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John Soane and property disputes: The Argyle Rooms & All Souls College, Oxford, two case studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Laurence Kinney
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Extract

The Soane Museum contains a number of papers and drawings that give an insight into property disputes during the closing years of the eighteenth century and the opening years of the nineteenth. This paper discusses two cases to illustrate some of the factors that brought about differences between parties. John Soane was sometimes called upon to act as an arbitrator to resolve disputes relating to matters such as poor construction, building prices and fee disputes between architects and their clients. The Soane papers are of more interest to the architectural than to the legal historian for Soane’s conduct of Hearings and submissions is less well recorded than are the snippets of information about architects and their schemes. It is rare to find Soane’s Award or decision.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 41 , 1998 , pp. 131 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1998

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References

Notes

1 I am grateful to Margaret Richardson, the Curator at Sir John Soane’s Museum for drawing my attention to these papers and to Susan Palmer, Archivist, and Stephen Astley, Curator of Drawings, for their help in preparing this paper. I have also received help from Dr Norma Aubertin-Potter, Sub-Librarian at the Codrington Library, All Souls College and Christopher Jeens, County Archivist of Warwickshire.

2 For a background to the history of arbitration, particularly its legal elements, see Mustill & Boyd, Commercial Arbitration (1989). This book, by a Lord of Appeal and a Queen’s Counsel, is for the practitioner.

3 Arbitration Act 1698.

4 See Colvin, Dictionary (1995 edn), p. 143.

5 John White (c. 1747-1813) was surveyor to the Duke of Portland and a speculator in property development in Marylebone. See Colvin, op. cit., p. 1042.

6 Robert Dodd, described as architect, exhibited at the RA between 1799 and 1817. His designs related to bridges, canals and the like.

7 Colvin, op. cit., p. 444.

8 The Times, 16 March, 17 March, 5 April & 8 April 1802.

9 J. Marks of 5 Edward Street, Cavendish Square exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1790 & 1799. See Colvin, op. cit., p. 639.

10 Soane Museum 7/N/4/14.

11 Ibid. VIII.F.2.1.

12 Soane Museum 57/7.

13 Soane Museum 57/7/6-7.

14 Soane Museum 57/7/5.

15 Almost certainly Nicholas Wilcox Cundy (born 1788). Colvin (op. cit., pp. 284f.) mentions that this Cundy practised as a civil engineer and that he worked at the Pantheon in 1811–12.

16 Soane Museum 7/N/4/8.

17 William Capon (1757-1827) designed theatres and had worked at Ranelagh Gardens. See Colvin, op. cit., p. 214.

18 Soane Museum 7/N/4/15.

19 Lord Powerscourt, Description & History of Powerscourt (1903), p. 77. Robertson worked at Powerscourt in 1843.

20 London Gazette (1817), pp. 1071 & 1507. Alexander Robertson was again made bankrupt in 1820.

21 ‘Design for Hill House, Putney, London 1786’ in Tait, Robert Adam The Creative Mind: from the sketch to the finished drawing (1996), p. 48.

22 I am grateful to Dr Frederick O’Dwyer for his suggestion that there was probably more than one man with this name. See O’Dwyer, ‘Daniel Robertson’s Tudor Houses’, Irish Arts Review, forthcoming.

23 Soane Museum VIII.M/28.

24 PRO (PROB 6/226, p. 6).

25 The marriage took place on 24 June 1808 at St George’s Hanover Square with the consent of her father. The witnesses were William Adam, Alexander Robertson and Marian Irving. Dr. O’Dwyer gave me this reference.

26 Colvin, op. cit., p. 129.

27 Colvin, op. cit., pp. 822-23.

28 Colvin, op. cit., p. 822, and Architectural History, 39 (1996), p. 239.

29 The Crypt III (1829), 200.

30 ‘Sketch of a design for restoring the Front of All Souls College next the High Street, as nearly as possible to its original state, Dan’l Robertson Arch’t Oxford December 1825’ (Soane Museum XV,4,73/1/2). Other drawings include variations on this proposal (all undated) plus ‘The present elevation of All Souls College’ (undated). Nine further drawings are dated between March 1826 and July 1827 (73/1/8-16).

31 Soane Museum, ibid. VIII. M/2.

32 All Souls College, Warden’s MS 3, fol. 80.

33 Illustrated in Colvin and Simmons, All Souls An Oxford College and its Buildings (1989), fig. 45.

34 Almost certainly William Ritson Coultart (Colvin, op. cit., p. 273 gives Coulthart). He was referred to as a measurer, in modern terms a quantity surveyor. For a history of quantity surveying, see Nisbet, A Proper Price, Quantity Surveying in London 1650-1940 (1997). Coultart applied for the post of Bailiff to the University in May 1828 and asked Soane to provide a reference for him (Soane Museum, ibid. VIII M/22).

35 MS 401 (d), 24 Dec. 1827.

36 Soane Museum, ibid. VIII M/4.

37 George Bailey (1792–1860). Formerly a pupil of Soane and by now his Chief Assistant, he was the first Curator of the Soane Museum under the terms of Soane’s will.

38 St Mary Hall, part of Oriel College.

39 The stone at All Souls came from Denkins and Baber’s quarry.

40 Hickman (referred to elsewhere as Hakins) was a former Mayor of Oxford.

41 Soane was Surveyor to Chelsea Hospital and was provided with a small house at the Hospital. He used it regularly as a retreat from Town.

42 Soane Museum, ibid. VIII M/30.

43 MS 401 (d), 17 Dec. 1828.