31 Facts About William Wardell

William Wilkinson Wardell was a noted architect who practiced in the second half of the 19th century, and is best known for a series of landmark buildings in Australia in Melbourne and Sydney.

William Wardell then designed the Catholic cathedrals in both the major cities, St Patrick's in Melbourne and St Mary's in Sydney, as well as St John's College, at the University of Sydney, and numerous parish churches in Victoria.

William Wardell was born in 1823, the son of Thomas William Wardell, baker, and his wife Mary; his birth date is not recorded, but he was baptised the following year, on 3 March 1824 at All Saints Church of England, Poplar, in London's East End.

William Wardell was educated as an engineer, and spent a short time at sea before practicing in London, working for the commissioners of sewers for Westminster and part of Middlesex, and for W F East, an architect.

In 1843 William Wardell made the unusual decision to convert from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, adopting the motto Inveni Quod Quaesivi.

William Wardell always had a room in his home set aside as a chapel, dominated by an ancient carved wooden French cross, which he visited several times during the course of a day;iIt is thought that he frequently prayed before working on plans of church buildings.

William Wardell designed several London churches, many now listed by Historic England.

Also heritage-listed is Our Immaculate Lady of Victories, situated in Clapham Park Road, Clapham, South London, constructed between 1848 and 1851, the same year that William Wardell completed Holy Trinity, Hammersmith.

At the former convent of the Holy Child Jesus on Magdalen Road in Hastings, William Wardell designed the gateway, the training college a rugged Gothic style, and the priory in a polychrome brick mode, while his mentor Pugin designed the chapel.

William Wardell designed the Old Lodge and simple Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Digby Stuart College; a lodge at Grove House in the London Borough of Wandsworth; the plain brick industrial Spode Pottery including buildings around the north west courtyard, including the entrance gate and the bottle kiln at Stoke-on-Trent.

William Wardell's last completed work in England was a fine chapel for family burials commissioned by Lord Petre, located in the forest at Thorndon Park, near Brentwood, Essex; this features an elaborately painted ceiling with hammerbeams featuring carved angels, and along with the ceiling and altar of the Sacred Heart Chapel in Digby is probably the only such decoration in his British work to survive.

William Wardell was probably the most experienced and well known British architect to emigrate to Victoria, certainly in the 1850s, and his services were immediately in demand.

William Wardell designed for places in country Victoria, as well as other cities in Australia, especially Sydney.

In 1859, William Wardell had designed the nearby St Mary's in St Kilda East, where he then personally worshipped.

William Wardell's mission, considered radically left wing at the time, was to redistribute the grazing land of Victoria, and to introduce a bill providing for the payment of members of the Legislative Assembly, which would enable working-class candidates to be elected.

William Wardell's was one of the many heads which fell - dismissed from office, he left Melbourne to seek employment in Sydney.

William Wardell then laid the foundation stone for a second, larger, church partly completed by 1858, when he instructed the newly arrived Wardell to design a cathedral, incorporating as much as possible of the partly completed church, and in December 1858 the new plans were accepted and work commenced.

William Wardell's design is a fine essay in the mid 19th century Gothic Revival style, drawing inspiration from the mediaeval cathedrals of Europe and England.

At the time of his death in 1899, William Wardell was still working on designs for the minor altars and fixtures and fittings.

William Wardell was the chief architect, assisted by JJ Clark and Peter Kerr; work commenced in 1871 and it was declared open at a ball attended by 1,400 people in 1876.

William Wardell designed many buildings, the most notable being St Mary's Cathedral and St John's College at The University of Sydney.

William Wardell designed the cathedral in the Gothic style, in a very similar format to St Patrick's in Melbourne.

Work began in 1868 while William Wardell was still based in Melbourne, and continued throughout William Wardell's lifetime, and beyond.

In 2000 the south front spires William Wardell had intended were finally constructed.

In February 1859 William Wardell was appointed architect for St John's College.

William Wardell designed the New South Wales Club House building at 31 Bligh Street in the Victorian Academic Classical style, completed in 1884; and is currently occupied by the Lowy Institute.

William Wardell designed significant 1881 extensions to the Grafton Bond Store in Millers Point, Sydney.

William Wardell died at his home, Upton Grange, in Edward Street, North Sydney on 19 November 1899 of heart failure and pleurisy.

William Wardell is buried in the Catholic section of Gore Hill Cemetery.

William Wardell did not live long enough to see the final finishing touches to St Patrick's Cathedral, and St Mary's Cathedral was far from finished.

However, William Wardell's work was more than the design of two cathedrals, his work was versatile and skilful in both the Gothic and classical styles and has given both Sydney and Melbourne some of their most distinguished 19th-century buildings.