John Martin Robinson

Last updated

John Robinson in the procession to the annual service of the Order of the Garter John Robinson.jpg
John Robinson in the procession to the annual service of the Order of the Garter

John Martin Robinson FSA (born 1948) is a British architectural historian and officer of arms.

Contents

Biography

He was born in Preston, Lancashire, and educated at Fort Augustus Abbey, a Benedictine school in Scotland, the University of St Andrews (graduating Master of Arts, First Class Hons (Scotland) and awarded D.LITT in 2002) and then in 1970 arrived at Oriel College, Oxford, to prepare for a DPhil. The doctoral degree was awarded in 1974 for work on the architect Samuel Wyatt. [1] He worked for the Greater London Council 's Historic Buildings Division from 1974 [2] to 1986, where he worked inter alia as architectural editor of the Survey of London, and Historic Buildings Inspector for Westminster, and also revised the Statutory Lists of Historic Buildings for 2 east London boroughs. As an independent consultant since 1988 he has advised on the restoration of numerous country houses, churches and other listed buildings. His contribution to the Conservation Plan for 7 Dials and Covent Garden in London won the 1998 Camden Environmental Award. He also wrote the Conservation Plan for the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in association with Rick Mather Architects.

He has been an Architectural Writer for Country Life for 50 years contributing nearly 400 articles and reviews. As chairman of the Art and Architecture Committee of Westminster Cathedral he has overseen the completion of the mosaics in St George's and St Joseph's chapels, the Vaughan Chantrey and several individual panels.

Robinson was Fitzalan Pursuivant Extraordinary at the College of Arms from 1982 and is now Maltravers Herald Extraordinary. As an officer of arms he took part in the Proclamations of King Charles III, and the Lying in State, funeral at Westminster Abbey, and interment at Windsor of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, and the coronation of King Charles the III at Westminster Abbey in May 2023. In 1978 he was appointed Librarian to the Duke of Norfolk Earl Marshal. [3] [4]

Robinson is also a Knight of Magistral Grace of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and is Archivist and Genealogist of the British Association. He lives at Beckside House, Cumbria, and is an active member of the Georgian Group of which he was a trustee and vice-chairman for 20 years, acquiring their HQ Adam townhouse in Fitzroy Square, setting up the Casework committee, and instituting the Young Georgians, and founding and presiding over the Annual conservation Awards for 10 years from 2003 to 2013.

He served on the North West Regional Committee of the National Trust for 10 Years and is Heraldic Adviser to the National Trust. He was a trustee of the Lakeland Arts Trust for 25 years, and served on the Council of the Society of Antiquaries, the council of the National Records Association, and was a trustee of Burghley House for five years and is a trustee of Arundel Castle, and Wilton House. He was a founder member of the Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields and helped establish the music Festival there. His scholarly book on James Wyatt is the definitive treatment of the subject. His New Georgian Handbook, written jointly with Alexandra Artley of Harpers Magazine, was the architectural face of the Young Fogey movement and has become collectable.

Decorations: Diamond Gold and Platinum Jubilee Medals of Queen Elizabeth II, and Coronation Medal of King Charles III

Bibliography

Magazine articles

Arms

Coat of arms of John Martin Robinson
Arms of John Martin Robinson.svg
Crest
Within a coronet the finials of oak leaves and acorns or the head of a stag affronty vert attired or.
Escutcheon
Vert between two chevronels an acorn between two oak leaves stems inwards all between three stags trippant guardant or. [5]
Motto
In Utraque Fortuna Paratus

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas Hawksmoor</span> English architect

Nicholas Hawksmoor was an English architect. He was a leading figure of the English Baroque style of architecture in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Hawksmoor worked alongside the principal architects of the time, Christopher Wren and John Vanbrugh, and contributed to the design of some of the most notable buildings of the period, including St Paul's Cathedral, Wren's City of London churches, Greenwich Hospital, Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. Part of his work has been correctly attributed to him only relatively recently, and his influence has reached several poets and authors of the twentieth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edwin Lutyens</span> English architect (1869–1944)

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials and public buildings. In his biography, the writer Christopher Hussey wrote, "In his lifetime (Lutyens) was widely held to be our greatest architect since Wren if not, as many maintained, his superior". The architectural historian Gavin Stamp described him as "surely the greatest British architect of the twentieth century".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giles Gilbert Scott</span> English architect (1880–1960)

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was a British architect known for his work on the New Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Battersea Power Station, Liverpool Cathedral, and designing the iconic red telephone box.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Kent</span> English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century

William Kent was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but his real talent was for design in various media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chiswick House</span> Neo-Palladian villa in Chiswick, London

Chiswick House is a Neo-Palladian style villa in the Chiswick district of London, England. A "glorious" example of Neo-Palladian architecture in west London, the house was designed and built by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694–1753), and completed in 1729. The house and garden occupy 26.33 hectares. The garden was created mainly by the architect and landscape designer William Kent, and it is one of the earliest examples of the English landscape garden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inigo Jones</span> English architect (1573–1652)

Inigo Jones was the first significant architect in England in the early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings. As the most notable architect in England, Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to Britain. He left his mark on London by his design of single buildings, such as the Queen's House which is the first building in England designed in a pure classical style, and the Banqueting House, Whitehall, as well as the layout for Covent Garden square which became a model for future developments in the West End. He made major contributions to stage design by his work as a theatrical designer for several dozen masques, most by royal command and many in collaboration with Ben Jonson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Wyatt</span> English architect (1746 - 1813)

James Wyatt was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to 1806.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palladian architecture</span> Style of architecture derived from the Venetian Andrea Palladio

Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and the principles of formal classical architecture from ancient Greek and Roman traditions. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Palladio's interpretation of this classical architecture developed into the style known as Palladianism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English country house</span> Larger house or mansion estate in England, United Kingdom

An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country. However, the term also encompasses houses that were, and often still are, the full-time residence for the landed gentry who dominated rural Britain until the Reform Act 1832. Frequently, the formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses, having functional antecedents in manor houses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Digby Wyatt</span> British architect and art historian

Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt was a British architect and art historian who became Secretary of the Great Exhibition, Surveyor of the East India Company and the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge. From 1855 until 1859 he was honorary secretary of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and in 1866 received the Royal Gold Medal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tudor Revival architecture</span> Architectural style

Tudor Revival architecture, also known as mock Tudor in the UK, first manifested in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture, in reality it usually took the style of English vernacular architecture of the Middle Ages that had survived into the Tudor period.

Thomas Garner was one of the leading English Gothic revival architects of the Victorian era. He is known for his almost 30-year partnership with architect George Frederick Bodley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hubert Chesshyre</span> British officer of arms (1940–2020)

David Hubert Boothby Chesshyre was a British officer of arms.

"Young fogey" is a term humorously applied, in British context, to some younger-generation, rather buttoned-down men, many of whom were writers and journalists. The term is attributed to Alan Watkins writing in 1984 in The Spectator. However, the term "young-fogey conservative" was used by Larry Niven in Lucifer's Hammer and by Philip Roth in The Professor of Desire, both in 1977.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Keene (architect)</span> English architect

Henry Keene was an English architect, notable for designing buildings in the Gothic Revival and Neoclassical style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Watts & Co.</span> English architectural and interior design company

Watts & Co. is a prominent architecture and interior design company established in England in 1874. It is a survivor from the Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century: a firm founded in 1874 by three leading late-Victorian church architects – George Frederick Bodley, Thomas Garner and Gilbert Scott the younger – to produce furniture, textiles, stained glass windows, and needlework in a style distinctively their own. Today, the company is mainly known for its clerical vestments and textile church furnishings.

Gavin Mark Stamp was a British writer, television presenter and architectural historian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of Scotland</span>

The architecture of Scotland includes all human building within the modern borders of Scotland, from the Neolithic era to the present day. The earliest surviving houses go back around 9500 years, and the first villages 6000 years: Skara Brae on the Mainland of Orkney being the earliest preserved example in Europe. Crannogs, roundhouses, each built on an artificial island, date from the Bronze Age and stone buildings called Atlantic roundhouses and larger earthwork hill forts from the Iron Age. The arrival of the Romans from about 71 AD led to the creation of forts like that at Trimontium, and a continuous fortification between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde known as the Antonine Wall, built in the second century AD. Beyond Roman influence, there is evidence of wheelhouses and underground souterrains. After the departure of the Romans there were a series of nucleated hill forts, often utilising major geographical features, as at Dunadd and Dunbarton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Estate houses in Scotland</span>

Estate houses in Scotland or Scottish country houses, are large houses usually on landed estates in Scotland. They were built from the sixteenth century, after defensive castles began to be replaced by more comfortable residences for royalty, nobility and local lairds. The origins of Scottish estate houses are in aristocratic emulation of the extensive building and rebuilding of royal residences, beginning with Linlithgow, under the influence of Renaissance architecture. In the 1560s the unique Scottish style of the Scots baronial emerged, which combined features from medieval castles, tower houses, and peel towers with Renaissance plans, in houses designed primarily for residence rather than defence.

John Woody Papworth was an English architect, designer and antiquary. He is chiefly remembered for "Papworth's Ordinary" (1874), a reference guide to British and Irish coats of arms arranged systematically according to their design. G. D. Squibb commented in 1961 that "his memory rests more securely upon his Ordinary of British Armorials than upon any building for which he was responsible, though it is but fair to add that his professional achievements were not lightly regarded by his contemporaries".

References

  1. Robinson, John Martin (1 January 1974). Samuel Wyatt, architect (DPhil). University of Oxford.
  2. Merle Rubin (27 February 1985). "Tradition updated: Britain's grand new country houses; The Latest Country Houses, by John Martin Robinson, London: The Bodley Head (distributed by Merrimack Publisher's Circle, Salem, N.H.). 256 pp. $19.95". The Christian Science Monitor.
  3. John Ezard (26 June 2002). "Obituary: The Duke of Norfolk: As Britain's premier peer and senior Catholic layman, he led a spirited but quiet life". The Guardian.
  4. "Nothing second-rate or suburban about this man's book". Derby Evening Telegraph. 18 January 2007.
  5. Chesshyre, D. H. B.; Chesshyre, Hubert; Ailes, Adrian (1 January 2001). Heralds of Today: A Biographical List of the Officers of the College of Arms, London, 1987-2001. Illuminata. ISBN   9780953784516.