Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Small tear on dustcover spine. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> The name of E. R. Robson has always been associated with the buildings of the London School Board whose first architect he was from 1871 to 1889 after which he acted as consultant archi- tect to the Education Department in Whitehall. In his own day he acquired an international reputation as the leading expert on school architecture and more recently architectural historians have pointed out the importance of his work as part of the reaction against the Gothic Revival which gained momentum in the 1870s and is generally known as the ‘Queen Anne’ phase of English architecture. Curiously his work has been largely neglected by historians of education in spite of its value from the point of view of social as well as architectural history. Detailed information about Robson’s career is not easy to come by. The private secretary to the chairman of the Board who wrote an interesting account of The work of the London School Board in 1900 merely remarks that Robson’s “labours in connection with school architecture are too well known to need recapitulation”. The only first-hand account of his career available is that given by his son Philip in a memoir published at the time of his father’s death in 1917; though this is relatively brief we are fortunate in that Philip Robson was himself an architect and had worked closely with his father. Philip Robson tells us that his father was born in Durham in 1835 the eldest son of Alderman Robert Robson three times mayor of Durham. It was decided at an early stage that Edward should become an architect and an eminently thorough apprenticeship was devised for him: three years on practical work in the building trade (to which his father (MP)