John Dobson (architect) - Early History

Early History

Dobson was born on 9 December 1787 in High Chirton, North Shields, in the building that is now The Pineapple Inn. He was the son of an affluent market gardener, and young Dobson was educated in Newcastle. As a young child he had an exceptional gift for drawing. Aged 11, he executed designs for a local damask weaver. At the age of 15, he was placed as a pupil with David Stephenson, the leading architect-builder in Newcastle, designer of All Saints Church and the Theatre Royal that stood in Mosley Street. In 1810, aged 23, Dobson completed his studies. He then decided to go to London to study art and became a pupil of John Varley the watercolourist. He was strongly encouraged by friends to stay and work in London, but by 1811 he was back in Newcastle and assisting Sir Charles Monck to design Belsay Hall. Monck was a passionate devotee of Grecian art and architecture, and it is thought that it was he who strongly influenced Dobson to adopt that style of architecture in so many of his future works. At that time, apart from Ignatius Bonomi in County Durham, he was the only practising architect between York and Edinburgh. It is not known beyond doubt what was Dobson’s first building, but Dobson’s daughter maintained that it was North Seaton Hall, near Ashington, built in 1813 and demolished in 1960.

Dobson married Isabella, eldest daughter of Alexander Rutherford of Warburton House, Gateshead, a lady of great artistic talent, being an excellent painter of miniatures. They had three sons and five daughters. His youngest son, Alexander, inherited his father’s artistic genius, gaining first prize in architecture at University College. He had just returned to his father’s office full of enthusiasm to work when he was killed in the great explosion on Gateshead quayside on 4 October 1854.

Read more about this topic:  John Dobson (architect)

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or history:

    Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.
    C. John Sommerville (20th century)

    History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
    In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
    Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
    Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)