12 Facts About Joseph Hansom

Joseph Aloysius Hansom was a British architect working principally in the Gothic Revival style.

Joseph Hansom invented the Hansom cab and founded the eminent architectural journal The Builder in 1843.

Joseph Hansom was the brother of the architect Charles Francis Hansom and the uncle of Edward J Hansom.

Joseph Hansom was apprenticed to his father, Henry, as a joiner, but showing an early aptitude for draughtsmanship and construction, he transferred his apprenticeship to a York architect named Matthew Philips, without informing the City of York.

Joseph Hansom took a post as assistant to John Oates and there befriended the brothers John and Edward Welch, with whom he formed his first architectural partnership in 1828.

The first Joseph Hansom Cab travelled down Hinckley's Coventry Road in 1835.

The Joseph Hansom cab was improved by subsequent modifications and exported worldwide to become a ubiquitous feature of the 19th-century street scene.

In 1843 Joseph Hansom founded a new architectural journal known as The Builder, another venture which was to flourish through the century; renamed Building in 1966, it continues to this day.

Between 1854 and 1879 Joseph Hansom devoted himself to architecture, designing and erecting a great number of important buildings, private and public, including numerous churches, schools and convents for the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1862 Joseph Hansom formed a partnership with Edward Welby Pugin, which broke up acrimoniously in 1863.

Joseph Hansom lived at 27 Sumner Place, South Kensington, London, and there is a blue plaque there in his memory.

Joseph Hansom retired on 31 December 1879 and died at 399 Fulham Road, London, on 29 June 1882.