Early Career
Born in Newton Abbot, Devon, Matcham's father was a brewery clerk, and he was raised in Torquay, where he attended Babbacombe school. In 1868, he was apprenticed to a local surveyor and architect, George Sondon Bridgeman. He moved to London and joined the architectural practice of Jethro Robinson, consulting theatre architect to the Lord Chamberlain's office. In 1877 Matcham married Robinson's youngest daughter, Effie, and only a year later his father-in-law died and he found himself in charge of the practice, at the age of 24. Frank Matcham received no formal training as an architect, but learnt the practicalities on the job.
His first solo commission was to complete Robinson's designs of the Elephant and Castle theatre (opened June 1879).
Read more about this topic: Frank Matcham
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)