Career
Richard Cromwell Carpenter was a member of the Cambridge Movement — a group of Tractarians devoted to the return of medieval forms of liturgy and church building within the Church of England. Thus, Carpenter championed the move away from the more classical Palladian-influenced architecture of the 18th century and early 19th century towards the Gothic style which was to typify the Victorian period.
He was educated at Charterhouse School and then articled to the architect John Blyth. He soon became enthusiastic about Gothic architecture and was, possibly when only aged nineteen, commissioned to draw up plans for a large church in Islington by the Revd Thomas Mortimer. The intended site was however used for an Irvingite chapel, and the first church that Carpenter built was St Stephen, Birmingham, in around 1841, At about this time he became a member of the tractarian Cambridge Camden Society (soon to become the Ecclesiological Society) to which he was introduced by Pugin. His next major commission, also in Birmingham, was the church of St Andrew.(1844).
Two of Carpenter's most important buildings were the schools commissioned by Nathaniel Woodard at Lancing and Hurstpierpoint. He began drawing up the plans for Lancing College in 1848, although construction did not begin until 1854. Ian Nairn wrote that the school's lower quadrangle "shows Carpenter's quiet virtues to perfection". The present spectacular chapel was begun by his son Richard Herbert Carpenter in 1868. Construction of the less grandiose College at Hurstpierpoint began earlier, in 1851.
Carpenter was consulting architect to Chichester Cathedral, carrying out restorations there, and at Sherborne Abbey and many smaller churches. He also held the post of district surveyor for East Islington.
He was described by Charles Locke Eastlake as "foremost among professional designers for his accurate knowledge of ancient work, his inventive power, and his refined treatment of decorative details."
He died shortly after submitting grandiose plans for the new Inverness Cathedral; as a consequence his plan was not executed.
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