Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Builder and stonecutter, of Dublin. George Darley, the younger son of MOSES DARLEY  MOSES DARLEY and brother of HENRY DARLEY [2] HENRY DARLEY [2] , was born in 1730. In 1755 he married Susanna Sankey (d. 1818).(1) The registers of St Thomas's Church record the baptisms of their children: Moses on 5 April 1758, John Sankey on 24 January 1760, Susanna, on 16 Sep 1761, Magil on 18 August 1763, Catherine on 2 March 1766, Elizabeth on 19 October 1769, and George on 26 August 1771. According to the registers they were living in Marlborough Street in 1766, in Drogheda Street in 1769, in Mecklenburg Street in August 1771 but in Gloucester Street in December of the same year when their infant son George died.(2) George Darley [1] himself died in 1817.

Confusingly Darley's first cousin, GEORGE DARLEY [2] GEORGE DARLEY [2] , one year his junior, was also a stonecutter. To make matters worse, his eldest son, though christened Moses, was known as George. Wilson's Dublin Directory lists George Darley, senior, George Darley, junior, and George and Hill Darley, as stone-cutters in the latter decades of the eighteenth century and first decade of the nineteenth. George Darley, senior, stonecutter, appears in Wilson's Directory at Ship Building, Abbey Street, from 1770 until 1783, at No. 4 Lower Abbey Street from 1786 until 1788, at No. 4 Strand in 1789 and 1790, at No. 9 1/2 Strand in 1791 and 1792, at Trinity College from 1793 to 1799, and at Ballybough Bridge from 1802 until 1807. Although these addresses do not tally with those of George and Susanna Darley in the registers of St Thomas's church, it seems probable that George Darley [1] and George Darley, senior, were the same person, as there is nothing in the family tree to indicate any other person who could be so described. He may have been described as 'senior' to distinguish him from his cousin George Darley [2], for his eldest son Moses (alias George) would not have been old enough to set up in trade independently by 1770, when the descriptions of 'senior'and 'junior' are first applied in the directory

The following references are all to persons named George Darley. In 1766-7 George Darley appears in the accounts of the Ballast Office as a stone-cutter working on the South Wall and Light House,(2) and George Darley's bills for stone-cutter's work, as also those of George & Hill Darley, are mentioned in the Dublin Assembly Rolls at various points between 1769 and 1813.(3) The Mr Darley who inspected the old Custom House of Dublin with Thomas Cooley and Graham Myers in 1774 may be George Darley.(4) In 1779 George Darley was appointed contractor for lighting and keeping in repair the Wicklow Head lighthouses,(5) and in the latter years of the century wrote that he had served the Government for forty years.(6) A George Darley represented the Corporation of Carpenters on the Common Council of Dublin Corporation from 1793 until 1805.(7) Two George Darleys were admitted freemen of the city as members of the Corporation of Carpenters at Michaelmas, 1795, and Midsummer, 1802.(8) In 1801 George Darley was one of the tradesmen employed by the Board of Works who signed a memorial recommending that Bryan Bolger be appointed measurer to the Board.(9) a George Darley was employed by Trinity College, Dublin, between 1753 and 1817.(10)

A 'Mr. George Darley' was a subscriber to the First Volume of the Instructions given in the Drawing School established by the Dublin-Society (Dublin, 1769).

See WORKS.



References

All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from the manuscript 'Pedigree charts of the Darley family in Ireland 1700-1926' in the possession of Mrs R.C Lewis-Crosby (1998).

(1) Index of Irish Wills 1484-1858 (Eneclann CD-ROM), Document ID 17111.
(2) R. Refaussé, ed. Register of the Parish of St Thomas, Dublin, 1750-1791 (1994), 22,25,26,29,34,37,53,89.
(2) CARD XI, 407-8.
(3) CARD XIII, 70,164; XIV, 395,448,478,548; XV, 68,70,448,489, XVI, 358.
(4) JHCI 9, cccviii (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc. 2008/44).
(5) NA/PRO (Kew) Cust.1.151 (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc. 2008/44).
(6) NA/SPO 516/94/8 (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc. 2008/44).
(7) CARD XIV, 548; XV, 533,535,537.
(8) 'An alphabetical list of the Freemen of the City of Dublin, 1774-1824', The Irish Ancestor XV (1983), Nos. 1 & 2.
(9) NA/PRO 1A, 58.129 ; according to this source he had earlier been among the 'Principal Architects and builders' of Dublin who had supported Bolger's application of July 1794 to be appointed measurer to the Royal Canal works.
(10) Trinity college muniments, MUN/P/2/97-204 (passim.)


15 work entries listed in chronological order for DARLEY, GEORGE [1]*


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Building: CO. MEATH, OLDBRIDGE HOUSE
Date: 1750ca
Nature: New house for Dixie Coddington.  Attribution to GD suggested by Casey & Rowan. Date of building of house recorded in following inscription on piece of baseboard of stair (removed during repairs carried out in 1960s): ' December  1836  Patrick Kelly  of the City of Dublin / Put up these Staircases. / I worked at this building from April  / till now. / 86 years from the first / Building of this house/ till now as we see by a stick like this  found.'

Refs: Inscription on piece of baseboard of stair (removed during repairs carried out in 1960s) in the possession (2013) of Nicholas Coddington, Toronto, Canada, formerly of Oldbridge House;  Christine Casey & Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (1993), 447.

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, DOMINICK STREET, HOUSE
Date: 1762
Nature: House probably built by GD advertised for sale.
Refs: Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 23-27 Feb 1762

Building: CO. MEATH, DUNBOYNE CASTLE
Date: 1764
Nature: For Sarah Hamilton.
Refs: Christine Casey & Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (1993), 258-9

Building: CO. LOUTH, DROGHEDA, WEST STREET, THOLSEL
Date: 1765-70
Nature: Designed by GD. Work overseen by Hamilton Bury.
Refs: E.McP files, citing Drogheda Corporation Book, 9,23 Aug 1765; Christine Casey & Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (1993), 49-50,242,Pl.11;  P.J. Geraghty, 'Urban improvement and the erection of municipal buildings in County Louth during the eithteenth and nineteenth centuries', County Louth Archaeological and Historical Journal 23, no. 3 (1995), 305-6.

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, ST STEPHEN'S GREEN, NO. 086
Date: 1765p
Nature: New house for Richard Chapel(l) (or Capel) Whaley.  Stonework by a George Darley.
Refs: Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin (2005), 507.

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, O'CONNELL STREET UPPER, NO. 046
Date: 1766a
Nature: New 2-bay house with Pain-style doorcase.
Refs: Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin (2005), 230.

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, FINDLATER PLACE, HOUSE
Date: 1767
Nature: House for Netterville family.
Refs: Christine Casey & Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (1993), 220

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, O'CONNELL STREET UPPER, HOUSES ON EAST SIDE
Date: 1767,1769
Nature: Built by George Darley.
Refs: Georgian Society Records III, 86,91

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, O'CONNELL STREET UPPER, HOUSE ON WEST SIDE
Date: 1769
Nature: Works to complete one of a pair of houses built by Nathaniel Clements and let to his brother-in-law, William Gore, Archbishop of Elphin, in 1767, who in turn sub-let it to Lord Lifford in 1769.
Refs: Articles of agreement, plans, specifications in Clements archive at Killadoon, Co. Kildare, see A.P.W. Malcomson, The Clements Archive (Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2010), 266; for the two houses see Georgian Society Records (1909-13), III, 87.

Building: CO. WATERFORD, LISMORE, BRIDGE
Date: 1773-1779
Nature: To be built by GD and William Stokes.
Refs: NLI, special list 15 and Chatsworth, Devonshire papers, Currey's box 5 (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc.2008/44); Jane Meredith, ''No Small Thing': Thomas Ivory's bridge at Lismore', Irish Arts Review Yearbook 14 (1998), 102-114(illus.)

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, COLLEGE GREEN, TRINITY COLLEGE, THEATRE (EXAMINATION HALL)
Date: 1778-9
Nature: Bryan Bolger measures stone-cutter's work ny GD on new theatre.
Refs: Bryan Bolger MSS, NA/PRO 1A/58/128 and NLI MS 10,711; TCD Library MUN/P2 Calendar (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc.2008/44)

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, COLLEGE GREEN, TRINITY COLLEGE, CHAPEL (1787)
Date: 1787
Nature: Cut-stone work by GD.
Refs: TCD Library MUN/P2 Calendar (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc.2008/44); Lesley Whiteside, The Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin' (Trinity College Chapel Committee, 1998), 7-8

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, CASTLE STREET, DUBLIN CASTLE
Date: 1795ca-1800ca
Nature: GD contracts to build Chief Secretary's office.
Refs: NA/SPO 516/94/8 (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc.2008/44)

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, MERRION SQUARE, NO. 044-45
Date: 1796
Nature: Bryan Bolger measures stone-cutters work by GD for John La Touche.
Refs: Bryan Bolger MSS, NLI MS 10,711

Building: CO. MEATH, DOWTH HALL
Date: ?
Nature: Suggested attribution to GD. Built for John, 6th Viscount Netterville
Refs: Christine Casey & Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (1993), 45,228-9,Pl.74