Drawings Almost all of Dance's town-planning schemes were done as Clerk of the City Works and were sited either in the City of London or on land belonging to the City but outside its boundaries. Consequently nearly all of the relevant drawings are in the care of the Corporation of London Records Office. The few in Dance's personal collection at the Soane Museum include two that are copies (or were copied) and four that are preliminary studies or unfinished; two drawings for Finsbury Square - one of them drawn and probably designed by his assistant James Peacock and the other a letting plan; and three finished drawings for quays and a custom house for the Port of London that, though unadopted, must have been very important to Dance. A scheme for an old client and friend, Lord Camden, for the Camden Estate in Kentish Town in north London, which is known only through an engraved plan, came to very little.
Prints In Dance's personal collection there is also a set of engraved 'Plans and Drawings' relating to the Second and Third Reports of the Parliamentary Select Committee upon the Improvements of the Port of London (published in 1799 and 1800 respectively) and including his designs for a double bridge, the Legal Quays and Custom House and town-planning proposals at each end of the bridge.
Besides the town-planning schemes relating to the drawings catalogued here, Dance was also responsible for the development of America Square, Minories and its adjoining Crescent and Circus (1768), Skinner Street, Holborn (1790), and Pickett Street, Strand (1793) while St George's Fields, Southwark was the only executed part of a large scheme planned from 1807.
Dance's significance as a town planner should not be underestimated. Helen Rosenau - the first post-war historian to 'rediscover' Dance - wrote (1947, pp.503) that 'Dance's importance in the development of English architecture is perhaps even more apparent in his designs with regard to town-planning' and that 'when estimating the place of Dance in the development of English architecture one has to realize his importance not so much in what he achieved as in what he projected. His was essentially the attitude of the civic architect and that is perhaps the reason why he is today almost forgotten ...' (p.505).
John Summerson (1949, p.103) wrote that Dance 'has every right to be considered next in succession to the Woods [of Bath] in the English town-planning tradition... it is due to him that both circuses and crescents became types and not unique instances.' Dance was indeed the first to introduce them into London, in schemes dating from 1768.
M Hugo-Brunt (1955, p.20) judged that 'the main and important contribution of [Dance's] life was to town planning'. Part of this contribution was a multitude of minor improvements to London's medieval street plan: removing dangerous structures and obstructions, widening roads especially at crossroads as well as relocating noisome businesses and introducing improved services so that in this and in his major town-planning schemes 'for nearly fifty years [Dance] exercised an enlightened supervision over the growth and redevelopment of the City' (Colvin).
Sally Jeffery (1993, pp.43-5) discussed the elder Dance's contribution to town planning probably begun even before the passing of an Act of Parliament in the summer of 1760 'for widening certain Streets, Lanes and Passages within the City of London ... and for opening certain new Streets and Ways within the same'. His name appears in the minutes of the City Lands Committee of the Corporation of London in connection with a major street from Moorgate to the Mansion House as well as a number of other planning proposals. 'Such far-reaching plans rarely prospered because they required a high degree of organisation and persistence if they were to be implemented. If they did come to fruition, it took many years. Dance the Younger's town planning successes were a direct result of the preparatory work done by his father and the City Lands Committee...' (p.45)
LITERATURE. H. Rosenau, 'George Dance the Younger', Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, XLV, 3rd series, 1947, pp.502-07; J Summerson, Heavenly mansions, 1949; M. Hugo-Brunt, 'George Dance, the Younger, as town planner (1768-1814)'. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XIV, 4, 1955, pp.13-22; G. Teyssot, Città e utopia nell'illuminismo inglese: George Dance il giovane, Rome, 1974, ch.3; S. Jeffery, The Mansion House, 1993.
