page_title: Ewan Christian
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Ewan Christian / Life / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: 6 Bloomsbury Square, WC1. Shows the location of 1304580.
context_page_description: Ewan Christian was a British architect. He is most notable for the restorations of Southwell Minster and Carlisle Cathedral, and the design of the National Portrait Gallery. He was Architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners from 1851 to 1895. Christian was elected A RIBA in 1840, FRIBA in 1850, RIBA President 1884–86 and was awarded the Royal Gold Medal in 1887.
context_section_description: Christian was born in Marylebone, London, on 20 September 1814, the seventh of nine children. His father, Joseph Christian (d. 1821), came from an old Isle of Man family of landed gentry whose own grandfather was Thomas Christian (d.1770), Rector of Crosthwaite in Cumberland. Many senior members of the family had held the post of Deemster (justice) on Man for centuries past. They lived at Milntown on the island and had estates in Cumberland, particularly at Ewanrigg Hall (demolished 1903) near Maryport. Ewan is a popular given name in the family. The famous mutineer of HMS Bounty, Fletcher Christian (1764–c.1793), was also of the family, descended from a senior line to the architect's. Ewan Christian's mother was Katherine Scales (d.1822) of Thwaitehead in Lancashire. Both of the architect's parents died when he was around seven years old and he was thereafter brought up by his grandparents at Mortlake and then, after his grandfather died, by his eldest brother, John, who lived in Wigmore Street in Marylebone. He was educated at Christ's Hospital School from the age of nine, first at the junior school in Hertford then at the main school in Newgate Street, London (this moved to Horsham in 1902 and Christian, who became a Governor of the school, acted as assessor in an architectural competition for the new buildings in 1893). On his 15th birthday Christian was articled to the London architect Matthew Habershon (1789–1852) and also enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools.
  In 1836 Christian briefly joined as assistant the office of William Railton (c.1801–1877), later architect of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London, who was appointed as Architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1838 – a post which Christian later succeeded to. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were set up as a permanent body by the government in 1836 to administer the estates and revenues of the Church of England. Following a study tour of Italy in 1837 Christian went into the office of John Brown (c.1806–76) in Norwich and supervised the construction of Brown's St Margaret's Church at Lee in Lewisham and his Colchester Union Workhouse (here Christian's close scrutiny of the work so irritated the labourers that they deliberately caused a drain to burst in order to discredit him). In 1841 he designed his first independent building, the Marylebone Savings Bank, perhaps commissioned through local and family connections. Between 1841 and 1842 Christian embarked on a long continental study tour in company with other young architects who were to remain lifelong friends and following this he established his own architectural practice in October 1842 at 44 Bloomsbury Square, London, where he also lived (he later moved across to the former home of Isaac D'Israeli, father of the famous Prime Minister, on a corner of the square). On his marriage in 1848 to Annie Bentham (1814–1913), a relation of the Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, Christian set up home in Hampstead in the north London suburbs while continuing his business in Bloomsbury. The couple were to have four daughters – Eleanor, Anne Elizabeth, Agnes and Alice. Anne Elizabeth, known as 'Bessie', was Christian's favourite daughter who died in 1890 after giving birth to Christian's only grandchild, Ewan Christopher Blaxland (1889–1954), who became a clergyman as his grandfather was originally intended to be.
caption: Ewan Christian first set up his own architectural practice in Bloomsbury Square in 1842. He moved across to this corner of the square in 1847 where Isaac D'Israeli had once lived.
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