31 Facts About Jacob Owen

Jacob Owen contributed extensively to the shaping of public architecture throughout Ireland, through his design of schools, asylums, prisons and other public buildings associated with British rule.

Architectural historian Frederick O'Dwyer suggests that through Bush's military connections, Jacob Owen made the next important move in his career to the Royal Engineers department in the Board of Ordnance where, in 1805, he was appointed to the role of full clerk of works.

Jacob Owen is known to have collaborated with James Adams on the design of St Paul's School, Southsea, in 1825.

Jacob Owen was actively involved in the Church Building Commission from the 1820s, both as an architect and as a committee member of the Hampshire branch.

Jacob Owen proved himself a industrious and capable leader in his appointment to the newly formed board of Public Works in Ireland.

Burgoyne reflected in 1835 that Jacob Owen was 'the most able man for the situation I ever met in my life.

For much of his career, Jacob Owen had maintained a private architectural practice.

Jacob Owen continued to pick up independent private commissions and work from other Crown departments for his first fourteen years in Ireland, thus expanding his mark on the landscape of civic architecture in Ireland.

However, the increased pressure on the Board's architectural staff, which had led Jacob Owen to commission outside architects for some of the Board's major building projects, was a more immediate factor in play.

Jacob Owen tendered for these blocks, but the plans soon became mired in controversy.

Jacob Owen was a polarising figure, making contemporary assessments of his personality hard to reconcile.

Jacob Owen became an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1838.

Jacob Owen wielded his power in Irish public life with determined political calculation.

The year before Joseph Butterworth Jacob Owen wrote in support of the suspension of habeas corpus for Fenians.

Jacob Owen was raised in the Anglican faith, his father having acted for a time as churchwarden at St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, and later in life he became a committed Wesleyan Methodist.

In spite of the Plan of Pacification in 1795, which many scholars see as marking the formal separation of Methodists from the Church of England, Jacob Owen seems to have cleaved to Wesley's earlier belief that Methodists should remain within the Anglican church.

In 1864, he founded the Irish Civil Service Building Society with his son James Higgins Jacob Owen, and continued to play an active role in the RIAI.

Jacob Owen died in 1870 at Toll End, Staffordshire, home of his daughter and her physician husband.

Jacob Owen's lasting connection to Ireland was signalled by the choice of his burial place at Mount Jerome Cemetery.

Jacob Owen was responsible for major extensions to Aras an Uachtarain in the 1840s and 1850s when it served as the Vice Regal Lodge.

Jacob Owen collaborated on the surrounding grounds of Phoenix Park with Decimus Burton.

Jacob Owen's design, providing asylum treatment for 80 men and 60 women, was built between 1847 and 1851.

Jacob Owen had previous experience in prison design working with Joshua Jebb on Mountjoy Convict Prison, Dundrum.

Markus Reuber notes that Jacob Owen's design was 'proof of the maturity of the Irish asylum planners' in the 1850s.

Jacob Owen created the State Drawing Room out of a series of smaller late 17th-century State Apartments which had previously been modified by Jones-Nevill in the 18th century.

Jacob Owen combined three of these rooms to form the new seven-bay State Drawing Room with a screen of Corinthian columns at the eastern end.

Jacob Owen contributed to the Castle with his design of the coach-house, completed in 1834; the Cavalry Guard House ; modernisation of the Treasury building ; the Constabulary Barracks ; and an extension to the Chief Secretary's Office.

Two years later, at the northern edge of the central axis, Jacob Owen designed a Greek revival facade which occupies the rear part of the solicitors' hall and coffee room.

In 1858, Jacob Owen began work to replace the Encumbered Estates Court with a new Landed Estates Court in the Four Courts complex.

Jacob Owen's original building design, executed over 1840 to 1842, consisted of three two storey ranges that centred on the central parade ground.

Jacob Owen largely preserved the original 1770 mansion townhouse designed by Richard Cassels, and designed a facsimile of the Georgian building adjacent to the original.