sir herbert baker·1862 - 1946

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use the down arrow to view option ========================= link to further material not in books ========================= ---------- section b ---------- bacon, john [BWM] baily, edward hodges [BWM] baker, sir herbert [Rem] behnes, william [BWM] bell, john [BWM] belsky, franta [BWM] binyon, laurence [Rem] blomfield, sir reginald [Rem] blunden, edmund [Rem] boehm, sir edgar [BWM] brock, sir thomas [BWM] butler, james [BWM] burdett-coutts, william [Rem] burnet, sir john james [Rem] ========================= ---------- section c ---------- chantrey, sir francis [BWM] churchill, sir winston [Rem] cockerell, professor charles [BWM] comper, sir ninian [BWM] ========================= ---------- section d ---------- derwent wood, professor francis [Rem] dick, sir william reid [BWM] drury, alfred [BWM] ========================= ---------- section e ---------- epstein, sir jacob [BWM] ========================= ---------- section f ---------- flaxman, professor john [BWM] frampton, sir george [BWM] ========================= ---------- section g ---------- gill, eric [BWM] gleichen, count victor [BWM] goscombe john, sir william [BWM] gotto, captain basil [BWM] ========================= ---------- section h ---------- haig, field marshall earl douglas [Rem] hepworth, philip [Rem] holden, charles [Rem] hutton, john [Rem] ========================= ---------- section j ---------- jackson, philip [BWM] jagger, charles sargeant [Rem] jones, captain adrian [BWM] ========================= ---------- section k ---------- kennington, eric [BWM] kenyon, colonel sir frederic [Rem] kipling, joseph rudyard [Rem] ========================= ---------- section l ---------- lafontaine, colonel cart de [Rem] lantéri, professor édouard [BWM] ledward, professor gilbert [BWM] lewis, sir robert [Rem] lloyd george, earl dwyfor - om [Rem] lorimer, sir robert [Rem] lutyens, sir edwin - om [Rem] ========================= ---------- section m ---------- mackenall, sir bertram [BWM] mallock, vivien [BWM] marochetti, baron carlo [BWM] marsh, sir edward howard [Rem] maufe, sir edward [Rem] mcmillan, william [BWM] melchett, lord [Rem] millington, major tasman [Rem] mills, john w [BWM] mond, sir alfred [Rem] ========================= ---------- section n ---------- nash, john [BWM] nightingale, florence - om [Rem] ========================= ---------- section 0 ---------- orpen, sir william [Rem] owen, wilfred [Rem] ========================= ---------- section p ---------- pegram, henry alfred [BWM] poole, henry [Rem] ========================= ---------- section r ---------- reid dick, sir william [BWM] roberts-jones, ivor [BWM] rosenburg, isaac [Rem] ========================= ---------- section s ---------- sassoon, siegfried [Rem] shepheard, sir peter [Rem] singer sargent, john [Rem] soissons, louis de [Rem] spencer, sir stanley [BWM] ========================= ---------- section t ---------- thornycroft, sir (william) hamo [BWM] toft, albert [BWM] turner, alfred [BWM] tweed, john [BWM] ========================= ---------- section w ---------- wade, george [BWM] ware, major general sir fabian [Rem] webb, sir aston [BWM] westmacott, sir richard [BWM] wheeler, sir charles [BWM] winter, faith [BWM] wood, francis derwent [BWM] worthington, sir hubert [Rem]

Herbert Baker was born on 9 June 1862, at Owletts in Kent. His family had owned the house since 1794. He was the fourth child in a family of eleven. His parents were Thomas Henry Baker, JP and Frances Georgina Baker. His father was a landowner and farmer. Herbert was educated at Tonbridge School and the Royal Academy School of Architecture. Upon leaving school in 1881, he was apprenticed for three years to his cousin Arthur Baker in London. He then worked as senior assistant in the offices of Ernest George and Harold Peto, where he met young Edwin Lutyens. In 1890 he became an Associate of the RIBA, having been awarded the Ashpitel Prize for heading the examination lists the year before.

“He then worked as senior assistant in the offices of Ernest George and Harold Peto, where he met young Edwin Lutyens”

In 1891 he went to Capetown, South Africa in the hope of finding a favourable environment in which to practise all that he had learnt. He made the acquaintance of Cecil Rhodes who asked him to restore Groote Schuur - now the South African President's Cape Town residence. Rhodes was so pleased with the results, he paid Baker to tour the Mediterranean studying classical architecture. Baker also rebuilt Groote Schuur after it was destroyed by fire in 1896. Rhodes was not at home at the time, as he was busy organising Dr Leander Starr Jameson's disastrous invasion of the Transvaal.

After Rhodes' death in 1902 and shortly before the end of the South African War (1899-1902), Baker accepted Lord Milner's invitation to go to the Transvaal to help in the work of reconstruction. He designed many grand mansions in the northern suburb of Park Town in Johannesburg. In Bloemfontein he added the lofty tower to the cathedral and at Pretoria he built Government House. On a natural shelf further along the same ridge, he built with a graciously curved frontage, the Parliament Buildings. He also built in Pretoria the first portions of the Anglican cathedral in the Gothic style. In Rhodesia he built a granite cathedral at Salisbury, in Kenya he built Government House at Nairobi. He collaborated with Lutyens on the layout of New Delhi. There he designed the two Secretariat Buildings and the Legislative building. He fell out with Lutyens and returned to London in 1913 and established a practice in partnership with Alexander Thompson Scott.

In 1918 he was appointed one of the Principal Architects of the Imperial War Graves Commission. He also undertook the design of the national memorials at Neuve Chapelle for India and at Delville Wood for the Union of South Africa. He also designed the memorials at Harrow, Winchester, King's School Canterbury and Haileybury. Baker accommodated T E Lawrence in his house in Westminster whilst he wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom. After leaving the Commission, he designed the new Bank of England inside Sir John Soane's old curtain wall and recycled Soane's caryatids in the design of his rotunda there (completed 1939).

He designed India House, The Strand (1925), Rhodes House, South Parks Rd, Oxford (1929) as a memorial to Cecil Rhodes and permanent headquarters of the Rhodes Trustees. He designed the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge (1933), Church House, Westminster (1934) and the Royal Commonwealth Society building, Northumberland Avenue (1938). He was knighted in 1926 for services to art and was awarded the Royal Gold Medal of the RIBA in 1927 and elected to the Royal Academy in 1932. He designed South Africa House, Trafalgar Square in 1930. All of the furniture in the High Commission was designed by him and manufactured from stinkwood in Cape Town.

Baker loved Owletts. He presented it to the National Trust in 1937 and lived in it until his death. Gertrude Jekyll laid out the gardens. The birdbath was formed from the Corinthian capitals of the old Bank of England. In 1944 he published Architecture and Personalities, this book gave his own theory of his art. In later years he was stricken by illness. He died on 4 February 1946. His funeral took place at Westminster Abbey on 13 February and his ashes were buried there.

Baker's love for his profession can be found in the scholarships founded in his name both during and after his lifetime. A portrait of him by A K Lawrence hangs in the Bank of England, where there is also a marble bust by Sir Charles Wheeler. A bronze bust of him by Wheeler is at South Africa House, a copy of which is at Owletts. His portrait by Sir William Rothenstein may be seen in the National Portrait Gallery.