Life and Architectural Work
Little is known of his life. In 1723, he was paid for a design for Holy Trinity Church, Leeds which was never executed, and his book Practical Architecture (1724) was dedicated to Yorkshire landowner and Member of Parliament Sir Thomas Frankland. The Art of Sound Building (1725) was dedicated to the Parliamentary official Sir Andrew Fountaine, and in 1726 he submitted a design for a bridge across the River Thames at Fulham. Batty Langley mentions him in his book Ancient Masonry (1736) as "Mr William Halfpenny, alias Hoare, lately of Richmond in Surrey, carpenter."
Halfpenny worked for a time in Ireland, in 1732 designing a horse barracks in Hillsborough, County Down, for Lord Hillsborough, and in 1737 Garrahunden House, later demolished, near Bagenalstown, County Carlow, for Sir Richard Butler. In 1739 he made designs for buildings in Waterford and Cork.
Most of Halfpenny's buildings, including several that may have been designed by him or his contemporaries, are or were located in and around Bristol, where he was probably based from about 1730 (his Perspective Made Easy, published in 1731, contains various views of the city). The Coopers' Hall, King Street, built from his designs in 1743-4, is the most notable and the only surviving building in the area which can positively be identified as his work. The coopers relinquished it in 1785, and it was later used as assembly rooms, warehouses and a Baptist chapel. Since 1972, the ground floor has formed the main entrance to the Bristol Old Vic theatre, and the upper floors house various theatre facilities.
Only one other work which can be positively identified as Halfpenny's and of which traces survive is a "Chinese" bridge built for Lord Deerhurst (later the sixth Earl of Coventry) at Croome Park, Worcestershire in 1747-48. Archaeology students at the University of Worcester uncovered the substantial stone foundations of the bridge in summer 2009, and the National Trust intends to create a replica of the bridge, using Halfpenny's drawing, as part of a plan to recreate Capability Brown's original landscape.
He died in debt in 1755.
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