John Soane - Pupils and Assistants

Pupils and Assistants

From 1784 Soane took a new pupil on roughly ever other year, these were:: J. Adams, George Bailey, George Basevi, S. Burchell, H. Burgess, J. Buxton, Robert Dennis Chantrell, Thomas Chawner, F. Copland, E. Davis, E. Foxall, J.H. Good, Thomas Jeans, David Laing, C. Malton, John McDonnell, A.P. Mee, Frederick Meyer, David Mocatta, Henry Parke, C.E. Papendick, David Richardson, W.E. Rolfe, John Sanders his first pupil taken on 1 September 1784, H.H. Seward, Thomas Sword, B.J. Storace, Charles Tyrrell and Thomas Williams. His most famous and successful pupil was Sir Robert Smirke, though thanks to a personality clash with Soane, Smirke stayed less than a year.

His main assistants that he employed at various times were: Joseph Gandy who prepared many of the perspective drawings of Soane's designs, Christopher Ebdon, J.W. Hiort, G.E. Ives, William Lodder, R. Morrison, D. Paton, George Allen Underwood and George Wightwick (also Soane's final pupil).

The office routine for both assistants and pupils was in summer to work from seven in the morning to seven at night Monday to Saturday and in winter eight to eight, often assistants and pupils would be sent out to supervise building work on site. Students would be given time off to study at the Royal Academy and for holidays. The Students' room at the museum still exists, it is a mezzanine at the rear of the building, lined with two long wooden benches with stools, surrounded by plastercasts of classical architectural details and lit by a long skylight. The students were trained in surveying, measuring, costing, superintendence and draftsmanship, normally a student stayed for five to seven years.

As an example Robert Dennis Chantrell's indentures were signed on 14 January 1807 just after he was fourteen (a typical age to join the office), his apprenticeship was to last for seven years, at a cost of one hundred Guineas (early in Soane's career he charged £50 and this grew to 175 guineas), Soane would provide 'board, lodgings and wearing apparel'; Chantrell only arrived in the office on the 15 June 1807. It was normal to serve a probationary period of a few weeks.

In 1788 Soane defined the professional responsibility of an architect:

The business of the architect is to make the designs and estimates, to direct the works and to measure and value the different parts; he is the intermediate agent between the employer, whose honour and interest he is to study, and the mechanic, whose rights he is to defend. His situation implies great trust; he is responsible for the mistakes, negligences, and ignorances of those he employs; and above all, he is to take care that the workmen's bills do not exceed his own estimates. If these are the duties of an architect, with what propriety can his situation and that of the builder, or the contractor be united?