 1835 - 1897 (62 years)
-
| Name |
Charles John PHIPPS |
| Suffix |
FSA |
| Nickname |
CJ |
| Born |
25 Mar 1835 |
Charlcombe, Somerset  |
| Christened |
22 May 1835 |
Parish Church, Charlcombe, Somerset |
- John Rashleigh Phipps also christened aged 35, 9 months after two of his children, Charles & Emily.
|
 |
Phipps family
Parish record. |
| Gender |
Male |
| Living |
22 May 1835 |
Charlcombe, Somerset |
| Occupation |
1851 |
| Solicitor's Articled Clerk |
| Census |
1 Apr 1851 |
3 Spencers Belle Vue, Walcot, Somerset |
| Occupation |
1861 |
| Architect |
| Census |
1 Apr 1861 |
5 Paragon Buildings, St Michael, Bath, Somerset |
| Occupation |
1871 |
| Architect |
| Census |
1 Apr 1871 |
26 Mecklenburgh Square, St Pancras, London |
- The family have a governess, 2 servants and a visitor, Esther Ford, probably a relative of Honnor.
|
| Occupation |
1881 |
| Architect |
| Census |
1 Apr 1881 |
26 Mecklenburgh Square, St Pancras, London |
- The family have 2 servants.
|
| Probate (Grant of) |
22 Sep 1884 |
| Granted probate on the estate of his mother |
 |
John Rashleigh Phipps & Elizabeth Ruth Phipps
London Gazette 19/12/1884 |
| Occupation |
5 Jul 1887 |
| Architect |
| Occupation |
1891 |
| Architect |
| Census |
1 Apr 1891 |
26 Mecklenburgh Square, St Pancras, London |
- The family have 3 servants.
Mildred Bush, a niece, is living with the family.
|
| Occupation |
18 Oct 1893 |
| Architect |
Name
(also known as) |
9 Jun 1896 |
| Charles James Phipps |
| Died |
25 May 1897 |
26 Mecklenburgh Square, Middlesex |
| Probate |
14 Aug 1897 |
| Probate granted to Honnor Phipps, widow, |
 |
Charles John Phipps
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar |
| Buried |
Highgate Cemetery, London |
| Notes |
- Phipps, Charles John (1835–1897), architect, was born at Lansdowne, near Bath, the son of John Rashleigh Phipps and Elizabeth Ruth Neate. Educated locally at St Catherine's Hermitage, Bath, he was articled to James Wilson (d. 1900) and Thomas Fuller (1822–1898), an architectural partnership which had produced a wide range of designs. In 1857 a brief sketching tour on the continent was followed by the opening of his own practice in Bath, where he also received his first theatre design commission, a reconstruction (1863) of the Theatre Royal, originally designed by George Dance. Supported critically by Edward Godwin, and clearly fulfilling client needs, Phipps designed a further provincial theatre, the Theatre Royal, Nottingham (1865), before opening an office in London in 1866. Phipps had married Honor Hicks of Euborne, Berkshire, on 10 April 1860; they had four children, all born in Bath: Ethel (b. c.1861), Charles (b. c.1862), Alwyn Rashleigh (b. c.1865), and Ida (b. c.1867). The family moved to London in 1868 and lived at 26 Mecklenburgh Square, from where Phipps also practised until his death.
Phipps's move to the capital coincided with a revival in the critical fortunes of the theatre. Although only sporadically involved with designs of the music hall type, Phipps can be regarded as the ‘establishment’ architect for the London theatre in the second half of the century. While contemporary enthusiasts are more aware of the work of Frank Matcham, it was actually Phipps who designed theatres for the leading stage figures of the West End, such as Squire and Marie Bancroft, for whom he reconstructed the Theatre Royal, Haymarket (1880); Richard D'Oyly Carte, for whom he built the Savoy (1881); Henry Irving, the Lyceum (1885); and Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Her Majesty's (1897). Phipps never employed an identifiable decorative style and the decoration of his various theatres responded to the vagaries of contemporary taste: Greek at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre (1867), and Gothic at the Gaiety (1868). Early theatres employed a range of decorative figurative panels over the proscenium arch; those at the Gaiety Theatre (1868) were executed by Henry Stacy Marks. A particular characteristic of his theatre type was the use of a domestic-scaled lobby and front-of-house space. This reflected on the absence of development space and the commercial pressures of the British theatre, but it also managed to exude an atmosphere of ‘home’ admired by the theatre going public. Phipps's early London theatres developed an auditorium design which only marginally altered over the decades and involved the employment of various tiers with private boxes abutting the proscenium arch. Historically this design type can be traced back to the continental theatre and to a certain extent the Italian Opera House, Haymarket (reconstructed 1790–91 by M. Novosielski; 1816–18 by J. Nash and E. Repton; des., 1867; rebuilt, 1868–9; dem., except the Arcade, c.1895). But Phipps was never afforded the luxury of unlimited space, not to mention funds, in which to give exercise to his imagination. His expertise lay in two directions: his ability to have a theatre erected in a remarkably short time and his ability to accommodate the multifarious requirement of lobbies and backstage requirements in often cramped, ill-lit spaces. While none of his theatres reached the norms advocated by critics such as Sachs and Woodrow, the type was widely popular and his standard London plan was emulated throughout the United Kingdom; George Bernard Shaw, otherwise critical of his work, was full of praise for his last theatre, Her Majesty's, London. During the execution of this work, and while engaged with a further project, the Tivoli Theatre, Dover, Phipps developed a chill (he had for some time suffered from a combination of heart and kidney problems) and died of associated complications on 25 May 1897 at home at 26 Mecklenburgh Square. His funeral service took place at the church of St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, on Friday 28 May and his remains were interred in Highgate cemetery. He was survived by his wife.
Hugh Maguire Sources
H. Maguire, ‘C. J. Phipps (1835–97) and nineteenth century theatre architecture (1863–97)’, PhD diss., U. Lond., 1990 · H. F. B. Maguire, ‘A view of the new Theatre Royal, Bristol’, Theatre Notebook, 42 (1988), 35–7 · D. Howard, London theatres and music halls, 1850–1950 (1970) · V. Glasstone, Victorian and Edwardian theatres: an architectural and social survey (1975) · E. O. Sachs and A. E. Woodrow, Modern opera houses and theatres, 3 vols. (1896–8) · CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1897)
Archives
TNA: PRO, corresp., LC 1 | Raymond Mander-Joe Mitchenson Theatre collection, London · University of Bristol, Theatre collection, Beerbohm Tree collection
Likenesses
photograph, RIBA BAL · wood-engraving (after photograph by V. Haye), NPG
Wealth at death
£10,292 1s. 9d.: probate, 14 Aug 1897, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
Source: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
|
| Person ID |
I11075 |
5. Somerset Ennevers (2) |
| Last Modified |
6 Sep 2018 |
| Father |
John Rashleigh PHIPPS, Born: 2 Sep 1800, Bath, Somerset , Died: 19 May 1853, Bath District, Somerset (Age 52 years) |
| Mother |
Elizabeth Ruth NEATE, Born: 1810/1, Devizes, Wiltshire , Died: 22 Jul 1884 (Age 73 years) |
| Married |
24 Jun 1834 |
Parish Church, Charlcombe, Somerset |
- IGI records the marriage as on 25th June & bride as Elizabeth Ruth Neate, location as Charlton-Mackrell.
|
 |
John Rashleigh Phipps & Eliza Neate
Marriage notice in Bristol Mercury 28/6/1834 |
| Family ID |
F3173 |
Family Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Family (spouse) |
Honnor HICKS, Born: 1837/8, Enborne, Berkshire |
| Married |
1860 |
Bath District, Somerset |
| Children |
| | 1. Ethel Nora PHIPPS, Born: 1 Nov 1860, Bath, Somerset |
| | 2. Henry PHIPPS, Born: 1 Nov 1860, Bath, Somerset |
| | 3. Charles Eugene PHIPPS, Born: 1861/2, Bath, Somerset , Died: 1880, Pancras District, London (Age 18 years) |
| | 4. Ida Mary PHIPPS, Born: 1863, Bath, Somerset , Died: 10 Aug 1931, Chardonne, Switzerland (Age 68 years) |
| | 5. Alwyn Rashleigh PHIPPS, Born: 1864, Bath, Somerset |
| | 6. Mary Rashleigh PHIPPS, Born: 1872/3, Mecklenburgh Square, Middlesex |
|
| Family ID |
F7839 |
Family Group Sheet | Family Chart |
-
| Event Map |
|
 | Born - 25 Mar 1835 - Charlcombe, Somerset |
 |
 | Christened - 22 May 1835 - Parish Church, Charlcombe, Somerset |
|
| Living - 22 May 1835 - Charlcombe, Somerset |
|
 | Census - 1 Apr 1851 - 3 Spencers Belle Vue, Walcot, Somerset |
|
 | Married - 1860 - Bath District, Somerset |
|
 | Census - 1 Apr 1861 - 5 Paragon Buildings, St Michael, Bath, Somerset |
|
 | Census - 1 Apr 1871 - 26 Mecklenburgh Square, St Pancras, London |
|
| Census - 1 Apr 1881 - 26 Mecklenburgh Square, St Pancras, London |
|
| Census - 1 Apr 1891 - 26 Mecklenburgh Square, St Pancras, London |
|
 | Died - 25 May 1897 - 26 Mecklenburgh Square, Middlesex |
|
 | Buried - - Highgate Cemetery, London |
|
|
-
| Family histories |
 | Well-known family members
All family members who I have found featured in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography or its Australian equivalent, Who's Who 2008 or with an obituary in The Times. |
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