Source: https://www.dia.ie/architects/view/1205
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 12:19:55+00:00

Document:
Cooley is said to have 'supported an unimpeached character for integrity' but was also charged with superciliousness.(13) He died of a 'bilious fever' in Anglesea Street, Dublin, in March 1784,(14) leaving a son, William, and a daughter, his wife having predeceased him in 1779.(15) His 'valuable collection of Books, Drawings and Prints in Portfolios, Antique Medals in Gold and Copper, with an improved Camera Obscura' and other items were sold at auction in April 1784.(16) William Cooley married Emily, daughter of his father's executor, the sculptor RICHARD CRANFIELD RICHARD CRANFIELD ;(17) their son Thomas Cooley, ARHA (1795-1872) was a portrait painter in Dublin.
There are drawings by Cooley in Armagh Public Library, the National Library of Ireland and the Irish Architectural Archive (for other locations see list of WORKS). The most interesting piece of Cooley documentation to survive is the sketchbook in the collection of the Earl of Caledon, which contains ideas for the Public Offices, details of Ardbraccan and of a house for a Dr Caulfield, as well as sketches of 'A Casine by W. Chambers Esq', cartouches, urns, ceilings, and plans and elevations of various buildings including a school and a suite of state apartments.(18) Cooley was a subscriber to George Richardson's Book of Ceilings (1776).
All information about Cooley's early life and English career is from Ruth Thorpe, 'Thomas Cooley before the Dublin Royal Exchange', Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies 8 (2005), 71-85; this supersedes the biography of Cooley in Anthologia Hibernica July 1793, 35-6, which has been the source for various 19th century biographies (Warburton, Whitelaw & Walsh, History of the City of Dublin (1818), 522-3; DB 1, 1 Sep 1859, 114; B 27, 5 Jun 1869, 449 (by Christopher Clinton Hoey); IB 13, 15 Jul 1871, 182; APSD 2, C, 139; Oxford DNB). A relatively recent account of Cooley's life and work is in Dr. E. McParland's unpublished Ph.D. thesis, 'The public work of architects in Ireland during the Neo-Classical period'(1975), copies of which are in Cambridge University Library and the Department of the History of Art, Trinity College, Dublin. There is also an entry on Cooley by Helen Andrews in Dictionary of Irish Biography, ed. by James McGuire and James Quinn, 9 vols. (Cambridge University Press, 2009), II, 816-7.
(1) Baptismal registers of St Katherine Coleman, Guildhall Library, London.
(2) Thorpe, op. cit., above, 73, gives further details about Greenell and his work in the early 1760s.
(3) Information from Susan Bennett, archivist, Royal Society of Arts.
(4) Algernon Graves, A Dictionary of artists (1901), 62.
(5) A.E Richardson's transcript of Mylne's diaries in his Robert Mylne (1955) has the following entries: June 11 1764, 'Took Mr Casley [sic] as a clerk at £40 per annum with breakfast and lodgings'(p.63); 1 Jan 1765, 'Sent Cooley to attend Marquis of Lorn on ground for stables'(p.66); 17 Feb 1765, 'Commenced housekeeping. Mr. Cooley at 30 guineas per a.; bed, board & washing'(p.67). Confusingly a Thomas Cooley is recorded as entering the Dublin Society's School of Drawing in Architecture in October 1765.
(6) E. McParland, James Gandon: Vitruvius Hibernicus (1985), 33.
(7) IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc. 2008/44.
(8) Cooley designed the Deanery at Emly, and there are two designs by him for glebe houses among the Normanton papers in the Hampshire Record Office.
(9) Cooley's sketchbook in the collection of the Earl of Caledon contains rough details of the stair, bookroom and dining room for a Dr Caulfield; the inscriptions 'Dr Caulfield' and 'Bishop of Kilmore' suggest that this may have been work ordered for the house of Dr John Caulfield, Archdeacon of Kilmore from 1776 to 1816, by George Lewis Jones, Bishop of Kilmore.
(10) E.McParland, 'Francis Johnston, architect, 1760-1829', BIGS 12, no. 1 (Jan-Mar 1969), 63.
(11) JHCI 9, lxv (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc. 2008/44).
(12) Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 14-16 Jun 1781.
(13) Freeman's Journal, 5-7 Jan 1773.
(14) A notice of his death 'Early on Sunday morning' appeared in Faulkner's Dublin Journal for 20-27 Mar 1784. He is described as being in his forty-fourth year, which seems unlikely in view of the date of his christening.
(15) Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 21-23 Jan 1779.
(16) Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 24-27 Apr 1784.
(17) For Cranfield, see Strickland.
(18) The sketchbook has been photographed by IAA (see IAA Mounted Photographs Collection under Caledon, Co. Tyrone).
(19) See note 13, above.
Nature: TC's design came first in competition of 1768-1769 and was executed. Awarded prize of £100.
Refs: Client's and working drawings in IAA, Murray Collection nos. 357-374 (see Murray Collection catalogue, pp. 134-138); MS letter from Cooley to Sir William Chambers, Dublin, 22 Aug 1869, on behalf of Royal Exchange trustees, requesting incormation on prices currently being paid to masons employed on public buildings in London in British Architectural Library manuscripts collection, CHA.2/26; James Malton, A Picturesque and descriptive view of the city of Dublin (1799), unpaginated; IB 9, 1 Feb 1867, 27; B 27, 2,9 Oct 1869, 781,803; 28, 12 Mar 1870, 210; E. McParland, 'James Gandon and the Royal Exchange Competition, 1768-69', in JRSAI 102 (1972), 58-72; Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin (2005), 361-3.
Refs: R. McKinstry, R. Oram, R. Weatherup, P. Wilson, The Buildings of Armagh (UAHS, 1992), 171-173; Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 134-135.
Nature: TC supplied plans (unexecuted) and consulted re choice of design.
Refs: P. & B. Rowan Antiquarian and Fine Books, Catalogue 31, The Eighteenth Century, No. 26, gives a full account of the selection of a design for the Poor House, citing Committee Books of the Belfast Charitable Society (microfilm in PRONI) and R.M.W. Strain, Belfast and its Charitable Society(1961).
Refs: DB 1, 1 Sep 1859, 114; Maurice Craig, Dublin 1660-1860 (revised edition, 1992), 197; Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin (2005), 459.
Nature: For Richard Robinson, Archbishop of Armagh. Mulligan suggests attribution to Francis Johnston and suggests date between 1790 and 1804.
Refs: R. McKinstry, R. Oram, R. Weatherup & P. Wilson, The Buildings of Armagh (UAHS, 1992), 176; Desmond Fitzgerald & Roger Weatherup, The Way we were (1993), 24(illus.); Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 136-7.
Nature: Chapel designed by TC, who 'may also have designed the hospital [ie. the school]' (Casey).
Refs: Drawings in IAA, Murray Collection, nos. 714-715; Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin (2005), 302,303.
Refs: Drawing(s) in Armagh Public Library; Bassett's Guide to Co. Armagh (1888), 86; R. McKinstry, R. Oram, R. Weatherup & P. Wilson, The Buildings of Armagh (UAHS, 1992), 38-40; Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 107-9, Pl..70.
Nature: 'Ruined hall and tower, built in 1772 to one of thomas Cooley's 'standard' designs for Archbishop Robinson.' Replaced by new church in Bessbrook in 1868.
Refs: Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 204.
Nature: 'The church is a spacious edifice in the later English style, with a square embattled tower erected ny Primate Robinson in 1772, and has the arms of the founder over the entrance.'(Lewis). 'Probably the best-preserved of Cooley's 'standard designs' for Archbishop Robinson...almost exactly as in Cooley's "Design No. 9"...'(Mulligan).
Refs: Samuel Lewis, A Topographical dictionary of Ireland (1837), II, 286; Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 409-10; illus. in Claude Costegalde & Brian Walker, The Church of Ireland: an illustrated history (2013), 127.
Nature: New church, for Primate Robinson, following Cooley's 'Design No. 10'.
Refs: Edward Rogers, Topographical Sketches of Armagh & Tyrone (1874), 12; Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 524; illus. in Claude Costegalde & Brian Walker, The Church of Ireland: an illustrated history (2013), 128.
Refs: Set of 3 plans for house, one s. & d. T. Cooley, 1774, another inscr. 'lst Design for Bishop of Killaloe', in NLI, A.D. 1840-1842; NLI MS. 14,123 (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc.2008/44).
Refs: Samuel Lewis, A Topographical dictionary of Ireland (1837), ii, 439; Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 409-10.
Nature: Neo-classical villa for Alexander Stewart. Attribution to Cooley suggested by Mulligan.
Refs: Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 514, Pl.45.
Refs: JHCI 9, cccclxxxvii; report on repairs, dated 5 Mar 1777, in Royal Hospital Records, NA/PRO, cited in Costello, Muray & Beaumont, An Introduction to the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham (1987), 22.
Nature: Designed by TC for Robert Maxwell, 1st Earl of Farnham.
Refs: Portfolio of 13 drawings, 2 s. & d. 1776, in Farnham Collection (sold at auction by HOK Fine Art, 17 Jun 2004, Lot. 280); exterior illus. in Clergy of Waterford, Lismore and Ferns (Ulster Historical Foundation, 2008), 434.
Refs: Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 365.
Nature: North and west ranges of west courtyard (designed as public offices, rather than court house); design taken over by Gandon on TC's death.
Refs: Signed drawings in IAA (on loan from King's Inns Library), Acc. 2007/10.2/1,3,5,7; sketch proposals in Cooley notebook belonging to Earl of Caledon; James Malton, A Picturesque and descriptive view of the city of Dublin (1799), unpaginated; C.P. Curran, 'Cooley, Gandon and the Four Courts', JRSAI 79 (1949), 20-25; E. McParland, 'The early history of James Gandon's Four Courts', Burlington Magazine 122 (Nov 1980), 727-735; E. McParland, James Gandon (1985), 149-154; Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin (2005), 93-94,96.
Refs: 8 signed or initialled designs, 3 dated Jun 1778, in IAA, Guinness Collection, Acc.96/068.3/4/1-8; building accounts in NLI, MS 25304 (E.McP files); Christine Casey & Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (1993), 315,334; exterior illus. in Claude Costegalde & Brian Walker, The Church of Ireland: an illustrated history (2013), 316.
Refs: Drawings in St Patrick's Hospital archives, F/5; Maurice Craig, Dublin 1660-1860 (revised edition, 1992), 197; Maurice Craig (ed.) The Legacy of Swift: a bi-centenary record of St Patrick's Hospital, Dublin (1948), 36-37, Pl. VII.
Nature: Built by Primate Robinson. Tentative attribution to TC by C. Brett.
Nature: Original 2-storey villa on half basement by TC (apparently as executant architect for design by James Wyatt). For James Alexander, later 1st Viscount Caledon.
Refs: Drawing, signed and dated 1779, in house; working floor plans in NLI AD 3417-18; Christopher Hussey, 'Caledon - Co. Tyrone', Country Life 81, 27 Feb,6 Mar 1937, 224,250; Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster (1979), 161-2; John Martin Robinson, James Wyatt: architect to George III (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012),116.
Nature: Stables attr. to TC by Rowan. For James Alexander, later 1st Viscount Caledon.
Refs: Signed, undated drawing in NLI A.D.2598; R. McKinstry, R. Oram, R. Weatherup, P. Wilson, The Buildings of Armagh (UAHS, 1992), 67.
Nature: 9-bay main block (5 bays added to N. end in 1819).
Refs: R. McKinstry, R. Oram, R. Weatherup, P. Wilson, The Buildings of Armagh (UAHS, 1992), 141; Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 123-4.
Nature: Proposal by TC to add 2 storeys to tower. Design later adapted by Daniel De Lacherois.
Refs: Drawing in De Lacherois papers?; Hugh Dixon, Kenneth Kenmuir , Jill Kennett, Historic Buildings…in Donaghadee and Portpatrick (UAHS, 1977), 10,11(illus.).
Refs: Drawing in NLI, AD 3468; drawings in IAA, Murray Collection nos. 2-3. See Murray Collection Catalogue, 42; R. McKinstry, R. Oram, R. Weatherup, P. Wilson, The Buildings of Armagh (UAHS, 1992), 173; Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 135-6.
Nature: Execution with modifications of design by James Wyatt of 1772. For General Robert Cuninghame.
Nature: 2-stage tower over crossing begun but taken down; new tower erected by Francis Johnston after TC's death.
Refs: Drawing in IAA, Murray Collection, no. 75, see Murray Collection Catalogue, 60-61; DB 1, 1 Sep 1859, 114; James Stuart, Historical Memoirs of the City of Armagh (2nd edition, 1900), 396-7; Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 97-98,99.
Nature: Stables, for Sir Capel Molyneux, by TC.
Refs: Anne Crookshank, Desmond Guinness, James White, Irish Houses and Landscapes , 35, citing European Magazine I, (1882), ?; illus. in www.ehsni.gov.uk/county_armagh.pdf (2008); Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 526-7.
Refs: Drawing(s) among Normanton papers in Hampshire Record Office, 21M57/B14/26-9.
Refs: Drawing(s) signed and dated Sept 1783 in Normanton Papers, Hampshire Record Office, 21M57/B14/26-9.
Nature: Enlarged by TC. Rusticated granite entrance arch facing Yarnhall Street.
Refs: Drawing for stone gate by TC among Linen Hall drawings in NLI, PF 21(illus. in The Architecture of Dublin in Drawings and Paintings (National Gallery of Ireland, 1975), no. 20); part elevation in NLI, AD 1784; JHCI 10, ccccxvi (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc.2008/44); PRONI D207/28/672 (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc.2008/44); Maurice Craig, Dublin 1660-1860 (revised edition, 1992), 197; survey plans by Edward Parke, 1816, in IAA, Acc.; 2002/185 Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin (2005), 232.
Nature: Begun to designs of TC but supervised by Francis Johnston after TC's death, for Richard Robinson, Archbishop of Armagh.
Nature: Gates, for John Holroyd. Design attr. to TC.
Anon. 'Anecdotes of the Fine Arts in Ireland: Mr Thomas Cooley' 1793 Anthologia Hibernica (July 1793), 35-6.
Thorpe, Ruth 'Thomas Cooley before the Dublin Royal Exchange' 2005 Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies 8 (2005), 71-85.

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