20 Facts About Edward Hollamby

Edward Ernest Hollamby was an English architect, town planner, and architectural conservationist.

Edward Hollamby continued restoring Red House in his later life, opening it up to visitors and establishing the Friends of Red House non-profit organization in 1998.

Edward Hollamby was born at 6 Wellesley Avenue in Hammersmith, West London.

Edward Hollamby then gained a higher education by training in architecture at the nearby Hammersmith School of Arts and Crafts during the 1930s.

Edward Hollamby developed an interest in the Arts and Crafts movement and received encouragement from his lecturer, Alwyn Waters.

On 18 May 1941, he married Doris Isabel Parker, who worked as a clerk and who, like Edward Hollamby, was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Much like many architects of his generation, Edward Hollamby pursued a career in local authority offices.

Edward Hollamby first worked as an architect for the Miners' Welfare Commission from 1947 to 1949, in this position designing pithead baths and a colliery extension at Lofthouse, Yorkshire.

Edward Hollamby worked under Leslie Martin as a senior architect at the Architects' Department of the London County Council from 1949 to 1962.

Edward Hollamby was involved in the design and construction of several modernist, high-rise post-war housing estates, namely Bethnal Green's Avebury Estate and Kennington's Brandon Estate, personally securing a sculpture by Henry Moore for the latter.

Edward Hollamby became the borough architect for the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith, in January 1963, and then the borough architect for the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth.

Edward Hollamby rose to the position of the borough's director of architecture, planning and development, which he held from 1969 to 1981.

In 1970, Edward Hollamby was awarded an Order of the British Empire for his work in architecture.

Amid the growing neo-liberal, Thatcherite economic changes brought about under the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher, Edward Hollamby moved in 1981 to the London Docklands Development Corporation as its first director of Architecture and Planning until 1985 when he retired.

Edward Hollamby proposed a mix of redevelopment and conservation of existing buildings to create an urban design structure guide for the regeneration of the Isle of Dogs.

Edward Hollamby left the Communist Party following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Edward Hollamby remained committed to left-wing ideals and involved himself in a number of local socio-political groups, including the local branch of the Labour Party; Doris became a founding member of Bexley Civic Society.

Edward Hollamby authored two books on Red House; the first, Red House, Bexleyheath: The Home Of William Morris, was published by Phaidon Press in 1991 as part of its series on "Architecture in Detail", and the second was a short guide book for visitors co-written with Doris and published by the William Morris Society in 1993.

Edward Hollamby died of Myocardial infarction, brought about by heart disease, at Red House on 29 December 1999; he was the third owner to die while in residence.

Edward Hollamby's funeral was held on 21 January 2000 in Eltham, with a secular humanist service conducted by Barbara Smoker; the Friends of Red House took over the building's public openings.