William Atkinson (architect) - Other Interests

Other Interests

Besides architecture, Atkinson's great interests were chemistry, geology, and particularly botany. He combined the first two when, about 1810, he successfully introduced to the London market a Roman cement, known as Atkinson's cement, which could be used either externally or internally as stucco or rendering. Its significant ingredient, calcareous clay, he extracted from land in north Yorkshire belonging to the 1st Earl of Mulgrave, for whom he had recently remodelled Mulgrave Castle, near Whitby; he then shipped the clay to Westminster, where he owned a wharf. Lord Mulgrave, at that time master-general of the ordnance, was instrumental in Atkinson's succeeding James Wyatt, on 1 October 1813, as architect to the Board of Ordnance, a post he retained until his department was abolished on 1 January 1829.

Atkinson indulged his passion for horticulture by often planting rare species, for example in the gardens of the villa which he built for himself about 1818 at Grove End in Paddington and, later, in the 170-acre (0.69 km2) estate he purchased about 1830 at Silvermere, near Cobham, Surrey, where he also built himself a house. It was here that he died on 22 May 1839, aged sixty-six. He was buried at nearby Walton-on-Thames. During his career he had attracted numerous pupils, including Thomas Allason, Robert Richardson Banks, Peter Hubert Desvignes, Matthew Habershon, John Burgess Watson, and his nephew Thomas Tredgold. The younger of his two sons, Henry George Atkinson, also became an architect.