# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Waterhouse, Alfred

​WATERHOUSE, ALFRED (1830–1905), architect, born in Liverpool on 19 July 1830, was eldest son of Alfred Waterhouse of Whiteknights, Reading, and previously of Liverpool, by his wife Mary, daughter of Paul Bevan. Both parents belonged to the Society of Friends. Educated at Grove House school, Tottenham, Waterhouse inclined, when his schooldays were over, to the career of a painter. He was articled, however, to Richard Lane, architect, of Manchester, with whom he served his time ; and after completing his studies in France, Italy, and Germany, started in practice on his own account in Manchester in 1853. There he stopped till 1865, and in those twelve years succeeded in laying the foundations of a large practice in the north. Removal to London brought him a great increase of work in the south, but his connection with Liverpool and Manchester remained unbroken to the end. In Manchester came his first opportunity, when in 1859 he won the competition for the assize courts, a building the planning of which offered him the sort of problem with which he was well qualified to deal. A clear thinker, he was capable of much useful innovation. The public entrance to the courts was made independent of the official part of the building : a new feature which no future designer could afford to ignore. With the power to grasp the principles by which a building might be made most suitable for its purpose went in Waterhouse the ability to see almost intuitively yet accurately the inherent possibilities of a site, and the proper disposition of the building to be placed on it. After the Manchester assize courts there followed the more important commission of the Manchester town hall, this being also won in competition. The town hall, which was opened in 1877, is a well-planned building of a fine and picturesque massing placed on an irregular triangle. With such difficulties of site, Waterhouse found himself called upon to deal somewhat frequently, and did so with invariable success. The town hall shows to best advantage that individual type of Gothic which in Waterhouse's own work, and in that of many who followed in his footsteps, came to be generally associated with public and quasi-public buildings. Waterhouse was committed to the picturesque rather than the formal type of architectural design. A few of his buildings, such as the City and Guilds Institute in Exhibition Road (1881), were laid out on lines more severe and with real appreciation of the demands of formal treatment, but they were insignificant in number and probably dictated by special circumstances. ​Other important works in Manchester were Owens College (1870), which, after later additions including the Christie Library and the Whitworth Hall, became the Victoria University, the Salford gaol (1863), the National Provincial Bank of England (1888), St. Mary's Hospital (1899), and the Refuge Assurance offices (1891), the southern half of which with the tower were added by his son. Waterhouse's work in Liverpool, which was little less important, included University College and engineering laboratories (1884), the Royal Infirmary (1887), the London and North-Western hotel (1868), the Turner memorial (1882), the Pearl Life Assurance (1896), and the Seaman's Orphanage (1871), while in the neighbouring county the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds (1878), was a prominent example of his work.
Meanwhile Waterhouse was in 1866 one of the selected competitors for the new law courts in London, and he came near securing the first place, which, after much delay, was awarded to George Edmund Street [q. v.]. Before the final decision was announced, Waterhouse was entrusted with the construction of the new Natural History Museum in South Kensington (1868), which was regarded as a sort of solatium for his failure to obtain the larger commission. His useful suggestion that there should be a corridor for students at the back of the bays of the great hall, which should give them private means of access to the cases, and a freedom of examination which could not be permitted to the general public, the architect was not allowed to carry into effect. The work was completed in 1880. The plan is broad and simple; yet the architecture is marked by great richness. Adhering to his habitual picturesque treatment of outline, Waterhouse here allowed himself an unwonted exuberance of detail; the result is a building very distinctive and original, but in striking contrast to the studiously restrained treatment of the neighbouring City and Guilds Institute, which he designed in 1881.
In 1876 the first portion of the head London office of the Prudential Assurance was built in Holborn. This was twice enlarged till in its complete state it formed the chief architectural feature of the street, and the offices of the society which Waterhouse planned rapidly became conspicuous objects in the larger provincial towns. In 1881 a commencement was made with St. Paul's School, at West Kensington. In this building, as in others of the period, terra cotta was largely employed. His demands for this material were so large and continuous, and led to so general a use of it by others, that he may almost be said to have created a great industry. Possessing the courage of his opinions, he was always ready to give a trial to new materials and new methods of construction if, after examination, they commended themselves to him. He was thus one of the first architects to make a free use of constructional ironwork. Waterhouse worked seldom in stone, and on the rare occasions of his employment of it he seemed to lean to new forms of expression. The new University Club, St. James's Street (1866), is a Gothic effort, but in the National Provincial Bank, Piccadilly branch (1892), and again in the National Liberal Club (1884), the design is Renaissance in character. In the case of the last building he turned to good use an awkward site, the quiet and dignified edifice being graced by an angle tower which strikes a pleasant note of refinement.
Waterhouse did comparatively little ecclesiastical work or restoration, but he laid a tender hand on the ancient fabric of Staple Inn in Holborn (1887). St. Elisabeth, Reddish (1880), which he built for Sir W. Houldsworth, is his most successful church; others are St. Mary, Twyford (1876), St. Bartholomew, Reading, with a chancel added by Bodley, and St. John's, Brooklands, Manchester (1865). He also built the King's Weigh House chapel, in South Audley Street, London, and the Lyndhurst Road congregational church, Hampstead (1883), and at Yattendon, where he acquired a house and estate in 1887, he restored the fabric of the church partly at his own expense.
Of collegiate work he had his share. At Cambridge he made additions to Gonville and Caius College, commencing in 1868; he built a new court at Trinity Hall (1872), a block of undergraduates' rooms at Jesus (1869); the master's lodge, hall, library, and lecture rooms at Pembroke (1871), and the Union, begun in 1866 and finished later. At Oxford he was responsible for the south front and, afterwards, the hall at Balliol (1867), the interior of the latter having been since altered by his son, and for the debating hall of the Union (1878). His largest domestic works were the reconstruction of Eaton Hall (1870), Iwerne Minster, Dorset (1877), Heythrop Hall (1871), rebuilt after destruction by fire in a severe classical style, Hutton Hall, Guisborough (1865) and Blackmoor, Hampshire (1866), for the first Lord Selborne, with ​many surrounding buildings; he also built Abinger Hall (1871) for Lord Farrer; Buckhold, Berkshire (1884); and Allerton Priory, Liverpool (1867). Three times he built for himself, Barcombe Cottage, Fallowfield, Manchester (1864); Fox Hill in Whiteknights Park, Reading (1868); and lastly Yattendon Court (1877), where the village became a visible testimony to his sense of the obligations of a landlord.
In 1891 he took his eldest son, Paul, into partnership; works of note about this period were the National Provincial Bank, Piccadilly; the dining-hall and chapel, Girton (1872); additions to the Yorkshire College, Leeds (1878), a block of shops and offices, St. Andrews Square, Edinburgh (1895); medical school buildings for Liverpool University College, Liverpool Royal Infirmary, and a wing of the Nottingham General Hospital (1899). The Hotel Metropole, Brighton (1888), followed a little later, as well as improvements in the Grand Hotel, Charing Cross (1898), extensive alterations to the Grosvenor Hotel (1900), the Surveyors' Institution and University College Hospital (1897), the last-named being completed by Mr. Paul Waterhouse, Other works carried out from time to time which deserve mention are New Court, Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn (1875), Reading grammar school (1870), Hove town hall (1880), Foster's Bank, Cambridge (1891), Brown's Bank (now Lloyds). Leeds (1895), St. Margaret's School, Bushey (1894), and Rhyl Hospital, first block (1898); the last two buildings in partnership with his son.
Waterhouse's productive capacity was combined with critical insight. His services as assessor in competitions were widely sought, and there a clearness of perception and a power of rapidly grasping a scheme as a whole enabled him to arrive rapidly at decisions authoritatively founded on reasoned data. He was a member of the international jury for the competition for the new west front to Milan cathedral; was on the committee of selection for the Imperial Institute, acted as assessor for the Birmingham law courts, of which' he made a sketch plan for the competitors' guidance. Among the last competitions in which he took part himself was the first (inconclusive) competition for the admiralty and war office in 1882. Thenceforth his work came to him unsolicited.
Waterhouse's early liking for colour never deserted him; he was probably the most accomplished sketcher in water colours in the profession, and on various occasions exhibited in the water-colour room at the Royal Academy.
At the height of his career Waterhouse was regarded as the chief figure in the profession by a large majority of his fellow architects, and his eminence was recognised at home and abroad. He became a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1861, was for many years a member of council, member and afterwards chairman of the art standing committee, president of the institute 1888-1891, and gold medallist in 1878, when the president described him as a 'great mason,' a phrase which expressed tersely the belief of architects generally that he knew precisely what his materials were capable of, and the best way to turn them to account. He was elected A.R.A. on 16 Jan. 1878, and R.A. on 4 June 1885, becoming treasurer in 1898, and proving of great service to the institution in that capacity. He gave up active membership of the R.A. in 1903. In June 1895 he received the LL.D. degree at Manchester, that being the first honorary degree conferred by the Victoria University. In 1893 he was made a corresponding member of the Institute of France. He held diplomas from Vienna, (1869), Brussels (1886), Antwerp (1887), Milan (1888), Berlin (1889); the 'grand prix' was awarded him at the Paris International Exhibition of 1867.
Waterhouse was treasurer of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution till 1901. He joined in founding and was president till 1901 of the 'Society for checking the Abuses of Public Advertising,' a form of vulgarisation of the scenery of town or country which was particularly odious to him.
In 1901 Waterhouse's health broke down and he retired from active work. His last years were spent at Yattendon, where he died on 22 Aug. 1905. He was buried in the churchyard there. He married in 1860 Elizabeth, daughter of John Hodgkin, and sister of Thomas Hodgkin the historian, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. His eldest son is Paul, his partner and successor; his elder daughter, Mary Monica, married Robert Bridges, the poet.
Besides official addresses, Waterhouse wrote an essay on architects in 'The Unwritten Laws and Ideals of Active Careers' (ed. Miss Pitcairn, 1889). There is a good portrait of him by Sir William Quiller Orchardson, which hangs with' those of other presidents in the galleries of the institute. Another portrait ​by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema (1892) is in possession of the family. Both are in oil colour.
[The Builder, leading article and obit. notice, 26 Aug. 1905; Builders' Journal, 30 Aug. 1905; Building News, 25 Aug. 1905; private information from Mr. Paul Waterhouse, supplemented by personal recollections.]