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  • image Image 1 for SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11
  • image Image 2 for SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11
  • image Image 3 for SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11
  • image Image 4 for SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11
  • image Image 5 for SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11
  • image Image 1 for SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11
  • image Image 2 for SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11
  • image Image 3 for SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11
  • image Image 4 for SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11
  • image Image 5 for SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11

Reference number

SM (67) 50/1/1 (68) 50/1/3 (69) 50/1/2 (70) 50/1/4 (71) 49/4/11

Purpose

Designs for ground floor, first floor and façade of the new Board of Trade Offices, June 1824 (5)

Aspect

67 Plan of the Ground Floor 68 Plan of the Ground Floor 69 Plan of the Principal Floor of the Board of Trade 70 Plan of the Principal Floor 71 Part front elevation with plan and section through façade

Scale

(67-70) bar scales of 1/6 inch to 1 foot (71) bar scale of 1/3 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

67 as above, Board of Trade &c, No 1, labelled: Hall, Staircase (twice), Water Closet, W.C. (twice) and some dimensions given, (in Soane's hand) Council Chamber / to be 24 by 36 / & Copy / from Lord Harrowby / 5 June 1824, Fife House / 5 June 1824 / Present / The Earl of Liverpool / The Earl of Harrowby / The Chancellor of the Exchequer / Mr Huskisson / Sir Chas Long, Mem[orandum] Friday 11 June 24 this plan / was again ex[amined] by Mr Herries / & the Chancellor of the Excheq / Mr Herries for some time preferred / the Insulated Cl: & exemplified his / opinion by referring to the effect / of the Caps in the Chan of the / Exch room, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was of a contrary opinion / & determined to have ¾ Col to which Mr Herries acquiesced convinced by the powerful arguments of the / Chan of the Exch // 2nd Mem 12 June The Chan of the / Exch sent again for these Drawings & // (right hand side of sheet) then expressed himself less inclined / to the three qr Col, but altho a very large / drawg of the Front was produced, the Ch did not think / he could determine satisfactorily without a model of the whole front / which I was directed to have made & in the mean time / proceed with the Works, The Model ab £50 68 as above, Board of Trade, Copy (twice), labelled: Hall, Staircase (twice), W.C. (3 times), Passage leading to the Treasury Chambers, Council Chamber to be / 24.0 by 36.0 and some dimensions given, (in Soane's hand) No 2 alter / stair No 1 ?Rm, (in George Bailey's hand) Fife House 5th June 1824 / Present The Earl of Liverpool / The Earl of Harrowby / The Chancellor of the Exchequer / Mr Huskisson / Sir Charles Long, Friday 11th June - This Plan was again examined by Mr Herries and the Chancellor of the Exchequer - Mr Herries for some time preferred the insulated Columns / and exemplified his opinion by referring to the effect of the Capitals in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Room - the Chancellor of the Exchequer was of a contrary / opinion and determined to have ¾ Columns to which Mr Herries acquiesced convinced by the powerful arguments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer // Second Memm 12th June The Chancellor of the Exchequer sent again for these Drawings and then expressed himself less inclined to the ¾ Columns, but altho a very large Drawing / of the Front was produced, the Chancellor ????? did not think he could determine satisfactorily without a model of the whole Front which I was directed to / have made and in the mean time proceed with the Works. The Model abt £50 69 as above, No 2, labelled: Council Office, Staircase (twice), Board Room, President, Chief Clerk, Water / Closet, Passage to the Treasury Chambers, Waiting / Room, Clerks Room, Waiting Room, Vice President, Mr C's Room, Corridor (twice) and some dimensions given, (pencil) App[rove]d / 5 June 1824 (twice), (in Soane's hand) At Fife House / Present The Earls of / Liverpool / & / Harrowby / Mr Huskisson / The Chancellor of the Exchequer / Sir Charles Long / appd / 5 June 1824 70 as above, Board of Trade, labelled: (pencil) Council, Water / Closet (3 times), Staircase (twice), Board Room, Presidents Room, Chief Clerk, To the Treasury Chambers, Waiting / Room, Clerks Room, Waiting Room, Vice Presidents / Room, Corridor (twice) and some dimensions given, (in Soane's hand) 5 June 1824 / At Fife House appd subject / to any revisions of Mr Huskisson 71 12 June 1824 / Shewn to the / Chancellor of / the Excheq / ordered Model / to be made

Signed and dated

  • (67) L.I.F. / 4 June 1824 and as above ('5 June 1824', 'Friday 11 June 24' and '12 June') (68) L.I.F. / June 1824 and as above ('5th June 1824', '11th June' and '12th June') (69) Lincolns Inn Fields / June 1824 and as above ('appd 5 June 1824') (70) L.I.F. / June 4th 1824, (pencil) 4 June 1824 and as above (approved 5 June 1824) (71) L.I.F. June / 1824 and as above ('12 June 1824')

Medium and dimensions

(67, 69, 70) Pen, pink and grey washes, pricked for transfer on wove paper (541 x 745, 547 x 757) (70) with one fold mark (545 x 754) (68) pen, red pen, burnt Sienna, blue and grey washes, pricked for transfer on wove paper with two fold marks (520 x 670) (71) pen, sepia, pink and blue washes, pricked for transfer on two sheets of wove paper, affixed, with two fold marks (550 x 1254)

Hand

(67, 71) Stephen Burchell (1806-?, pupil 1823-28) (68) Charles James Richardson (1809-71, pupil and assistant 1824-1837) (69, 70) George Bailey (1792-1860, pupil then assistant 1806-37, curator 1837-60)

Notes

In comparison with drawings 54-55, these designs show a different internal layout for the Board of Trade offices. Although drawing 68 appears to be a copy of drawing 67 it is slightly different - the rooms to the right of the main staircase are shown as two rooms and there is a smaller geometrical staircase on drawing 67. Drawings 69 and 70 also differ. The landing has four columns on drawing 69 but only two on drawing 70, and the frontage on the second design has all engaged columns where some of those on the first design are detached.
A note in Soane's hand on drawing 67 reveals the first of many points of contention between the architect and Frederick Robinson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor's preference was for all of the columns on the frontage to be three-quarters engaged but he later 'expressed himself less inclined to the three-quarter columns' and, although Soane produced for him a 'very large drawing (71)' (1828 Report - see scheme notes), he directed the architect to have a model built in order to see the full effect of the 'engaged' design. There are two models in Sir John Soane's Museum that relate to this period: MR31 and M1268 (J. Wilton-Ely, 'The architectural models of Sir John Soane: a catalogue', Architectural History, XII, 1969, p. 33).

Level

Drawing

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Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.

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