Frederick Clarke Withers

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"Frederick Withers" redirects here. For the Australian politician, see Frederick Withers (politician).
Frederick Clarke Withers
Frederick Clarke Withers.jpg
Withers in Union Army uniform, 1861
BornFebruary 4, 1828
Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire, England
DiedJanuary 7, 1901 (aged 72)
Yonkers, New York
NationalityEnglish-American
OccupationArchitect
Practice1852–1901
BuildingsHalsey Stevens House
Reformed Church of Beacon
Eustatia
Jefferson Market Courthouse
Chapel of the Good Shepherd
ProjectsGallaudet University
Hudson River State Hospital
Astor Memorial Reredos
Signature
Signature of Frederick Clarke Withers (1828–1901).png

Frederick Clarke Withers (4 February 1828 – 7 January 1901) was a successful English architect in America, especially renowned for his Gothic Revival church designs. For portions of his professional career, he partnered with fellow immigrant Calvert Vaux; both had been assistants of Andrew Jackson Downing in Newburgh, New York, where they began their careers following Downing's death. Withers greatly participated in the introduction of the High Victorian Gothic style to the United States.

Biography[]

Frederick Clarke Withers was born in Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire.[1] He had a brother, Robert Jewell Withers, who also became an architect.[2] He studied architecture in England for eight years. He came to the United States in the winter of 1851–52 at the invitation of the prominent American architect and horticulturist Andrew Jackson Downing. Withers and Downing later became family, as they married sisters: Emily Augusta and Caroline Elizabeth DeWindt, respectively. The sisters were great-grandchildren of President John Adams, and grandnieces of John Quincy Adams. Downing drowned that year, attempting to save his mother-in-law in the explosion of the steamboat Henry Clay.[3]

Calvert Vaux, Downing's partner, then took Withers in as an assistant and later partner.[4] Vaux included a design for a bookcase credited to Withers among those in his Villas and Cottages (1857), which records both designs of the firms Downing & Vaux and Vaux & Withers.[5] At this time Withers also produced several country houses independent of the firm, many for Newburgh clients in adjacent Balmville. His library for the Frederick Deming house (1859) was deemed architecturally significant by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the late 1970s and removed for display.

At the outset of the American Civil War, Withers volunteered and received a commission as a lieutenant in the 1st New York Volunteer Engineer Regiment. This experience added invaluable engineering experience to his architectural expertise. After 1863, he gradually moved his practice to New York City from Newburgh. As an independent architect in New York working largely in the Gothic Revival mode, Withers wrote about architecture and designed in the highly colored "Ruskinian Gothic" manner. His first commission for a High Victorian Gothic building, the Reformed Church of Beacon, was likely secured through the congregation's associations with John Peter DeWindt, his father-in-law. Others in this style, such as the nearby Tioranda School, were recognized by the National Academy of Design in 1866.[6]

When A. J. Bicknell published Withers' Church Architecture (1873),[7] featuring the school, the architect's reputation was secured. Among his prestigious commissions in New York was the William Backhouse Astor, Sr. Memorial Altar and Reredos (1876–77) at Trinity Church. Withers' only cast-iron building stands at 448 Broome Street, Manhattan, but many of his urban designs went unrealized.[4] [8] By the 1880s he had separated from Vaux and worked in partnership with Walter Dickson (1835–1903), originally from Albany, New York.

A number of Withers' works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and further honored as National Historic Landmarks.[9]

Jefferson Market Courthouse[]

Under the firm Vaux, Withers & Co., Withers designed his most famous building, the Jefferson Market Courthouse, built in 1874 on 10th St. in Greenwich Village, New York next to the Jefferson Market Prison. The Courthouse was made for the Third Judicial District and[10]designed in the High Victorian Gothic style.[11] The building was called "Jefferson Market" because the site chosen, in 1870 was at the time the Jefferson Market, the local produce market.[12] The frieze on the outside of the building contains scenes from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.[12]

Selected architectural works[]

Writings[]

Bibliography[]

  • Francis R. Kowsky, The Architecture of Frederick Clarke Withers and the Progress of the Gothic Revival in America after 1850 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1980)
  • John Zukowsky and Robbe Pierce Stimson, Hudson River Villas (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1985)
1871–1901
Jefferson Market Courthouse, New York, NY (1874–77)
Weehawken Water Tower, Weehawken, NJ (1883)
Chapel of the Good Shepherd (Roosevelt Island), New York, NY (1888)

References[]

Notes
  1. ^ Francis R. Kowsky, The Architecture of Frederick Clarke Withers and the Progress of the Gothic Revival in America after 1850, 1980, is the standard monograph.
  2. ^ "Basic Biographical Details: Robert Jewell Withers". Dictionary of Scottish Architects 1840-1980. Retrieved May 13, 2016.
  3. ^ Downing, Andrew Jackson. Rural Essays (New York: G. P. Putnam and Co., 1853), liii–lvii.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b " National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination". National Park Service. 1977-05-24.
  5. ^ Bookcase, p. 80; Withers is credited (p. vii) with preparing the outlines of the architecture on wood engraving blocks; the Vaux & Withers designs are 1 "A simple Suburban Cottage", 5 "A Suburban House", 10 "A Suburban House with Attics", 13, "A Brick Villa with Tower and without attics", 19 "An Irregular Wooden Country House", 22 "An Irregular Brick Villa", 23 "A Suburban House with Curvilinear Roof", Vignette "Design for a Square House, 28 "A Picturesque Villa with Wing and Attics", 29 "A Town House", Vignette "Design for a Roomy Country house"
  6. ^ Kowsky, 62
  7. ^ Withers, Church architecture: plans, elevations, and views of twenty-one churches and two school-houses, photo-lithographed from original drawings, with numerous illustrations shewing details of construction, church fittings... (Bicknell: New York) 1873.
  8. ^ Kowsky, 136
  9. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  10. ^ http://newyorkitecture.com/2012/08/13/jefferson-market-courthouse/
  11. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-11-04. Retrieved 2013-11-02.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b Nevius, Michelle, and James Nevius. 2009. Inside the Apple: a streetwise history of New York City. New York: Free Press. p. 135.
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Kowsky, 32–39
  14. ^ John Zukowsky and Robbe Pierce Stimson, Hudson River Villas (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1985), 136–37.
  15. ^ Withers, Church Architecture, Design No. XVIII
  16. ^ Withers, Church Architecture, Design No. XIII
  17. ^ Zukowsky and Stimson, 123
  18. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Kowsky, 60–66
  19. ^ Withers, Church Architecture, Design No. XI
  20. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-03-01. Retrieved 2016-02-19.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  21. ^ Zabriskie Memorial Church

External links[]


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