| Code | DS/UK/566 |
| Surname | Cockerell |
| Forenames | Charles Robert |
| Dates | 1788 - 1863 |
| Epithet | Architect |
| Activity | Charles Robert Cockerell was born in London on 27 April 1788 and was educated first at a private school and then at Westminster. At the age of 16 he began his architectural traing in his father's office, where he remained for four or five years. In 1809 he moved to the office of his father's friend Robert Smirke, then engaged in rebuilding Covent Garden theatre, but in the following year his father decided that the time had come for him to complete his education by a period of foreign travel.
During his Grand Tour Cockerell visited a variety of venues in Greece, Asia Minor and Italy and became involved in classical archaeology, participating in important survey and discovery work. He returned home in 1817 to began architectural practice at the age of 29. He was soon established in independent practice, but also continued his involvement with classical archaeology, for example preparing drawings of Greek antiquities for exhibition at the Royal Academy; in 1860 he published 'The Temples of Jupiter Panhellenius at Aegina and of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae'.
In 1819 he had taken his father's place as surveyor of St. Pauls' Cathedral and in 1822 he was chosen to design the National Monument in Edinburgh, intended to be a replica of the Parthenon. In 1833 he succeeded Soane as architect to the Bank of England. He was elected A.R.A. in 1829, R.A. in 1836 and Professor of Architecture in 1840.
Cockerell married Anna in 1828, the daughter of civil engineer John Rennie, and they had ten children. He died on 17 September 1863, aged 75, and was buried in the Crypt of St Paul's Cathedral.
At the Bank of England he reconstructed the Dividend, Warrant and Cheques office and Accountant's Drawing Office, during 1834-35; these were subsequently remodelled by Cockerell during 1848-50 as a new and enlarged Private Drawing Office. After the Chartist Troubles of 1848 he was employed to reconstruct the attic storey of the Bank as a fortified parapet-walk.
Information edited from Howard Colvin's 'A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840'. |
| Source | Colvin, Howard 'A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840', John Murray Fifty Albemarle Street London 1978 |
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