| Code | DS/UK/564 |
| Surname | Taylor |
| Forenames | Robert |
| PreTitle | Sir |
| Dates | 1714 - 1788 |
| Epithet | Architect |
| Activity | Sir Robert Taylor was the son of Robert Taylor, a master mason and monumental sculptor. Sir Robert started his career as a sculptor, but turned to architecture by the time he had reached the age of 40.
He was appointed as surveyor to the Bank of England in 1764, the second Architect to work on the Bank after George Sampson. The Bank was the great public work of Taylor's career. His first contribution, the 'bank buildings' of 1764, was outside the main older complex, on the site of the present Royal Exchange. The following year Taylor tackled the problem of enlarging the bank proper, which he did by creating two blocks of offices extending the accommodation to east and west. The eastern block contained his Roman Rotunda, a mini-Pantheon enclosed on three sides by vaulted columnar bank or transfer offices. Within the west block was a Garden Court or West Quadrangle, with the Court Room on its north side and the reduced annuity office in the south-west corner. What is remarkable about the transfer offices and the reduced annuity office is their evolutionary method of top-lighting, which later provided Sir John Soane with inspiration when he was appointed bank architect following Taylor's death.
Taylor's work was subsequently reduced by Soanes' alterations and almost wholly eliminated by Sir Herbert Baker in his rebuilding in 1921-1937.
Information edited from 'A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840', by Taylor Colvin and from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. |
| Source | - Colvin, Howard 'A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840', John Murray Fifty Albemarle Street London 1978
- Binney, Marcus 'Sir Robert Taylor, from Rococo to Neo-Classicism', George Allen & Unwin London 1984
- Steele, H. Rooksby and Yerbury, F.R. 'The Old Bank of England', London, CALM ref. 10A271/1 |
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