SAHGB Publications Limited !"#$%&'%&'(%)'(*+,!-'.'/,+*%0'12'34'(4'"*5,66 .#78*09):-'.6,;<&=0<'>,=$5**= ?*#0@,-'.0@8%7,@7#0<6'(%)7*02A'B*64'CD'9DEFF:A'GG4'DHDIJKL "#16%)8,='12-'?.(MN'"#16%@<7%*&)'O%+%7,= ?7<16,'PQO-'http://www.jstor.org/stable/1568542 .@@,)),=-'CKRDKRJKKE'DJ-KK Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sahgb. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. SAHGB Publications Limited is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Architectural History. http://www.jstor.org 'Pugin in his home' A memoir byJ. H. Powell editedby ALEXANDRA WEDGWOOD INTRODUCTION In this touching and perceptive memoir written late in his life, John Hardman Powell calls himself Pugin's pupil. He was in fact the only person who had the right to call himself that. Pugin never set up an office in the usual manner of busy mid-nineteenth- century architects. He preferred to work with a small number of close colleagues who understood his aims and could interpret his drawings. George Myers, his builder who worked from London, andJohn Hardman, the Birmingham metalwork manufacturer, were the principal two members of this group, and the other two were John Gregory Crace, the interior decorator, also London based, and Herbert Minton, the Staffordshire pottery manufacturer. Of these John Hardman was undoubtedly the closest friend. The circumstances of the decision to sendJohn Hardman Powell to live in Ramsgate were the death of Pugin's second wife, Louisa, on 22 August 1844 which was quickly followed in early September by Charles Barry's invitation to Pugin to help with the fittings and decoration of the House of Lords. Pugin was therefore put under immense pressure of work at a time of great emotional strain. It seems that John Hardman suggested that his young nephew come to help at this critical time. John Hardman Powell was the son of William Powell, who was John Hardman's brother-in-law and partner. His mother supervised a textile department which was set up by Hardman & Co. in I842 to deal with the ever increasing commissions for vestments and other furnishings arising from Pugin's work. Before coming to Pugin he seems to have worked briefly with the Birmingham firm of Elkington & Co. with whom for a time John Hardman and his father had been in partnership. Powell probably arrived shortly before Christmas 1844. In a letter post-marked 3 December, Pugin asks Hardman (HLRO No. 80) for 'a common iron bedstead full size' to be sent at once 'as I shall want it before John Powell comes'. The seventeen- year-old boy, who was always treated as one of the family, was home-sick for a while, and Pugin was also unsettled by the new situation. Writing at the beginning ofJanuary 1845, Pugin told Hardman (HLRO No. 72) 'When you write toJohn Powell give him a hint not to correspondso much. He writes long letters like a girl about nothing, without business & at his age he should not waste time in writing without cause, just hint it. All his work is to acquire knowledge . I am very strict with him & keep to the exact thing. He has not the first ideas of principles, he has always worked from eye. He does not even(?) know the ordinary rules. He will do well if he sticks to it but stop that cursed writing for it is like Miss Keats & irritates me dreadfully. I could make a fine fellow of I72 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 31: I988 him in time but you have no idea how much injury Elkington's style has done him. He is continually running wild in his drawing & losing sight of principles. This is my great difficulty but I can manage him I think. He is a very good soul'. There were other difficulties too: 'You should have told me and prepared me of John Powell's being a somnambulist. I had no idea of such a dreadful thing in practice. I live in constant alarm. The other night he knocked his head dreadfully in fighting in his room. He is out of bed every night' (HLRO No. 4). But he seems to have settled down quickly, and by Easter Sunday Pugin comments to Hardman: 'Powell makes an admirable sacristan' (HLRO No. 68). As well as making himself useful in the chapel Powell quickly adapted to Pugin's style. In a letter to Hardman post-marked 10 October 1845, Pugin reported:'I am very much pleased withJ. Powell. He has done some capital things since I have been away. He is sending you the 4 evangelists for the processional cross of which you will of course prepare dies. He is doing the 4 doctors for the reverse' (HLRO No. 66). Pugin used him extensively to make models for the metalwork to be made for the House of Lords. Perhaps it was partly as a result of his confidence in Powell's work that Pugin persuaded Hardman to expand into the production of stained glass, with the first windows being made in Birmingham at the end of November 1845. Pugin kept the production of the cartoons closely under his eye, as Powell describes below in his section 'Cartoon Room'. Powell remained at Ramsgate until Pugin's death except for the first half of I848. He therefore saw Pugin through several emotional uneasy years. Though Pugin worked constantly at an incredible pace, the nature of his work changed during this period. He received fewer architectural commissions and became more exclusively occupied with his great number of designs for the decorative arts. Pugin had, of course, always been a controversial figure but towards the end of his life he suffered much criticism from Catholic writers, especially as the Catholic Church, partly following Newman's leadership, looked to Italian influences. Powell married Anne, Pugin's eldest daughter, on 21 October i850. They lived in a house nearby in Ramsgate and here their first child was born. Following Pugin's death in September 1852, Powell became chief designer to the firm ofJohn Hardman & Co, and he moved to Birmingham where he was based for the rest of his life. Pugin's widow and the rest of his family also left the Grange and lived in Birmingham between 1853 and 1860, when Jane and E. W. Pugin re-established the family home. Cuthbert remained at the Grange in Ramsgate until his death in 1928. The house has been let a number of times, but now belongs to the Benedictine Abbey which was built opposite in I860. In I988 it is being used by the Abbey and though without any of its original contents or decoration, has been little altered and is in good condition. Powell's style, both in metalwork and in stained glass, is firmly founded on that of Pugin. Many of Pugin's metalwork designs remained in production throughout the nineteenth century. Powell softened Pugin's strong medieval forms and developed a more linear and realistic approach. In stained glass he also turned away from Pugin's simple primary colours and used many more shades. Very little work has been done on his career although a mass of archive material in the shape of designs, cartoons, letters, daybooks and ledgers survives at Birmingham Reference Library and City Museum. 'PUGIN IN HIS HOME' 173 Powell's purpose in writing this memoir is not entirely clear. He calls it a 'rudehasty portrait .... which would never have been made, had not the memory of Pugin's work become dim in a quarterof a century'. It is not obvious if he intended to have it published, or if he was writing for circulationonly within the family. Certainlyhe does not explain people and places in full, nor does he attempt to give a full account of Pugin's life and work. He is not completely accuratewith his dates, but what he does do superblyis to paint a vivid portraitof the man he knew intimately, understoodfully and admired passionately. It is undoubtedly the best first-hand account we have. We see Pugin playing with his children, making the sounds of the wind, Pugin at work, in a good mood, singing Gregorianhymns and bits from operas, Pugin the orderly genius putting all his papersaway at night, Pugin in his old clothes having fun with his friends or running down to the harbourto watch the ships. Powell has obviously put a great deal of thought into his writing and tries to explain his ideas, as no doubt Pugin had once explained them to him. Powell's own judgment appears very sound and he manages to examine all the dramas and controversies of Pugin's life in a refreshingly calm and rationalmanner.