The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-19 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,--In Mr. E. Pugin's assertions respecting the
Houses of Parliament, published in the Times of the
7th inst., he has thought fit to introduce my name ;
and as, in justice to myself as well as to the other
parties, an explanation is required, I trust you will
allow me the advantage of a little of your valuable
space for that purpose, more particularly after the
lengthy statement he has been permitted to make
in your columns.
Mr. E. Pugin observes that " my statements have
been simply met with counter-statements, for to
say that the contradictory and partial assertions of
Messrs. Talbot Bury, Wolfe, &c., in any way
prove themselves or each other, is mere folly." He
also states :—" The evidence they give of Sir Chas. ,
Barry's competition drawings being in pencil is
correct. My father's competition drawings were
also in pencil ; and this gives great probability to
Mr. Talbot Bury's revelation made to me on the
11th of August last, that "many of my father's de-
signs were re-drawn by Barry, so that the same
touch should not be detected in his and in Mr. Gil.
lespie Graham's designs." Now, this statement of a
" revelation," on which some stress might be laid by ,
those uninformed of facts, is positively and altogether
untrue, as on the evening to which he refers, when
he was in my house for a half hour, I clearly stated
that "my old friend, his father, had never worked
on Mr. Barry's competition drawings, but he assisted
him in the details of the internal finishings of the
rooms ;" so this is a wilful misstatement to which
my name has been added. The assertion that the
competition drawings of Mr. G. Graham and Sir
Charles Barry were " finished in pencil " evinces
his utter ignorance of facts (certainly Mr. E. P. was
not one year old when this took place) ; and is like-
wise untrue, and without any foundation, as I
worked with A. W. Pugin on the designs for Mr.
G. Graham, having made the plans and sections,
and I affirm that they were made in Indian ink. I
saw Sir Charles Barry's drawings at the same time,
rather offered
tawmpenoeneufritg aedtei
r:enlegerds ef n,
asserts,
hrurnaei
and they were finished in light Indian ink, in a style
mmo peculiarfoamr.nd eearyi.ranctEgi tasnmsoem. himself. I must here observe that no
one saw the set of designs we were engaged on for
Mr. G. Graham but ourselves ; so that Mr. E. Pugin
cannot plead that he has been misinformed on the
subject.
What Sir Charles Barry's designs for Trentham
(a mansion erected for the late Duke of Sutherland)
had to do with the Houses of Parliament is a ques-
tion too difficult for me to make out ; I cannot see
any similarity between them as regards their pur-
poses, and most assuredly there is none in their
' respective styles of art. Among other statements
made by Mr. E. Pugin is, that his father had an
" idea of competing for the Houses of Parliament;"
that is without foundation, as he stated to me
" he thought it much wiser to make sure of the
amountsßa Barry,
Grahamtuhe s ereres
ssem
ndtrkhdt
sightanbso
stnn,yhdtee
uncertain
mdrkal
frtroteara-
as
swodi G rw,nmei
oi.
fneaft
ot:gdrawings
coeGrahamsestmfehmdonraapw.tyG.
nt
hhati
competition.
sttni
eodt
nHynf Se i
ar
nC
d.
e
were commenced,
and " they were the designs for which
Sir Chas. Barry paid 400 guineas," and " were sub.
Thisesnttaltye ngeiarta, f tferdn n
fiSrisrt C. Barry's
tnlaat, gu
is arno
invention,
vepnitai
nn
n.
and untrue, as A. W. Pugin did not make any plan
ao
tr designsalisbufroyr
ttnh isa s
shins itl dhiinlng u
inn timl Ir. wGe.n tot
Graham's
his house
anHdel tNhvennrkpeudt
thhiesmfirnsutti.deasHeonhapdapnenr
sot
ronfspdercatwini nggist.,
notion of the design Sir Charles Barry had in hand.
In the design on which we were engaged A. W.
Pugin confined his plan of the building to the limits
of the existing ground, whereas Sir Charles
Barry's encroached a long way into the river, thereby
gaining a great additional space and area. This
great and essential difference in the design's is con-
clusive evidence of their being the work of two
minds. A. W. Pugin was staying at my house
(after Mr. G. Graham's drawings were completed)
when he first went to see Mr. Barry's plans and
designs for the Houses of Parliament, and on his
return he spcke to me of them, and communi-
cated to me, ig very laudatory terms, the
mode Mr. Barry had adopted to gain the neces-
sary space for the buildings, which he stated he had
overlooked ; he likewise gave me a description of
the elevations and general peculiarities of the design.
This c9nfutes the preposterous assertions made by
Mr. E. Pugin as to the originator of the executed
designs, and puts to silence the false statement that
there was another design for the Houses of Parlia-
ment which has " been lost sight of," &c., and was
used by Sir Charles Barry.
Mr. E. Pugin states :—" Another entry shows
that my father was engaged on ' sections ;' will my
opponents inform me whether ' compositions, com-
partments, and sections' mean only details ? and
will Mr. Talbot Bury, who is so in earnest in de-
scribing these and other drawings merely as ' draw-
ings for tenders,' reconcile this absurd depreciation
with the fact that drawings for tenders' mean
working drawings," &c.

In reply to these observations, which the public
generally cannot understand and care nothing about,
I have only to add that as A. W. Pugin was my
most intimate friend, we were frequently at each
other's houses, and that I knew all the work he did
for the Houses of Parliament from first to last, and
I can affirm that he never laid any claim to the de-
sign for that building; his public repudiation of it,
written under no pressure (the fair copy of which
was written at my house), he said, was nothing but
" an act of justice to Sir Charles Barry," and I am
now only defending the character of my friend in
vindicating him from a charge of falsehood, which
would be the case if his public statement was at
variance with that made to his friends generally.
In that document he states clearly " that I am en-
gaged by him (Mr. Barry), and him alone, to assist
in preparing working drawings and models from his
designs of all the wood engravings and other details
of the internal decorations," and " in fulfilling the
duties of my office 1 do not do anything whatever
on my own responsibility," and " in fine, my occu-
pation is simply to assist in cawing out practically
Mr. Barry's own designs and views in all respects."
These quotations from Dir. A. W. Fugin's letter to