Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

English architect, of Liverpool and Birmingham, for biography and works of whom see Howard Colvin, A Biographical dictionary of British architects 1600-1840 (4th edn, 2008), 863-868, and Oxford DNB, 812-817.(1) Thomas Rickman's first recorded work in Ireland is the monument to Jonathan Henry Lovett (d. 1805) in the cathedral at Lismore, Co. Waterford. His only executed Irish building is Lough Fea House, Co. Monaghan, begun in 1825 for Evelyn John Shirley (1788-1856), MP for Monaghan and South Warwickshire.(2) Shirley also chose Rickman as his architect for the remodelling of his English seat, Ettington Park, Warwickshire, in 1824-1826. In 1834 Rickman was an entrant in the competition to design a museum for Trinity College, Dublin.(3)



Rickman was the first British architect to attempt a systematic classification of Gothic architecture in the British Isles in his book An Attempt to to discriminate the Styles of English Architecture from the Conquest to the Reformation (1817).(4)
Copies of the first and third editions of this work are in the Irish Architectural Archive.



See WORKS, for Irish work only.



References



(1) His father, Joseph Paters Rickman, a Quaker, was living in Dublin at the time of his sudden death, while preaching in the street, in 1810 (information from Megan Aldrich, who is working on a biography of Thomas Rickman).
(2) Burke's Landed Gentry,(1857ca), 1091.
(3) West elevation, signed and dated 1834, in RIBA Drawings Collection (see Jill Lever, ed., Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects O-R (1974), 139, identified by Edward McParland as entry in museum competition.
(4) The contents had first appeared as an article in Smith's Panorama of Arts and Sciences (Liverpool, 1812-15).


5 work entries listed in chronological order for RICKMAN, THOMAS #


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Building: CO. WATERFORD, LISMORE, CATHEDRAL OF ST CARTHAGE (CI)
Date: 1805p
Nature: Mural monument to Jonathan Henry Lovett (d. 1805)
Refs: Signed 'Thos. Rickman, Architect, Liverpool'

Building: CO. MONAGHAN, LOUGH FEA HOUSE
Date: 1825
Nature: New house for Evelyn John Shirley, MP. With Henry Hutchinson.
Refs: M.B. Aldrich, 'Thomas Rickman in Ireland: the building of Lough Fea, Co. Monaghan, and its context', Michael McCarthy & Karina O'Neill, eds., Studies in the Gothic Revival (Dublin, 2008),151;  Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 412-414.

Building: CO. MONAGHAN, COOLDERRY HOUSE (CARRICKMACROSS)
Date: 1825
Nature: TR to 'Examine Arrangements for Coolderry' with Evelyn John Shirley, Jan 1825.
Refs: M.B. Aldrich, 'Thomas Rickman in Ireland: the building of Lough Fea, Co. Monaghan, and its context', Michael McCarthy & Karina O'Neill, eds., Studies in the Gothic Revival (Dublin, 2008),151.

Building: CO. MONAGHAN, LOUGH FEA, HOUSE
Date: 1827
Nature: Design for 3-storey house for E.P. Shirley, 1927, in RIBA Drawings Collection.
Refs: Cat. no. SC21/4, see British Architectural Library Catalogue, http://riba.sirsidynix.net.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/bdBvOC1fJI/MAIN_CAT/56290138/9 (last visited Apr 2009).

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, COLLEGE GREEN, TRINITY COLLEGE, MUSEUM, LECTURE ROOMS & CAMPANILE (PROPOSED)
Date: 1833-34
Nature: Competition entrant. Classical design.
Refs: West elevation, signed and dated 1834, in RIBA Drawings Collection (see Jill Lever, ed., Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects O-R (1974), 139) identified by Edward McParland as entry in museum competition; Frederick O'Dwyer, The Architecture of Deane and Woodward (Cork University Press, 1997), 132