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

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—ln 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 positivelyand 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,
and they were finished in light Indian ink, in a style
peculiar to himself. I must here observe that no
one saw the set of designs we were engaged on fur
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
amounts offered to him by Mr. G. Graham and Sir C.
Barry, rather than risk the loss of his own time and
money in so large and uncertain a competition."
Mr. E. Pugin asserts, likewise, that his father
made a set of designs and drawings fot the Houses
of Parliament before those made for Mr. G. Graham
were commenced, and that " these competition
drawings were lost sight of from the day they were
mounted," and " they were the designs for which
Sir Chas. Barry paid 400 guineas," and " were sub-
sequently engrafted on Sir C. Barry's ground plan."
This statement, from first to last, is an invention,
and untrue, as A. W. Pugin did not make any plan
rae
then
or design for this building until I went to his house
atSalisbury t oassist him
pu his in Mr. G
dGeasrahoaamp'sapseert
of drawings.
ngs. H
first
respecting it, and I worked them out. He had no
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 designs 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 spoke to me of them, and communi-
cated to me, in 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 confutes 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), lie 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 carrying out practically
Mr. Barry's own designs and views in all respects."
These quotations from Mr. A. W. Pugin's letter to