164 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[May, 



IMPROVEMENTS IN LIVERPOOL. 



(.The following observations by Mr. Rosson, were made upon a paper lately 

 read at the Liverpool Polytechnic Society, by Mr. Holme, on the improve- 

 ment of Liverpool; we regret that we have not been able to obtain Mr. 

 Holme's paper.] 



Mr. Rosson said, that in compliance with the invitation of their respected 

 president, he rose to make some observations on the very interesting paper 

 tust read by Mr. Holme. Architecture had been one of his favorite private 

 studies for the last twenty years, and he had often lamented, during that 

 period, to see the little progress which this great commercial metropolis of 

 the north-west of England has made in exhibiting good specimens of con- 

 struction. This was the more remarkable, when the vast means of private 

 individuals, and the funds placed at the disposal of the corporation, were 

 taken into account. Reference had been made to the noble models of architec- 

 ture left by the ancient Greeks, whose remains which had escaped destruction 

 still excited the admiration of every traveller who looked upon them. The 

 Parthenon, for instance. Let us inquire by what means that transcendant 

 work of architectural genius was raised ? Why, it was raised because Phidias, 

 the prince of sculptors of antiquity, had a Pericles for a patron, and by the 

 influence of the illustrious sculptor, Ictinus and Callicrates were employed 

 as architects, though under the controul of Phidias. But, independently of 

 the good fortune of the Athenians in having a Pericles to judge and guide 

 them in the application of high art, the Greeks had a mode which he (Mr. R.) 

 would strongly urge the people of Liverpool to adopt, now that public com- 

 petition had become the rule to guide them in their choice of the artists who 

 were to execute from time to time the works that were to adorn their great 

 city. The practice among the ancient Greeks was to call upon a number of 

 distinguished architects to send in designs by a certain day, and when they 

 liad all been exhibited, to leave to the artists themselves the choice of the one 

 that was to bear away the palm. This was by giving each artist two votes: 

 one in favour of his own design, and. the other for the one he thought I 

 among the compositions of his rivals. The best of the whole always turned 

 out to be the one approved by the majority of the second votes, as a reigning 

 beauty, at a public ball, is always considered by every handsome girl in the 

 reora decidedly the handsomest present, after lurself. (A laugh.) Thus the 

 wisest of the people judged and appreciated artists, and artists themselves 

 judged and appreciated each other, in the face of all Greece, assembled on 

 great public festivals. And in modern times, a very remarkable instance of 

 public justice occurred at Rome, in the pontificate of Benedict XIV. That 

 distinguished pontiff invited a competition of designs for the improvement of 

 the Piazza del Populo, in which our, then, young country man. the late Mr. 

 Harrison, of Chester, entered the lists. The judges selected a Roman design : 

 against the decision the famous Piranesi protested. His holiness caused the 

 drawings to here-examined. The consequence was that the judgment was 

 reversed, and young Harrison received the gold medal. He (Mr. R.) lamented 

 to say that that distinguished architect, the greatest since the days of Wren 

 and Gwynne, chose afterwards to bury his fine talents in the little obscure 

 city of Chester, instead of settling in London, and correcting the bad taste 

 of Soane, Nash, and others. When a resident in the Temple, he (Mr. R.) had 

 joined with his hon. friend, the member for Scarborough, Sir Frederick 

 Trench, in the efforts made about fifteen years ago to construct the Thames 

 Quay. The society, however, they then formed, though under the immediate 

 protection of his late Royal Highness the Duke of York, and, indirectly, under 

 that of the crown itself, could not accomplish their great object, though aided 

 by many distinguished noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants, and by " the 

 unaffected grace." and elegance, and talents, and powerful patronage of the 

 late all-accomplished Duchess of Rutland. They, however, managed to erect 

 some good buildings, amongst which must be named Stafford House, in the 

 Stable-yard of St. James's Palace, the finest nobleman's town residence in 

 the empire. He (Mr. R.) was cognizant of every stone laid in the construc- 

 tion of that edifice. The staircase, the finest thing in London, was formed 

 on the model of that of Versailles ; and the house, with the recent additions 

 of the present noble proprietor, the Duke of Sutherland, formed decidedly the 

 finest private palace ever erected in England. Finding, how ever, that public 

 taste was not ripe for the quay, they intermitted their labours, as he observed, 

 fifteen years ago ; but he was happy to say that they had resumed them 

 recently, with every expectation that, with the aid of the government, and 

 the awakened taste of the age. and the labours of his friend Charles Barry, 

 at Westminster, on the new Houses of Parliament — all those combined, he 

 thought, would at length enable them to achieve the object of all their vow s, 

 and give a new character to the banks of the noblest river in our domestic 

 empire. At the period referral to, when they (the committee) were busily 

 engaged in their efforts, and publishing drawings, of which they were very 

 proud, aud were gradually drawing the attention of the London public, the 

 elder Mr. D'Israeli entered their council-chamber, and astounded them with 

 1he information that they could not establish any claim to originality— that 

 lie held in his hand a hook that se! at rest and put the extinguisher upon all 



their claims as exclusive authors of the grand schemes they were projecting. 

 He (Mr. R.) had referred- to a " great unknown " of the name ol Gwynne. 

 Had any gentleman present ever heard of his name ? He dared say not ; and 

 yet G» ynne was one of the greatest architects that this or any other country 

 had ever produced ; the book Mr. D'Israeli brought was the work of that 

 illustrious architect, called " London and Westminster Improved," 1761 or 1763. 

 Every public improvement that had been made in London or Westminster, 

 during the last thirty years, was down in that book, with this especial 

 difference, that Gwynne's designs are infinitely better, exhibited greater taste, 

 elegance, judgment, imagination, and resources than the works actually 

 carried inio execution. For instance, a bridge was suggested in the very 

 place where Waterloo Bridge now stands, under the name of " George the 

 Third's Bridge," with approaches on each side the Thames, infinitely finer 

 than those erected. Regent-street appears under the name, I think, of 

 " Great George-street," with elevations much superior to those actually 

 existing — the bold cornice, the stone balcony, the harmony of parts, the 

 solidity, in fine, which all our streets want, were there to be found sketched, 

 giving a new character to London as it then existed. But that great man, 

 whose talents were appreciated by Edmund Burke, Dr. Johnson, and the 

 great men of the Literary Club formed by the great lexicographer, had the 

 misfortune to be born forty years too soon. The times were not germane to 

 his labours; public taste, from want of education, was not ripe; and his 

 work, which deserved immortality, and would have obtained it in a better 

 age, fell, still-born, from the press. His name would almost have been lost, 

 had it not been kept alive by a reference to him made by Boswell in his Life 

 of Dr. Johnson. But to return to the improvements of our " dear native 

 city." Liverpool— for, though not a city in liw. she was a city in fart,— he 

 (Mr. R.) entirely concurred with his friend Mr. Holme, in all the observations 

 made in his very excellent lecture ; but he must confess that when he came 

 down to the bottom of South Castle-street, he was much disappointed and 

 surprised to see him make a back somerset, as it were, and avoid all mention 

 of the New Custom-house. He (Mr. R ) never looked upon that building but 

 with sorrow and disappointment — sorrow, that that erection completed the 

 destruction of the finest inner harbour formed by nature in the kingdom 

 (and in this he was confirmed by the opinion of the greatest engineer now 

 living, whose name was another name for science in civil engineering), and 

 disappointment, that so noble an opportunity of displaying architectural 

 genius had been thrown away, by the erection of a building whose compo- 

 sition was full of bad architectuial grammar, and whose vastness and solidity 

 alone relieved it from absolute contempt. It was faulty in composition and 

 in position, and its bad material excited the amazement of every one who 

 knew that the vigilant jealousy of government was generally exercised with 

 reference to the materials wherewith every specimen of architecture, civil or 

 naval, was constructed. Look (said Mr. R.) at the basements of the columns. 

 No geologist, deserving the name, would consider such material ston, , but 

 rather a conglomerate of sandstone in its primitive formation, full of cracks, 

 and threatening to fall to pieces: the columns in ten pieces, instead of two. 

 The joints will be the first part ot the building to decay : posterity will have 

 to replace them sooner than the present generation imagine. Walking round, 

 you may almost thrust your thumb into holes filled up with clay and rosin! 

 Alas! all this arose from irresponsibility, and the absence of competition. 

 It was a bad thing for the architect himself. His (Mr. It's.) friend. Charles 

 Barry, competed with all the rising talent of Britain both for the Houses of 

 Parliament and the Reform Club-house,— the finest private palace, for its 

 purpose, perhaps in Europe. To return to the Custom-house. In point of 

 composition — the utter want of distribution of light in the rooms and corri- 

 dors produced a " darkness visible," which, independently of its perpetual 

 inconvenience in a place where so prodigious an amount of business is trans- 

 acted, gave the whole the appearance of the gloomy chambers leading to the 

 catacombs of the dead. Indeed, said Mr. R., I have long denominated it 

 " The Tomb " of the inner harbour of the port of Liverpool. Mr. R. proceeded 

 to say, — " I speak this in sorrow ; but just censure is the tax which all public 

 servants must pay, especially that portion of them who have been largely 

 endowed by the public press, and ha\e not returned their money's worth in 

 public service." But he wou'd now turn to a more pleasing subject. He 

 begged to congratulate the society ou the prospects before them. Liverpool 

 had at length obtained the aid of an atchitect, whose talents were of a high 

 order. He hail been recently introduced to him in London — was delighted 

 with his designs, and pleased to find him so young a man. Liverpool had 

 nothing, as yet, but her docks to exhibit to the stranger : those would pass 

 muster with the greatest engineers. But they had now to look forward to 

 the erection of a Place (as the French called it) that would firm the capital 

 of the city, containing a street and courts of justice of surpassing beauty. 

 That would be the era from which posterity would date the commencement 

 of an architectural style worthy of the second commercial city in the empire, 

 and, consequently, in the world ; and he felt justly proud, encouraged, and 

 animated by the approaching triumph. 



