Alfred Waterhouse - London Practice

London Practice

In 1865, Waterhouse was one of the architects selected to compete for the Royal Courts of Justice. The new University Club of New York was undertaken in 1866. In 1868 and nine years after his work on the Manchester Assize Courts, another competition secured for Waterhouse the design of Manchester Town Hall, where he was able to show a firmer and more original handling of the Gothic style. The same year he was involved in rebuilding part of Caius College, Cambridge; this was not his first university work, for he had already worked on Balliol College, Oxford in 1867, and the new buildings of the Cambridge Union Society, in 1866.

At Caius, out of deference to the Renaissance treatment of the older parts of the college, this Gothic element was intentionally mingled with classic detail, while Balliol and Pembroke College, Cambridge, which followed in 1871, are typical of the style of his mid career with Gothic tradition tempered by individual taste and by adaptation to modern needs. Girton College, Cambridge, a building of simpler type, dates originally from the same period (1870), but has been periodically enlarged by further buildings. Two important domestic works were undertaken in 1870 and 1871 respectively — Eaton Hall in Cheshire for the Duke of Westminster, and Heythrop Hall, Oxfordshire, the latter a restoration of a fairly strict classic type.

Waterhouse received, without competition, the commission to build the Natural History Museum in South Kensington (1873–1881), a design which marks an epoch in the modern use of architectural terracotta and which was to become his best known work. Waterhouse's other works in London included the National Liberal Club (a study in Renaissance composition), University College London's Cruciform Building, previously known as University College Hospital, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in London's Great George Street (1896), and the Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine in Chelsea (1895).

From the late 1860s, Waterhouse lived in the Reading area and was responsible for several significant buildings there. These included his own residences of Foxhill House (1868) and Yattendon Court (1877), together with Reading Town Hall (1875) and Reading School (1870). Foxhill House is still in use by the University of Reading, as are his Whiteknights House (built for his father) and East Thorpe House (built in 1880 for Alfred Palmer).

For the Prudential Assurance Company, Waterhouse designed many offices, including their Holborn Bars head office in Holborn and branch offices in Southampton, Nottingham and Leeds. He also designed offices for the National Provincial Bank in Piccadilly (1892) and in Manchester. The Liverpool Infirmary was Waterhouse's largest hospital; and St. Mary's Hospital in Manchester, the Alexandra Hospital in Rhyl, and extensive additions at the Nottingham General Hospital, also involved him. He was involved in a series of works for the Victoria University of Manchester, of which he was made LL.D. in 1895.

Other educational buildings designed by Waterhouse include Yorkshire College, Leeds (1878), the Victoria Building for the Liverpool University College (now University of Liverpool) (1885), St Paul's School in Hammersmith (1881-4; demolished 1968); and the Central Technical College in London's Exhibition Road (1881).

Among works not already mentioned are the Cambridge Union building and subsequently a similar building for the Oxford Union; Strangeways Prison; St Margaret's School, Bushey; the Metropole Hotel in Brighton; Hove Town Hall; Knutsford Town Hall; Alloa Town Hall; St. Elisabeth's Church in Reddish; Heaton Park Congregational Church in Prestwich; Darlington town clock, covered market hall and Backhouse's Bank (now Barclay's Bank); the former District Bank in Nantwich; the King's Weigh House chapel in Mayfair; and Hutton Hall in Yorkshire. St. Mary's Church in Twyford, Hampshire (1878) shows interestingly similar patterning to the Natural History Museum and was designed at the same time.