Biographies

Richard Norman Shaw (1831 – 1913) He was born in Edinburgh, where he studied and later worked for William Burn, an Edinburgh architect with an office in London. In 1858 he worked for G. E. Street and in 1863 he opened his own practice with W. E. Nesfield as his partner. He designed several country houses, as well as a series of commercial buildings in a wide range of styles. Breaking away from contemporary Victorian house designs and returning to the Queen Anne and Georgian styles and to traditional English craftsmanship and use of materials, Shaw became the leader of a revolution in domestic architecture. He is considered the father of the modern Queen Anne style. He designed numerous London and country houses. The economical small houses that he designed in the late 1870s for the Bedford Park housing development had beneficial influence throughout England. His most important work was the New Scotland Yard (1887–90). Shaw wrote Architectural Sketches from the Continent (1858). Richard Norman Shaw was the most influential and successful of all Late Victorian architects in Great Britain… Shaw worked in many different styles during his 35-year career. He began as a High Victorian Goth; the Church at Bingley is typical of his earlier work. His last work, the Piccadilly Hotel in London, is Edwardian Baroque. Together with Nesfield, he pioneered both the Old English and Queen Anne styles of architecture in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Shaw’s reputation overshadows that of Nesfield, but both were gifted architects… (Randall J. Van Vunckt, ed. International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture : Volume 1, Architects, p814)