75 Facts About John Soane

Sir John Soane was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style.

John Soane designed Dulwich Picture Gallery, which, with its top-lit galleries, was a major influence on the planning of subsequent art galleries and museums.

John Soane was the second surviving son of John Soan and his wife Martha.

John Soane was educated in nearby Reading in a private school run by William Baker.

John Soane began his training as an architect age 15 under George Dance the Younger and joining the architect at his home and office in the City of London at the corner of Moorfields and Chiswell Street.

Dance's growing family was probably the reason that in 1772 John Soane continued his education by joining the household and office of Henry Holland.

John Soane recalled later that he was 'placed in the office of an eminent builder in extensive practice where I had every opportunity of surveying the progress of building in all its different varieties, and of attaining the knowledge of measuring and valuing artificers' work'.

Hardwick and John Soane would produce a series of measured drawings and ground plans of Roman buildings together.

From Naples John Soane made several excursions including to Pozzuoli, Cumae and Pompeii, where he met yet another future client, Philip Yorke.

John Soane attended a performance at Teatro di San Carlo and climbed Mount Vesuvius.

John Soane was now fairly fluent in the Italian language, a sign of his growing confidence.

John Soane visited the Villa Palagonia, which made a deep impact on him.

Shortly after, John Patterson returned to England via Vienna, from where he sent Soane the first six volumes of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, delivered by Antonio Salieri.

John Soane continued his study of buildings, including Villa Lante, Palazzo Farnese, Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, the Capitoline Museums and the Villa Albani.

That autumn he met Henry Bankes, John Soane prepared plans for the Banke's house Kingston Lacy, but these came to nothing.

John Soane continued his journey on to Freiburg im Breisgau, Cologne, Liege, Leuven and Brussels before embarking for England.

John Soane continued to get other minor design work in 1782.

At this early stage in his career John Soane was dependent on domestic work, including: Piercefield House, now a ruin; the remodelling of Chillington Hall ; The Manor, Cricket St Thomas ; Bentley Priory ; the extension of the Roman Catholic Chapel at New Wardour Castle.

An important commission was alterations to William Pitt the Younger's Holwood House in 1786, John Soane had befriended William Pitt's uncle Thomas on his grand tour.

In 1787 John Soane remodelled the interior of Fonthill Splendens for Thomas Beckford, adding a picture gallery lit by two domes and other work.

In 1807 John Soane designed New Bank Buildings on Princes Street for the Bank, consisting of a terrace of five mercantile residences, which were then leased to prominent city firms.

On 20 January 1807 John Soane was made clerk of works of Royal Hospital Chelsea.

John Soane's designs were: built 1810 a new infirmary, a new stable block and extended his own official residence in 1814; a new bakehouse in 1815; a new gardener's house 1816, a new guard-house and Secretary's Office with space for fifty staff 1818; a Smoking Room in 1829 and finally a garden shelter in 1834.

John Soane designed several public buildings in London, including: National Debt Redemption Office demolished 1900; Insolvent Debtors Court demolished 1861; Privy Council and Board of Trade Offices, Whitehall, remodelled by Sir Charles Barry, the building now houses the Cabinet Office; in a new departure for John Soane he used the Italianate style for The New State Paper Office, demolished 1868 to make way for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office building.

In 1804, he remodelled Ramsey Abbey ; the remodelling of the south front of Port Eliot and new interiors ; the Gothic Library at Stowe House ; Moggerhanger House ; for Marden Hill, Hertfordshire, John Soane designed a new porch and entrance hall ; the remodelling of Wotton House after damage by fire ; a terrace of six houses above shops in Regent Street London, demolished; and Pell Wall Hall.

In 1811, John Soane was appointed as architect for Dulwich Picture Gallery, the first purpose-built public art gallery in Britain, to house the Dulwich collection, which had been held by art dealers Sir Francis Bourgeois and his partner Noel Desenfans.

John Soane was to extend the law courts along the west front of Westminster Hall providing accommodation for five courts: The Court of Exchequer, Chancery, Equity, King's Bench and Common Pleas.

In 1822 as an official architect of the Office of Works, John Soane was asked to make alteration to the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster.

John Soane added a curving gothic arcade with an entrance leading to a courtyard, a new Royal Gallery, main staircase and Ante-Room, all the interiors were in a grand neo-classical style, completed by January 1824.

John Soane had received part of his architectural education at the Academy and it had paid for his Grand Tour.

On 2 November 1795 John Soane was elected an Associate Royal Academician and on 10 February 1802 John Soane was elected a full Royal Academician, his diploma work being a drawing of his design for a new House of Lords.

Under the rules of the Academy John Soane automatically became for one year a member of the Council of the Academy, this consisted of the President and eight other Academicians.

Naturally this caused dissatisfaction, and John Soane began to manoeuver to obtain the post for himself.

John Soane did not deliver his first lecture until 27 March 1809 and did not begin to deliver the full series of twelve lectures until January 1810.

John Soane attempted to resist what he saw as interference and it was only under threat of dismissal that he finally amended his lecture and recommenced on 12 February 1813 the delivery of the first six lectures.

Julien-David Le Roy's Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grece, Johann Joachim Winckelmann's Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, in its French translation bought in 1806 just before John Soane was appointed to the professorship.

John Soane acquired several illuminated manuscripts: a 13th-century English Vulgate Bible; a 15th-century Flemish copy of Josephus's works; four books of hours, two Flemish of the 15th century and early 16th century, Dutch of the late 15th century and French 15th century; a French missal dated 1482; Le Livre des Cordonniers de Caen, French 15th century; and Marino Grimani's commentary of the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans, the work of Giulio Clovio.

In 1792, John Soane bought a house at 12 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London.

John Soane bought Greek and Roman bronzes, cinerary urns, fragments of Roman mosaics, Greek vases many displayed above the bookcases in the library, Greek and Roman busts, heads from statues and fragments of sculpture and architectural decoration, examples of Roman glass.

John Soane acquired 18th century Chinese ceramics as well as Peruvian pottery.

John Soane's paintings include: four works by Canaletto and paintings by Hogarth: the eight canvases of the A Rake's Progress the four canvases of the Humours of an Election.

George John Soane, realising that if the museum was set up he would lose his inheritance, persuaded William Cobbett to try and stop the bill, but failed.

John Soane was the niece and ward of a London builder George Wyatt, whom Soane would have known as he rebuilt Newgate Prison.

John Soane always called his wife Eliza, and she would become his confidante.

John Soane's second son George was born just before Christmas 1787 but the boy died just six months later.

Apart from a wing designed by George Dance, John Soane demolished the house and rebuilt it to his own design and was occupied by 1804, John Soane used the manor to entertain friends and used to go fishing in the local streams.

Undeterred by his child's reluctance, John Soane only grew more dedicated to establishing a professional legacy and established a formalised program of architecture education when he purchased his house at Lincoln's Inn Fields, in London.

In 1823, John Soane purchased 14 Lincoln's Inn Fields, he demolished the house, building the Picture Room attached to No 13 over the site of the stables, in March 1825 he rebuilt the house to externally match No 12.

John Soane hoped that one or both of his sons would become architects.

John Soane was lazy and suffered from ill health, whereas George had an uncontrollable temper.

John Soane was sent to Margate in 1811 to try to help his illness and it was here that he became involved with a woman called Maria Preston.

John Soane wrote to his mother 'I have married Agnes to spite you and father'.

John Soane's wife died on 22 November 1815, she had been suffering from ill health for some time.

In 1816 John Soane designed the tomb above the vault his wife was buried in it is built from Carrara marble and Portland Stone.

Soane's elder son John died on 21 October 1823, and was buried in the vault.

John Soane found out in 1824 that his son George was living in a Menage a trois with his wife and her sister by whom he had a child called George Manfred.

John Soane's grandson Fred and his mother were both subjected to domestic violence by George John Soane, including beatings and in Agnes's case being dragged by her hair from a room.

John Soane initially refused to help them while they remained living with his son, who was in debt.

In January 1835 Tarring asked John Soane to remove Fred, who was staying out late often in the company of a Captain Westwood, a known homosexual.

Maria, John Soane's daughter-in-law, lived until 1855 and is buried on the edge of the south roundel in Brompton Cemetery.

John Soane was initiated on 1 December 1813 as a freemason under the newly established United Grand Lodge of England.

John Soane did not like organised religion and was a Deist.

John Soane was influenced by the ideas that belonged to the enlightenment, and had read Voltaire's and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's works.

John Soane was taken ill on 27 December 1813 and was incapacitated until 28 March 1814, when he underwent an operation by Astley Cooper on his bladder to remove a fistula.

John Soane visited Paris again in 1819, setting off on 21 August, he travelled via Dunkirk, Abbeville and Beauvais arriving in Paris.

On 24 December 1825 John Soane underwent an operation to have a cataract removed from his eye.

John Flaxman, professor of sculpture at the Royal Academy, was an old friend and Soane acquired several plaster-casts of Flaxman's work for his museum.

John Soane counted Thomas Banks as a friend, and Thomas Lawrence, who painted John Soane's portrait.

John Soane called on William Thomas Beckford both in London and when he was taking the waters in Bath in 1829.

John Soane had other friends including James Perry, Thomas Leverton Donaldson, Barbara Hofland and Rowland Burdon, whose friendship was formed while on the Grand Tour.

John Soane died a widower, estranged from his surviving son, George, whom he felt had betrayed him, having contributed to his wife's death.

John Soane stated that he was left so little because 'his general misconduct and constant opposition to my wishes evinced in the general tenor of his life'.

In 1788 John Soane defined the professional responsibility of an architect:.

John Soane's situation implies great trust; he is responsible for the mistakes, negligences, and ignorances of those he employs; and above all, he is to take care that the workmen's bills do not exceed his own estimates.

John Soane published several books related to architecture and an autobiography:.