page_title: Frank Matcham
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Frank Matcham / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Interior of the Gaiety Theatre, London, 1869, scanned from "The Gaiety Theatre, Strand", London Journal, 6 February 1869, p. 87
context_page_description: Francis Matcham was an English architect who specialised in the design of theatres and music halls. He was best known for his work in London under Moss Empires, which included the designs of the Hippodrome, Hackney Empire, Coliseum, Palladium and the Victoria Palace. During his 40-year career, he was responsible for the design and construction of over 90 theatres and the redesign and refurbishment of a further 80 throughout the United Kingdom. According to the dramatist Alan Bennett, there was a Matcham theatre in every corner of the UK.
  Matcham was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, where he became apprenticed at the age of 14 to the architect George Soudon Bridgman. Matcham moved to London, aged 21, where he joined the architectural practice of J. T. Robinson, who was to become his father-in-law. Under Robinson, Matcham completed his first solo design, the Elephant and Castle Theatre, which opened in June 1879. He took over the business on Robinson's death and continued the designs of various provincial theatres. He formed his own practice, Matcham & Co., in the 1880s and enlisted skilled craftsmen.
context_section_description: Francis Matcham was born on 22 November 1854 in Newton Abbot, Devon. He was the second of nine children and the eldest son of Charles Matcham (1826–1888), a brewer, and his wife, Elizabeth née Lancaster (1830–1905). In 1857 Charles Matcham moved his family from Newton Abbot to Union Street, Torquay, where he secured a job as a manager of a brewery and a malthouse. Frank was educated at Babbacombe School, in Babbacombe, Torquay.
  Matcham showed an early interest in architecture and became apprenticed at the age of 14 to George Soudon Bridgeman, a local architect.  The apprenticeship lasted 18 months until Matcham was offered a job at a quantity surveyor's office in London in around 1868. Working in the capital allowed Matcham to study with different architectural professionals. His training under a quantity surveyor taught him how to draw up estimates of cost, interact with building contractors, and introduced him to complex calculations, something which he was unlikely to have been taught at school. He also learnt the importance of working to tight schedules imposed by demanding customers.
  In his spare time, Matcham visited many of London's buildings but took a particular liking to theatres and music halls.  A building of special interest to him was the newly completed Gaiety Theatre in the Strand, designed by Charles J. Phipps. Matcham was impressed at Phipps's ability to build a normal-sized theatre on a small, awkward plot, and it is probable that Matcham gained inspiration from the Gaiety in some of his later buildings which were also built on restricted plots of land. It is not known how long Matcham spent in London, although it was not uncommon for an architect to take up to six years to become qualified. The theatre historian Görel Garlick estimates that Matcham spent three years in the capital during this time, which would seem probable as by 1871 Matcham was back in Torquay and again under the guidance of Bridgeman, this time as his chief assistant. Bridgeman was eager to take advantage of Matcham's experience in London and asked him to help on the redesign of the Lyceum Theatre in Torquay.
  Isaac Singer, the American businessman, moved from France to Devon in late 1871. His intention was to buy a large property in the English countryside for his family. His attempt at buying Isambard Kingdom Brunel's estate was unsuccessful and instead he purchased the Fernham Estate, in Torbay, on which Oldway Mansion was eventually built. Singer commissioned Bridgeman's office to undertake the design and instructed that a theatre be built within the house, long since demolished. In an edition of The Builder, dated 1873, Matcham was named in the request for tender section as being the accepted party to work alongside Bridgeman on the Oldway Mansion project. Garlick considers it entirely possible that Matcham was given responsibility for the design of the theatre because of his educational experiences in London.  Singer spared no cost in terms of Oldway Mansion's construction; he sourced the finest materials from around the world and instructed Bridgeman to design the interior in exuberant French style. Garlick notes that it was highly likely that Singer's exuberance would have influenced someone as architecturally impressionable as Matcham whose later theatres also used extravagant decoration.
caption: The Gaiety Theatre in the Strand, a building from which Matcham took inspiration as a student
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