page_title: Edmund Blacket
section_title: St. Andrew's Cathedral
hierarchical_section_title: Edmund Blacket / Diocesan Architect / St. Andrew's Cathedral
caption_attribution_description: Sydney, St. Andrew's Anglican Cathedral, across the nave, showing windows, arcade. assembled from two photos.
context_page_description: Edmund Thomas Blacket was an Australian architect, best known for his designs for the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and St. Saviour's Cathedral, Goulburn.
  Arriving in Sydney from England in 1842, at a time when the city was rapidly expanding and new suburbs and towns were being established, Blacket was to become a pioneer of the revival styles of architecture, in particular Victorian Gothic. He was the most favoured architect of the Church of England in New South Wales for much of his career, and between late 1849 and 1854 was the official "Colonial Architect to New South Wales".
  While Blacket is famous for his churches, and is sometimes referred to as "The Wren of Sydney", he also built houses, ranging from small cottages to multi-storey terraces and large mansions; government buildings; bridges; and business premises of all sorts. Blacket's architectural practice was highly influential in the development of Australian architecture. He worked with a number of other architects of both Australian and international importance: James Barnet, William Wardell and John Horbury Hunt. Among his children, Arthur, Owen and Cyril followed him into the profession.
context_section_description: Blacket's association with St Andrew's, the Anglican Cathedral of Sydney, began in 1846. Grand plans for a square church had been made by Governor Lachlan Macquarie and his architect Francis Greenway, but these had been abandoned after proceeding no further than the laying of the foundation stone in 1819. By the time of Blacket's arrival, St Andrew's was under construction to a design by James Hume. It was to be a Neo Gothic structure of a relatively timid design and scale, cruciform and with narrow transepts. The foundations were laid, the south transept was almost complete, and in places the walls were 15 feet (4.6 m) high. The work had ceased through lack of funds owing to the drought. In 1846 Blacket, who was seen by the committee to have a greater grasp of architectural principles and design than Hume, was appointed to replace him as architect of the cathedral.
  While the cathedral was under construction, a temporary wooden cathedral was erected, and one of Blacket's first jobs was to create a stained-glass window for it. Being unable to acquire coloured glass, he painted plain glass and fired it, using part of the crypt beneath St James, King Street, as his studio. This window, which predated commercial stained glass manufacture in Australia, has unfortunately been lost. Blacket was very pleased with it and wrote to his brother Frank "the folk who come to see it ... can hardly believe it is not stained glass."
  Blacket's design for the cathedral was restricted by the foundations that were already in place and the existence of Perpendicular tracery built to Hume's design in two of the aisle windows. The challenge to Blacket was to create a building which worked within the limitations of scale but still had the imposing quality of a cathedral. Once again, Bishop Broughton's aim was to have a replica of the Magdalen College tower, but Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand had laid the foundation stone in 1842, and his recommendation had been for two towers. Blacket initially designed towers that accommodated the wishes of both Bishops, but he also wrote to a relative in Yorkshire asking them to send drawings of the façade of York Minster.
  By 1847, all of Blacket's proposed changes, including the elaborate façade and lengthening of the nave had been accepted. In order to make sure that his design was truly the best possible solution, he sent copies of his plans to England, to both the Oxford Society and the Cambridge Camden Society for comment. His design was acceptable to both, the Oxford Society in particular waxed lyrical, saying that his design "had realised the idea of a cathedral, as diverse from a parish church". However, Oxford wanted the roof of the aisles to be of steeper pitch, and a decorative moulding (or string course) around the interior walls, while Cambridge wanted more pinnacles and just one large window in the transept ends. Blacket obliged by making such changes as he could, but the string course and the rebuilding of the paired windows in the existent transept were impractical. Blacket had the model-maker J.C. White construct a detailed cardboard model of a scale 1 inch to 8 feet. This pleased the committee and the cathedral was finished much as demonstrated on the model, but with one very significant change: the west front, while retaining its form, had it details redesigned, in the light of the drawings that he received from Yorkshire.
  
  Blacket's modification of the west front is to a much richer and more vertical design. This was achieved by the adoption of several features of the famous façade of York Minster, including abandoning the paired "Magdalen College" windows in the uppermost stage in favour of large mullioned windows framed by a flamboyant arch rising to the level of the ornate parapet. 
  These are more strongly modelled than at York, and meet the obliquely set pinnacle above them in a continuous upward-sweeping movement. Another such flamboyant moulding rises from the tall central window to overlap the gable in a manner both complex and inventive.
  The interior, despite its small scale, and the l
caption: The nave is like those of 15th-century churches in Suffolk.
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