The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-14 00:00:00

Captain Fowke, R.E.

At the meeting of the Society of Arts, Dec. 6, the
chairman, Mr. Cole,gave the following brief memoir
of this officer. Ile said :—Before concluding the
business I feel it rigit to make an announcement to
the members which lam sure will cause them sorrow.
It is the sudden (bath of a fellow-member, well
known to and appreciated by many of his colleagues,
and greatly distingushed beyond these walls. On
Monday last Capt. Eowke, R.E., died suddenly at
the South Kensington Museum of the bursting of a
blood vessel. He rad been in declining health
for some few months, but did not appear to
be threatened with any immediate danger. As a
man of science, possessing a fertility of inven-
tion which amounted to genius, he held the
highest rank among his brother officers of the
Royal Engineers. In the year 1854, before any
of the experiments were made in gunnery now so
much heard of, he showed me several projects for
rifling cannon and firing elongated shot and shell.
In the Paris Exhibition of 1855, where he was secre-
tary of the English Commission, he exhibited a can-
vas pontoon, the like of which was successfully used
during the late American civil war, although it has
hitherto failed to impress itself upon our own
military authorities. At that same exhibitionhe con-
ducted a series of valuable experiments on the
strength of colonial woods, which, in the colony of
Jamaica, had the effect of increasing the annual ex-
ports of lance-wood spars fourfold, and raisingma-
hoganies from 4,869 feet to 39,474 feet. After the
Paris Exhibition he became the engineer of the South
Kensington Aluseum. Popular ignorance tauntingly
has often attributed to him the design of the iron build-
ing known as the " Boilers," which was the work of the
late Sir William Cubitt, and a clever, useful work, too,
who simply designed it as a means of affording tem-
porarily the greatest amount of covered space at the
cheapest rate. Capt. Fowke was called upon to
design the little picture gallery for the exhibition
of Mr. Sheepshanks' noble gift of pictures, and, for
the first time, in concert with Mr. Redgrave, R.A.,
he. as architect, demonstrated an accurate formula
upon which a picture gallery must be built in order
to exhibit pictures without glitter or reflection. He
applied a novel principle to the lighting of picture
galleries by gas ; and, by the use of ingenious ma-
chinery, many thousand gas burners are lighted
every evening in a few minutes. The Vernon
and Turner Galleries of the South Ken-
sington Museum were built by him with
fire-proof doors in the course of eight weeks, in
December, 1858, at a cost not exceeding 31d. a
cubic foot, which is rather an unusually cheap
rate for a public building. Captain Fowke had an
almost unrivalled facility of economising the use of
materials in his buildings. His greatest feat in this
direction was in the construction of a drill-shed for
the use of the Ist Middlesex Engineer Volunteers,
of which corps he was the founder. He constructed
this shed with semi-circular ribs covered with felt ;
it measured 100 feet long by 40 feet wide, was upon
brick foundations, and the cost did not exceed £lOO.
Showing it to Sir Joseph Paxton once, he guessed
the price at three times the cost, and told me it was
the neatest thing in cheap construction he had ever
seen. Numerous Volunteer corps throughout the
country have constructed similar sheds. Captain
Fowke has employed a similar principle of con-
struction in the several entrances to the Horticul-
tural-gardens, where they may be seen. He gave the
general plan for these gardens, which was subse-
quently modified in the gardening details by Mr.
Nesfield. The design for the conservatory—which
I venture to say is the prettiest in existence—as well
as the design of the south arcades of the Horticul-
tural• gardens, were made by Captain Fowke. In
the latter he revived the use of terracotta, which
for more than half a century had slumbered in this
country. Subsequently, with the aid of Mr. Godfrey
Sykes as decorative artist—also a man of great genius
—he has introduced it extensively, and with much
effect, in the new buildings of the South Kensington
Museum. Fortunately for the public service he had
completed before his death the greater part of the
design for the South Kensington Museum, and it
will be quite possible from the materials which he has
left to carry out his intentions; but the Lord Pre-
sident (Earl Granville) is fully sensible that the
department has sustained a very great loss by his
death. As architect of the Science and Art Depart-
ment, he designed the new Industrial Museum in
Edinburgh—a very successful building,•—and also
the interior of the National Gallery in Dublin, in
both instances having to design under stringently
economical conditions. On a former occasion I
explained in this room the reasons for which he had
been chosen as architect of the International Exhi-
bition of 1862. In this case the problem was not
to erect a gay building to last a few months only,
but to fill a very large space in such a way, and at a
limited cost, that it might hereafter be made
permanent. It is obvious he had no funds for
decoration. Although for the purposes of exhibition
the exhibitors pronounced the structure as the most
successful for the purpose which had hitherto
been made in respect of lighting, ventilation, and
general convenience, the public did not believe that
it could be made properly decorative, and the House
of Commons declined to purchase it at the cost of
the old materials. Looking back dispassionately on
the past, I have learnt to think that this was a wise
decision ; but during the controversy, which bore
very hard upon the architect, it was impossible that
any man could show higher qualities of patience, re-
signation, and gentlemanly bearing than did Capt.
Fowke, and at last the public made amends to him
for its injustice. In an open competition to the
world, in which some of the most eminent architects
competed, the five judges, of whom three had taken
an active personal part in causing the pulling down
of the Exhibition building, unanimously awarded t•
his design the first prize, and the architectural press
and public fully confirmed the decision. We may
hope to see this magnificent design properly realised.
Moreover, in the forthcoming Paris Exhibition, the
exact proportions and size of the picture galleries of
the Exhibition of 1862 have been avowedly adopted
as incapable of improvement. I firmly believe that
the arts of construction in this country have sus-
tained a great loss by Captain Fowke's death. At
this period, when art is so transitional, and science
is making so many discoveries, and men's minds are
seething with inventions ; when the use of new ma-
terials is being constantly manifested, and the new
adaptation of old materials is constantly entered
upon, England has lost a man who felt the spirit of
his age, and was daring enough to venture beyond
the beaten path of conventionalism. Captain Fowke,
to my mind, was solving the problem of the deco-
rative use of iron, and, by appreciating the spirit
both of the Gothic and Renaissance architects, was
on the threshold of introducing a novel style of
architecture, when, alas! death, at the early age of
42 years, has cut short his promising career.

DEATH OF Sir. JOHN EASTaOPE.—We have to
record the death of Sir J. Easthope, Bart., a name
which was for a long series of years familiar to commercial
and literary circles in London. The deceased was born at
Tewkesbury in 1784, and was consequently 81 years old.
In 1826 he was returned in the Liberal interest for the
borough of St. Albans, and retained his seat until 1830 He
had been an unsuccessful candidate in 1821. In 1831 he
was returned for Banbury, but represented that borough
only a short time. In August, 1867, ho was elected for
Leicester, and retained his seat until 1817. Meanwhile, in
1834, he became proprietor of the Morning Chronicle, then
one of the most influential of the London journals, and
was connected with it until 1847, when it passed out of his
hands. Just before Lord Melbourne quitted office he con-
ferred on Mr. Easthope a baronetcy, which now becomes
extinct.

The Earl of Coventry left town yesterday for
Croorne Court, Worcestershire.