sir reginald blomfield·1856 - 1942

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Reginald Theodore Blomfield was born on 20 December 1856 at Nymet Tracey in Devonshire. His father was rector of the parish. Reginald was educated at Haileybury and at Exeter College, Oxford. In 1881 he started training as an architect in the office of his uncle, Sir Arthur Blomfield. A year later he was admitted as a student of architecture at the Royal Academy.

“ His plans for remodelling John Nash's Carlton Gardens led to a debate in the House of Commons and his resignation from the Royal Fine Art Commission”

In 1883 he set up on his own as an architect and became one of the early members of the Art Workers Guild. He struck up friendships with Norman Shaw, Edwin Lutyens, D S MacColl and William Morris and became deeply involved with the Arts and Crafts movement. In 1892 he published The Formal Garden in England. In 1900 he published a Short History of Renaissance Architecture in England and in response to the Boer War joined the Inns of Court Mounted Infantry.

In 1907 he was appointed Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy and became a pivotal figure in the transition from apprentices being trained in architects' offices to learning their trade within a degree course at Universities. At his inaugural lectures he praised English Classicism and damned the Gothic Revival. As Charles Reilly subsequently noted, the architectural teaching in the early days at Liverpool University ‘was largely based on Sir Reginald's. His books became text-books for professors and students alike.'

In 1907-08 Blomfield added a block to Goldsmith's College, Lewisham Way, London. From 1910 onwards he carried out extensive restoration work at Chequers for Sir Arthur Lee. He published his History of French Architecture in 1911. He was elected President of the RIBA in 1912, was awarded their Royal Gold Medal in 1913 and elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1914. Upon the outbreak of the Great War he ‘did his bit' with the Inns of Court by digging trenches all over London in the company of some of the most distinguished legal minds of the British Empire. (The Inns of Court traces its origins back to 1588.) He attained the rank of sergeant and became a stalwart of the Devil's Own Sergeants Club. In 1918 he was appointed one of the Principal Architects of the Imperial War Graves Commission and for the next nine years was heavily involved with the design of their cemeteries behind the Western Front. He designed the Cross of Sacrifice which stands in the Commission's cemeteries, the RAF Memorial on the Embankment, the memorials at Leeds, Luton and Torquay and the Memorial Chapel at Oundle School.

In 1919 he was sent by the War Office to Ypres to design a memorial intended initially to take 40,000 names of those who had no known grave. He chose the site of the Menin Gate and designed the memorial that would be the best known work of his career. The major difficulties involved with its erection were overcome with the help of the engineer Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice. The King of the Belgians honoured Blomfield for his design. The completion of this commission ended his time with the Commission. In December 1927 Sir Fabian Ware wrote to him: 'I think you will understand it, when I say that everybody working had wished, looking back on the past years, to send you a special message of gratitude for the great work that you have done for the Commission..... We are all deeply grateful to you, and very proud to have been associated with you'.

An energetic figure, Blomfield relished a good punch up and engaged in the architectural controversies of his day with gusto. His plans for remodelling John Nash's Carlton Gardens led to a debate in the House of Commons and his resignation from the Royal Fine Art Commission. He wrote: Memoirs of an Architect (1932), Modernismus (1934), Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1938) and Richard Norman Shaw (1940). He designed the façade of the Carlton Club in London and Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford. He was also responsible for remodelling Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus, although one doubts Nash would have approved the result. He designed Lambeth Bridge and St George's Memorial Church in Ypres. He died in 1942. A bronze portrait bust of him by Sir William Reid Dick is in the National Portrait Gallery and his portrait by Sir J J Shannon hangs in the South Room of the RIBA at 66 Portland Place, London.