John Alfred Gotch

John Alfred Gotch
Born(1852-09-28)28 September 1852
Kettering, Northamptonshire
Died17 January 1942(1942-01-17) (aged 89)
Kettering, Northamptonshire
NationalityEnglish
Alma materUniversity of Zurich
King's College London
OccupationArchitect
BuildingsKettering Grammar School, Rothwell Market House

John Alfred Gotch (28 September 1852, Kettering, Northamptonshire – 17 January 1942, Kettering, Northamptonshire)[1][2][3] was a noted English architect and architectural historian. His brother was the Pre-Raphaelite painter and illustrator Thomas Cooper Gotch, who painted his portrait. Married to Annie Gotch, one of their sons, Roby Myddleton Gotch was killed in action during the First World War aged 26.[4]

John Gotch attended Kettering Grammar School and later studied at the University of Zürich and at King's College London.[5]

In 1879 Gotch set up a private architectural practice in Kettering which developed into Gotch & Saunders by entering into partnership with Charles Saunders in 1887. They were later joined by Henry Ralph Surridge and they jointly retired in 1938. The practice still exists as Gotch, Saunders & Surridge LLP, or GSSArchitecture.[6]

In Kettering, Gotch was responsible for the design and construction of shoe factories, warehouses, houses, shops, offices, banks, hospitals, schools, public houses, sports venues, entertainment venues and a temperance hall.[6] The Practice was also responsible for the design of several First World War memorials, and the alteration and expansion of numerous historic country houses, for example, Madingley Hall, now the Institute of Continuing Education, part of the University of Cambridge.[7] Following the end of the War, Gotch's practice designed and built over 140 branches of Midland Bank[6] and, in association with Edwin Lutyens, Gotch designed the interior of the Bank's former headquarters in Poultry, London which is considered an Art Deco icon.[8] The building is now owned by Soho House and was opened as The Ned in 2017.[9]

As well as designing many buildings Gotch had an interest in Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture. He was the author of nine books in this field (two of which were reissued), as well as editor of a book on the history of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).[10] In her dissertation for the Courtauld Institute of Art in the 1930s the art historian Margaret Whinney questioned an earlier assertion made by Gotch in 1912 regarding the reassignment of drawings from Inigo Jones, who Gotch wrote on extensively, to John Webb. ’While Whinney agreed that the drawing was not Jones', she proved, using new evidence, that the Webb sketches had come from original designs by Jones’.[11]

Apart from his renown as an architectural historian, he also achieved eminence as a public figure and representative of the architectural profession.

He was president of the Architectural Association in 1886-1887, vice-president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1914-1919, and president of RIBA in 1923-1925: the first provincial architect to be appointed president since the formation of the institute in 1834. In addition, he was vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries, a founder member of the Royal Fine Art Commission, a Trustee of the Soane Museum, and president of the Northamptonshire Association of Architects in 1911-1922. In 1924 he received an honorary M.A. degree from the University of Oxford. John Alfred Gotch was appointed the first Charter Mayor of Kettering in 1938.[12] In 2018 a blue plaque in honour of the architect, often cited as 'the man who built Kettering', was unveiled on the former Midland Bank building that he designed in Kettering High Street.[13][14]

RIBA has an archive of Gotch’s sketchbooks, topographical drawings and manuscripts whilst further correspondence is held by Northamptonshire Record Office.[15] Historic England hold a series of negatives taken by Gotch[16] and photographs, donated by him, are also held in the Conway Library whose archive of architectural images is in the process of being digitised as part of the wider Courtauld Connects project.[17]

  1. ^ "John Alfred Gotch". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  2. ^ "Search Results for England & Wales Births 1837-2006".
  3. ^ "Search Results for England & Wales Deaths 1837-2007".
  4. ^ "Roby Myddleton GOTCH". www.masonicgreatwarproject.org.uk. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  5. ^ "Memorial for prominent Kettering architect to be unveiled in town-centre". Northamptonshire Telegraph. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  6. ^ a b c "History". GSS Architecture. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  7. ^ "Madingley Hall, Cambridgeshire, extensively restored and reconstructed to designs by J. A. Gotch, 1906-10". www.victorianweb.org. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  8. ^ "Aplo". A PLACE | LESS ORDINARY. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  9. ^ "The History of the Ned". One City London. 3 April 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  10. ^ The Growth and Work of the Royal Institute of British Architects edited by J.A.Gotch PPRIBA, 1934.
    This publication was of particular note firstly because it was published on the occasion of the centenary of the RIBA, and secondly because it came at a time of controversy over the registration of architects. Those concerns were conveniently summarised by one of the contributors, Harry Barnes FRIBA, then chairman of the Registration Committee, who wrote:
    ...... I do not conceive the purpose of the Registration Act to be that of protecting the Architectural profession. The interests of the Profession are of course legitimate but are best served by the Architectural Associations in which some 80 per cent of those practising architecture are to be found.
    The object of the Registration Act is to ensure to the public that the architects they employ possess capacity and character.
    Under the purview of the Board of Architectural Education no one will enjoy the title of "Registered Architect" without giving evidence of his capacity, and under that of the Discipline Committee no one will retain the title whose character has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
    The Architects' Registration Council of the United Kingdom can never, therefore, on this view be a rival of any Architectural Association and least of all of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
    The Architects' Registration Council stands at the gateway of the realm of Architectural practice, but within that realm the affairs of the Architect are best administered by those voluntary Associations to which he has allied himself and over the actions of which he has complete control.
  11. ^ admin (21 February 2018). "Whinney, Margaret". Carter, Miranda. Anthony Blunt: His Lives. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2001, p. 216; [obituary:] Summerson, John. "Margaret Whinney." Burlington Magazine 117, no. 872 (November 1975): 731-732; Summerson, John. "Margaret Dickens Whinney, 1894-1975." Proceedings of the British Academy 68 (1982): 637-642; Blunt, Anthony. "Dr Margaret Whinney Service to the Courtauld Institute of Art." The Times (London) September 5, 1975, p. 16. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  12. ^ GSS news - The Life and Works of John Alfred Gotch, by Dr Roy Hargrave, held at Kettering Town Library.
  13. ^ "KCS Blue Plaques". www.ketteringcivicsociety.net. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  14. ^ "Kettering Civic Society". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  15. ^ Archives, The National. "The Discovery Service". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  16. ^ "Series of negatives by J A Gotch (GOT01/01) Archive Series - John Alfred Gotch Collection | Historic England". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  17. ^ "Who made the Conway Library?". Digital Media. 30 June 2020. Archived from the original on 3 July 2020. Retrieved 6 January 2021.