Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Architect, of Dublin. According to the English census of 1911, Edmund Lionel Crosby, second son of Harry Crosby, an insurance clerk, and his wife, Agnes Ethel, was  born in London in 1904 or 1905  His obituarist in the RIAI Yearbook writes that he 'trained…the hard way…by night study, constant observation of design and construction, and office work by day'. During the 1920s he worked with several English architectural firms - Lanchester,Lucas & Lodge, William Curtis Green and Harry Redfern - as well as for the Home Office on experimental housing in the neighbourhood of Carlisle. In the early 1930s he came to Dublin, where he spent some time in the office of CHARLES JOHN DUNLOP CHARLES JOHN DUNLOP . He had joined the office of WILLIAM ALBERT DIXON  WILLIAM ALBERT DIXON by 1934. He remained with Dixon until 1942 or later. During the war he served with the Royal Engineers in India and Burma; the Dublin address he gives from 1948 until 1951 appears to be a poste restante address. He had returned to Dublin and established his own office by 1952 and remained in practice until 1976. He died on 31 August 1979 at the age of seventy-five.

Crosby is described in the RIAI Yearbook obituary as a man of 'rugged demeanour' and 'colourful' personality, 'peppery perhaps but always meticulously fair, giving especial help to those he found during the course of his business to be most in need, and his qualities of courage and integrity were admired by all he encountered'. His son also became an architect.

RIAI: elected member, 1934; ceased membership after 1976. RIBA: elected associate, 1929.

Addresses: 20 Ely Place, <=1934->=1942; 3 Dawson Street, <=1948-1951; 24 Ely Place, 1952-1960; 13 Eastmoreland Place, 1961-1976.

See WORKS for pre-war work only..



References

All information in this entry is from the obituary of Crosby in RIAI Year Book (1980), 60, RIAI membership lists and Thom's directories.


1 work entries listed in chronological order for CROSBY, EDMUND LIONEL


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Building: CO. DUBLIN, DALKEY, SORRENTO ROAD, HOUSE (BOSULA)
Date: 1938a
Nature: 2-storey house in modified International Modern style.
Refs: IB 80, 23 Jul 1938, 603(illus.);  Ella Carter, ed., Seaside Houses and Bungalows (London: Country Life, 1937), 64-5(illus.);  Paul Larmour, Free State Architecture:  Modern Movement architecture in Ireland, 1922-1949 (Kinsale: Gandon Editions, 2009) ,44(illus.),45.

Author Title Date Details
Crosby, Edmund Lionel 'Rural architecture in Ireland' 1939 'Architecture Yesterday and Today', supplement to Irish Times, 21 Jun 1939, 26