14 Facts About John Summerson

1.

John Summerson's grandfather worked for the Darlington and Stockton Railway and founded the family foundry of Thomas Summerson and Sons in Darlington in 1869.

2.

John Summerson continued to write mainly about British architecture, especially that of the Georgian era.

3.

John Summerson wrote many more specialised works, including books about Inigo Jones and Georgian London illustrated by Alison Sleigh, as well as The Architecture of the Eighteenth Century, in which he describes Boullee in a distinct positive manner, stating that Boullee was clearly the point of departure for one of the boldest innovators of the century, Claude Nicolas Ledoux.

4.

One of the founders of the National Buildings Record in 1941, John Summerson served as its deputy director yet took to the streets taking photographs for the organisation.

5.

John Summerson was a Commissioner of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England for 21 years from 1953 to 1974, writing the introduction to the book celebrating the NBR's fiftieth anniversary in 1991.

6.

John Summerson sat on many other public bodies and committees, including the Royal Fine Arts Commission and the Historic Buildings Council and was an early and active member of The Georgian Group that was founded in 1937.

7.

John Summerson gave the 1964 Master-Mind Lecture on Inigo Jones.

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8.

John Summerson lectured at The Courtauld Institute of Art on the history of Georgian architecture in London, Birkbeck, University of London and the Architectural Association and became a good friend of his student Roger Westman, who himself went on to become a noted architect.

9.

John Summerson was noted for his somewhat elitist approach, and he was not always a consistent friend of the conservation movement.

10.

John Summerson was hired by the ESB in Ireland to speak in favour of their demolition of 16 Georgian townhouses in Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin.

11.

John Summerson was knighted in 1958; was awarded the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1976; and was created a Companion of Honour in 1987.

12.

John Summerson was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1954.

13.

John Summerson invented the term "prodigy house" for showy Elizabethan and Jacobean courtier houses.

14.

In March 2012, an English Heritage blue plaque commemorating John Summerson was erected at his former residence in Chalk Farm, London, where he lived with his wife Elizabeth Hepworth, the twin sister of Dame Barbara Hepworth, the sculptor, and his three sons.