Editing Nicholas Hawksmoor (section)

==Life==
[[File:King William's Block.jpg|thumb|King William Block (1699–1702), Greenwich Hospital, west facade.]]
[[File:EastonNestonfromVitruviusBritannicus edited.jpg|thumb|Easton Neston House, Northamptonshire (c.1695–1710); the flanking, secondary wings and [[cupola]] were never built]]
[[File:Clarendon Building, Oxford, England - May 2010.jpg|thumb|Clarendon Building (1712–13), Oxford, south front.]]
[[File:London_Westminster_Abbey_P1130951.jpg|thumb|The west towers of Westminster Abbey]]

Hawksmoor was born in [[Nottinghamshire]] in 1661, into a [[yeoman]] farming family, almost certainly in [[East Drayton]] or [[Ragnall]], Nottinghamshire.{{sfn|p=1|Downes|1979}} On his death he was to leave property at nearby [[Ragnall]], [[Dunham, Nottinghamshire|Dunham]] and a house and land at Great Drayton. It is not known where he received his schooling, but it was probably in more than basic literacy. [[George Vertue]], whose family had property in Hawksmoor's part of Nottinghamshire, wrote in 1731 that he was taken as a youth to act as clerk by "Justice Mellust in Yorkshire, where Mr Gouge senior did some fretwork ceilings afterwards Mr. Haukesmore {{sic}} came to London, became clerk to Sr. Christopher Wren & thence became an Architect".{{sfn|p=1|Downes|1979}}

=== Apprenticeship ===
[[Christopher Wren]], hearing of his "early skill and genius" for architecture, took him on as his clerk at about the age of 18. A surviving early sketch-book contains sketches and notes, some dated 1680 and 1683, of buildings in [[Nottingham]], [[Coventry]], [[Warwick]], [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]], Bristol, [[Oxford]] and [[Northampton]].{{sfn|p=2|Downes|1979}} These somewhat amateur drawings, now in the [[Royal Institute of British Architects]] Drawings Collection, show that he was still learning the techniques of his new profession at the age of 22. His first official post was as Deputy Surveyor to Wren at [[King's House, Winchester|Winchester Palace]] from 1683 until February 1685.{{sfn|p=1|Downes|1979}} Hawksmoor's signature appears on a brickmaker's contract for Winchester Palace in November 1684.{{sfn|p=2|Downes|1979}} Wren was paying him 2 shillings a day in 1685 as assistant in his office in [[Whitehall]].{{sfn|p=2|Downes|1979}}

From about 1684 to about 1700, Hawksmoor worked with Wren on projects including [[Chelsea Hospital]], [[St Paul's Cathedral]], [[Hampton Court Palace]] and [[Greenwich Hospital (London)|Greenwich Hospital]]. Thanks to Wren's influence as Surveyor-General, Hawksmoor was named Clerk of the Works at [[Kensington Palace]] (1689) and Deputy Surveyor of Works at [[Greenwich]] (1705). In 1718, when Wren was superseded by the new, amateur Surveyor, [[William Benson (architect)|William Benson]], Hawksmoor was deprived of his double post to provide places for Benson's brother. "Poor Hawksmoor," wrote Vanbrugh in 1721. "What a Barbarous Age have his fine, ingenious Parts fallen into. What wou'd Monsr: [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert|Colbert]] in France have given for such a man?"{{sfn|p=98|Downes|1979}} Only in 1726 after Benson's successor [[Thomas Hewet]] died, was Hawksmoor restored to the secretaryship, though not the clerkship which was given to [[Henry Flitcroft]]. In 1696, Hawksmoor was appointed surveyor to the [[Westminster and Middlesex Commission of Sewers]], but was dismissed in 1700, having neglected to attend the Court several days last past.{{Citation needed|reason=If this is a quote it needs citing|date=February 2025}}

==== Maturity ====
In 1702, Hawksmoor designed the baroque country house of [[Easton Neston house|Easton Neston]] in [[Northamptonshire]] for Sir [[William Fermor, 1st Baron Leominster|William Fermor]]. This was the only [[country house]] for which he was the sole architect, though he extensively remodelled [[Ockham Park|Ockham House]], now mostly destroyed, for the [[Lord Chancellor]] [[Peter King, 1st Baron King]]. Easton Neston was not completed as he intended, the symmetrical flanking wings and entrance colonnade remaining unexecuted.

He then worked for a time with Sir [[John Vanbrugh]], assisting him on the building [[Blenheim Palace]] for [[John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough]], where he took charge from 1705, after Vanbrugh's final break with the demanding [[Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough]], and [[Castle Howard]] for [[Charles Howard 3rd Earl of Carlisle|Charles Howard]], later the 3rd Earl of Carlisle. In July 1721, John Vanbrugh made Hawksmoor his deputy as Comptroller of the Works. There is no doubt that Hawksmoor brought to the brilliant amateur the professional grounding he had received from Wren, but it is also arguable that Wren's architectural development was from the persuasion of his formal pupil, Hawksmoor.

By 1700  Hawksmoor had emerged as a major architectural personality, and in the next 20 years he proved himself to be one of the great masters of the English Baroque. His baroque, but somewhat classical and [[Gothic architecture|gothic architectural]] form was derived from his exploration of [[Classical antiquity|antiquity]], the [[Renaissance architecture|Renaissance]], the English [[Middle Ages]] and contemporary [[Italian baroque]]. Unlike many of his wealthier contemporaries, Hawksmoor never travelled to Italy on a [[Grand Tour]], where he might have been influenced by the style of architecture there. Instead he studied engravings especially monuments of [[ancient Rome]] and reconstructions of the [[Temple of Solomon]].

=== Work at Oxford and Cambridge ===
As he neared the age of 50, Hawksmoor began to produce work for the universities of [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] and [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]]. In 1713 he was commissioned to complete [[King's College, Cambridge]]:{{sfn|pp=23 to 27|Doig|1979}} the scheme consisted of a Fellows' Building along [[King's Parade]], and opposite the Chapel a monumental range of buildings containing the Great Hall, kitchens and to the south of that the library and Provost's Lodge. Plans and wooden models for the scheme survive, but it proved too expensive and Hawksmoor produced a second scaled down design. But the college that had invested heavily in the [[South Sea Company]] lost their money when the "bubble" burst in 1720. As a result, Hawksmoor's scheme was never executed; instead, the college was developed later in the 18th century by [[James Gibbs]] and early in the 19th century by [[William Wilkins (architect)|William Wilkins]]. In the 1690s, Hawksmoor gave proposals for the library of [[The Queen's College, Oxford]]. However like many of his proposals for both universities, such as [[All Souls College, Oxford]], the [[Radcliffe Library]], [[Brasenose College, Oxford]], [[Magdalen College, Oxford]], the library was not executed.

Hawksmoor conceived grand rebuilding schemes for central [[Oxford]], most of which were not realised. Surviving drawings from c.1713 propose the rebuilding of the central core of the academic area of Oxford as a ''Forum Universitatis''.{{sfn|Tyack|1998|p=168}} The concept for a domed circular library sitting within an open square for the Radcliffe Camera was initially Hawksmoor's, but the commission for the building eventually went to [[James Gibbs]], due to Hawksmoor's untimely death. He designed the [[Clarendon Building]] at Oxford; the [[Codrington Library]] and new buildings at All Souls College, Oxford; parts of [[Worcester College, Oxford]] with Sir [[George Clarke]]; the [[High Street, Oxford|High Street]] screen at The Queen's College, Oxford and six new churches in London. Hawksmoor was initiated into [[freemasonry]] in 1730 at the Oxford Arms in [[Ludgate Street]], City of London, a lodge belonging to the [[Premier Grand Lodge of England]].{{sfn|Berman|2010|p=140}}