C F A Voysey

Wendy Hitchmough

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Review

The extent of C F A Voysey’s influence is conspicuous today throughout Britain’s suburbs in the heritage of white, roughcast houses built in the inter-war years.  The practice of replacing and rearranging similar component parts from one project in another – a feature of his greatest works – provided the perfect model for subsequent architects and builders who plagiarised his work after the Great War, when “homes for heroes” sprang up along the arterial roads of metroland.

The fact that Voysey did not benefit from this was partly due to his inability to compromise his high ideals, and resulted in the decline of his practice after 1913.  At the peak of his career, however, he was one of the most influential designers in Britain and he provided a body of domestic architecture of the highest order, unrivalled in this country (or elsewhere, for that matter) in its ingenuity and high standards, many examples of which are extant still.  (In a day around Lake Windermere a clutch of his villas and small country-houses, as well as Baillie Scott’s “Blackwell” make perfect sightseeing for even the most discerning of Arts and Crafts enthusiasts.)

He was born in 1857, the grandson of an architect, son of the renegade preacher Charles Voysey, who, as founder of the Theistic Church, was friend to some of the most respected figures of the 19th century - including Darwin, Ruskin and Huxley – all of whom helped form the character of the young man.  The family connections with architecture and, in particular, with the roots of the Gothic revival, led to his fertile studies in the offices of the prolific J P Seddon and the underestimated George Devey, who added greatly to his architectural vocabulary.  When Voysey came to establish his own practice, it was amongst his peers Mackmurdo, Norman Shaw, Morris, Godwin, Lethaby and Baillie Scott that he began to distinguish himself, enthusiastically promoted by the magazine ‘The Studio’.  His output was typified by the complete integration of the interior with the exterior and in this he was a direct influence on the young Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and thereby a critical link between the Arts and Crafts and Modernist movements.

As a designer of wallpaper, fabrics and furniture, he can be considered as second only to William Morris, and, as revealed in this book, many of the illustrations of this aspect of his career have a freshness and wit that not even Morris could match.  Some of the best of these designs come from his late years when he was living in obscurity and relative poverty.  The actor Robert Donat, who married Voysey’s niece, recalled the artist at this late stage of his life, having been a dutiful son and stern parent, as a doting uncle writing magical letters, sprinkled with the whimsical animals and motifs which often peppered even the most important works of his illustrious career.

This is an authoritative and beautiful book, as befits the achievements of one of our greatest architects and designers at the heart of the Arts and Crafts movement.  It is the exemplar of the architectural monograph. - review by Stewart Grimshaw