John Gregory Crace (designer)

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the British Victorian interior designer. For the Australian Royal Navy officer, see John Gregory Crace.
John Gregory Crace
Houses of Parliament
Great Exhibition
SpouseSarah Jane Hine Langley
Children12, including John Dibblee Crace & Edward Kendall Crace
Patron(s)King George IV

John Gregory Crace (26 May 1809 – 13 August 1889) was a British

interior decorator
and author.

Early life and education

The Crace family had been prominent London

Prince Regent and a collector of maps and prints.[2][3] His mother, Augusta Harrop Gregory, was the daughter of John Gregory, a London magistrate and treasurer of the Whig Club.[2]

Born at 34 Curzon Street in London, Crace was educated at the schools of Dr Crombie in Greenwich and Mr Pollard in South Kensington.[2]

Career

St. James's Theatre
, decorated by the Frederick Crace Company
Drawing of a Crace wall decoration, sketched by Frederick Smallfield

Crace commenced work as an assistant to his father in 1825, assisting on commissions from

George IV on Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. In 1830, at age 21, he became a full partner in the family business (thereafter known as Frederick Crace & Son), on inheriting property and capital from his mother, who had died in 1827.[2]

He visited the Continent several times between 1825 and 1830, including an extended study tour of France and Germany in 1829, and became influenced by 18th-century

French decorative arts.[2][4] He witnessed fighting in the streets of Paris during the July Revolution of 1830.[2]

Houses of Parliament. Maintaining his collaboration with Pugin, they worked together in the decoration of the Medieval Court in the Great Exhibition
of 1851, and Crace later became the Superintendent of Decoration for the Great Exhibition building in 1862. He was also commissioned to decorate the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle in 1861-2.

Personal life

On 26 January 1833, he married Sarah Jane Hine Langley (1815–1894), daughter of John Inwood Langley, a civil servant at the

Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich.[2] The couple had twelve children, of whom eleven survived infancy. His eldest son, John Dibblee Crace (1838–1919), followed him into the family business, taking on the responsibility of managing the firm when Crace's health broke down in 1854–5; the two retained a close working relationship.[5] Another son, Everard Crace, became a silk weaver. A third son, Edward Kendall Crace, became an Australian pastoralist. [1]

He died at his home in Half Moon Lane, Herne Hill on 13 August 1889 and was buried at the Gothic-inspired West Norwood Cemetery under a slate-faced monument.

References

  1. ^ a b "Aldrich M. Crace family (per. c.1725–c.1900). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "Aldrich M. Crace, John Gregory (1809–1889). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
  3. ^ "Baigent E. Crace, Frederick (1779–1859). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004; 2006)". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
  4. ^ "Aldrich M, Allwood R. "Crace". In: Grove Art Online: Oxford Art Online". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2008-04-09.
  5. ^ "Aldrich M. Crace, John Dibblee (1838–1919). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2008-04-08.

Bibliography

  • Rosemary Hill. God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain. Allen Lane, 2007.
    ISBN 978-0-7139-9499-5
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Gregory_Crace_(designer)&oldid=1214583500"