for ordinary housing
never abated. Whittingham records that in 1929 Oatley wrote to his
nephew: 'I am greatly interested in the housing problem at present. The
overcrowding in the country is leading to grave conditions so far as
morality is concerned. We must have homes for the people.' Because of
this concern, in 1923 Oatley helped to form the Bristol Housing Company,
Limited, to build around the city. In 1925 he wrote:
The Housing Work is proceeding apace. We have,
from the start, limited dividends to 5% as a maximum. So far, we have
paid that each year, although ours is a quasi-philanthropic concern. It
costs us ₤430 to build a house of 3 bedrooms, parlour,
living room and scullery-bath etc and we get a government subsidy of ₤120, The present government is talking of stepping
it up next September. If they do, all housing enterprise will dry up. We
sell our houses as fast as we finish them, so are able to use the same
capital over and over again. This is the secret of success, as there is
no property to manage and there are no repairs to pay for. Also, it is
an excellent thing for the workers to own their houses, it gives them a
stake in the country. The better class, thrifty, working people buy our
houses, and this sets the inferior dwellings free for occupation by a
lower stratum so, slowly, all too slowly, the housing difficulty is
lessening. (page 294)
In 1929 the subsidy was discontinued. In that
year, the Bristol Housing Company lent ₤4000 at 2.5% to the Bristol Churches Tenements Association, 'For the
purpose of assisting the acquisition and reconditioning of slum
properties. The city council reported that 'very useful service had been
rendered and a splendid example set by the Association in acquiring and
re-conditioning or converting blocks of property which, but for drastic
treatment would have become uninhabitable, and added to the difficulties
of the Corporation.(page 296)
Asylums
and hospitals
If housing is always with us, the Victorian asylum
is a building type that now has been and gone. However, for Oatley it
was an important stream of work. Whittingham explains: Victorian asylums
were very large, self-contained, self-sufficient comm unities usually
sited in open countryside. Plans typically comprised patients'
residential, treatment and social facilities (wards, isolation, chapel,
mortuary, laundry, workshops, dining/recreation hall, kitchens), medical
superintendent's residence and other staff housing,
administration, services (water tower, gas works), lodges and a farm.
The architect therefore had to be able to design every sort of building
and provide light, heating, water and sewage systems. (page 167)
This aspect of Oatley's work took him beyond
Bristol, for example to Whitchurch near Cardiff. Here, the most
important aspect of the plan was its orientation: the main
administration block faced north, and the wards and gardens south,
maximising the amount of light and sun received by the patients. When
the asylum was opened it was surrounded by green fields and farm land...
the hospital made full use of the extensive grounds and the therapeutic
benefits of fresh air, exercise and 'useful employment'.(page 172)
The ongoing nature of client/donor/architect
relationships is brought out in the case of the Bristol General
Hospital. The founders included the Wills and Fry families. Oatley was
professionally involved over forty-four years between 1886 and 1930,
being actively engaged in twenty-eight of them. His varied works
included an operating theatre, a fountain for the entrance courtyard, a
nurses' home and a casualty and outpatients' department, the Wills and
Fry families being among the main donors. (page 184)
Oatley's design for the Bristol Homoeopathic
Hospital is interesting. It commenced construction in 1921 and cost ₤110,000 to build. The plan is in two main wings
hinged together, forming a very shallow angular curve. The concave side
faces south and is wrapped around the gardens. The building is in an
Arts and Crafts 'Jacobethan' style, reflecting local Jacobean and
Elizabethan gabled manor houses. It is faced with limestone and was
originally roofed with Cotswold stone tiles. This cost ₤2000 more than using
ordinary red tiles but Oatley felt it would be the making of the
building and give more permanent durability. The interior of the
hospital is very plain in style with the only decoration oak panelling
and Arts and Crafts-style plasterwork in the main administrative rooms
such as the Board Room. Oatley and the donor, Melville Wills, were both
committed to the quiet style.
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CONCLUDING
COMMENTS
Whittingham has made the unusual, it seems to me,
choice of putting as a frontispiece in her book the full text of the
hymn by Charles Wesley sung at Oatley's funeral. For me the essence of
the hymn and of Oatley is in these lines: Forth in thy name, O Lord, I
go/ My daily labour to pursue/.... /And closely walk with Thee to
heaven. Every day of his life he did, indeed, pursue his labour in the
most straightforward and practical way; but it was always more than
that, it was his walk with God along the way that leads Wesley depicts
as leading to heaven.
Oatley's funeral took place on 17th May
1950 when I was growing up in Brentwood Congregational Church, and just
four years before I started my building
studies at the then Regent Street Polytechnic. Oatley's approach
to spiritual life, professional life and practical design, closely
integrated with each other, resonate strongly with the world that I was
joining. That, however, was a receding world, even though one of my
fellow Building Management students was from the west country and his
family firm among those listed by Whittingham as having worked on
occasion with Oatley.
Today in England there is no longer a vibrant,
ethical, identifiably Nonconformist community, prominent in business and
public service. Our provincial cities no longer have distinctive lives.
Rarely do we build for excellence in the way that Oatley built Wills
Hall. Ironically, tobacco that gave rise to the Wills wealth, is now
known to be a major source of ill-health; instead, we direct our lesser
wealth to cancer research and hospice building.
But even if his world has largely gone Oatley
comes to us, through Sarah Whittingham's most committed scholarship, as
an outstanding example of a Lay Person in the Congregational and
Nonconformist traditions for whom the profession of faith and, in his
case, the profession of architecture, are one and the same thing. The
sacredness of the secular is fully revealed.
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